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maycho's review
3.0
What in Italian is called a sovraccoperta (literally, “overcover”) is also called, in English, a jacket. A jacket made to measure, conceived and created specifically to cover and package a hardcover book. It should fit like a glove. And yet, in my opinion, most of my book jackets don’t fit me, which is why I sometimes think, as a writer too, that a uniform would be the answer.
Loved this think-piece about the purpose and function of book jackets. Personally have no strong opinions about book covers & book jackets — for the sole fact that my consumption of books has been 80% digital over the last (many) years, a point Lahiri considers in this essay — but it's fascinating to ponder about it from the perspective of an author.
(Also, this was a great reminder to myself that writing is such a meditative way to work out those pervasive questions and answers!! May pick up more essays this year!)
wanderlustlover's review
5.0
2018 Winter, audiobook:
I will always, always, always have an affinity for Jhumpa Lahiri's writing, and feel a deep intimacy with her words, her spirit, her messages after spending all my Master's Thesis on her. I couldn't help but get into this work. I loved the whole meta expressive notion of talking about how books and covers ("their clothing") all interact and intersect. I got lost in this so fast and I'm slightly sad it's over so soon, too.
I will always, always, always have an affinity for Jhumpa Lahiri's writing, and feel a deep intimacy with her words, her spirit, her messages after spending all my Master's Thesis on her. I couldn't help but get into this work. I loved the whole meta expressive notion of talking about how books and covers ("their clothing") all interact and intersect. I got lost in this so fast and I'm slightly sad it's over so soon, too.
zohal99's review against another edition
5.0
What a niche and beautifully written essay about book covers!
Gave me so much to think about and I am so fascinated by Jhumpa Lahiri's life and her stories.
Gave me so much to think about and I am so fascinated by Jhumpa Lahiri's life and her stories.
lacywolfe's review
4.0
This is a brilliant meditation on books and their covers that will be a delight for any bibliophile.
Food for thought:
"We take for granted that every book has a cover. Without one it's considered naked, incomplete, in some ways inaccessible. It lacks a door in which to enter the text. It lacks a face."
"The cover confers on a book not one identity but two. It introduces an expressive element distinct from that of the text. There is what the text says, and what the cover says. That is why one can love the cover and hate the book, or vice versa."
"When I purchase a book today, I acquire a range of other things: a picture of the author, biographical information, reviews. All of this complicates matters. It causes confusion. It distracts me. I hate reading the comments on the cover; it is to them that we owe one of the most repugnant words in the English language: blurb. Personally, I think it deplorable to place the words and opinions of others on the book jacket. I want the first words read by the reader of my book to be written by me."
[On publishing as part of a series versus individual books]
"Is the series more important, or the individual books within? I have not yet made up my mind. There series serves the individual text, and also vice versa. On the one hand, the series seems to me a discreet wrapper, less invasive than a wholly unique book cover. On the other, it has a somewhat formal, even pompous, effect."
[On the American editorial series, Modern Library, the Library of America]
"Jackets of this kind are a strong recognition, a sort of prize, almost always conferred posthumously. Nine out of ten time, the author is dead. A contemporary book by a young author would not be worthy. Unlike the European series, where living and dead authors coexist, the American series seems to me almost a mausoleum."
"I remain attached to certain ugly covers of books I would read and return in high school without ever owning them. In the end, the beauty of the cover has nothing to do with it. Like every true love, that of the reader is blind."
Food for thought:
"We take for granted that every book has a cover. Without one it's considered naked, incomplete, in some ways inaccessible. It lacks a door in which to enter the text. It lacks a face."
"The cover confers on a book not one identity but two. It introduces an expressive element distinct from that of the text. There is what the text says, and what the cover says. That is why one can love the cover and hate the book, or vice versa."
"When I purchase a book today, I acquire a range of other things: a picture of the author, biographical information, reviews. All of this complicates matters. It causes confusion. It distracts me. I hate reading the comments on the cover; it is to them that we owe one of the most repugnant words in the English language: blurb. Personally, I think it deplorable to place the words and opinions of others on the book jacket. I want the first words read by the reader of my book to be written by me."
[On publishing as part of a series versus individual books]
"Is the series more important, or the individual books within? I have not yet made up my mind. There series serves the individual text, and also vice versa. On the one hand, the series seems to me a discreet wrapper, less invasive than a wholly unique book cover. On the other, it has a somewhat formal, even pompous, effect."
[On the American editorial series, Modern Library, the Library of America]
"Jackets of this kind are a strong recognition, a sort of prize, almost always conferred posthumously. Nine out of ten time, the author is dead. A contemporary book by a young author would not be worthy. Unlike the European series, where living and dead authors coexist, the American series seems to me almost a mausoleum."
"I remain attached to certain ugly covers of books I would read and return in high school without ever owning them. In the end, the beauty of the cover has nothing to do with it. Like every true love, that of the reader is blind."
look_whos_reading's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
4.5
misskrislm's review
5.0
Ms. Lahiri gives a new understanding to judging a book by its cover, and how much of a distraction and disservice that can be to the reader, the book, and the author. Her insights are sensitive yet firm, grounded in her foundation as a woman torn between so many identities and the limits of her powers as an author in the modern publishing industry. Illuminating.
ameliaofmars's review
5.0
This was delightful, pairing well with Lahiri's In Other Words which I read recently. A must-read for every bibliophile.
maybebil's review
3.0
admirable that she wrote 74 pages just about book covers and her feelings about the chosen covers of her own books (the designers should be fearing for their lives)