San Antonio Public Library discussion

What was a book that you avoided because you didn’t like the book cover, and ended up loving it? For me it was The Restraint of Beasts. I really love Magnus Mills and his very strange surrealist minimalist writing style. He’s super hard to find so I’m always excited to find his stuff. However the second book I read by him the cover was absolutely gross. It had weirdly/badly cut out people in front of a strange indoors scene with an odd border. I didn’t read it for the longest time because the cover just didn’t sell me in the slightest. When I started it I finished it in two days and loved it. However that cover legitimately made me wait way longer than I should have.

Though I love the Wheel of Time series, I really looked at my brother sideways when he first suggested I read them because the original covers for the books are much more reminiscent of romance covers than fantasy, and neither he nor I are much for romance reading. I don't know if this will work, but this image gives a great story of the evolution of cover art for this series (though it's missing the ones with just a small image in a square on the front with just a tan cover around it): https://i.imgur.com/sTjBSah.jpg

I didn't actually avoid Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up by Marie Kondō; however I thought the cover was exceptionally blah and dull looking. However, she had a lot of good advice, and I have used some of her ideas, although I refuse to hug my belongings to see if they will "spark joy."

Fantasy novels always have some of the most hit or miss covers to me, Some are really nice hand drawn works and others just have very cheesy photoshop centric covers. Honestly could just be me though. Yeah I agree Beverly that is a very blah cover, I do wish nonfiction would have a bit more interesting covers far too many seem very uninspired to me.