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Every once in a while I notice that someone, who has the same book as I, has a different cover on theirs. This often happens at book club, and I just assumed that because so many people buy used books now, the cover had been updated. Yesterday I was adding recent books I've read to the sidebar of my blog, and while searching for a photo of the cover, I found that every single book I looked for (granted, I only had three) was shown with a different cover than mine. I searched around a bit since I liked the covers on my books the best (especially in "kafka on the shore" (which is a great book, so go read it right now). My cover is far superior to the ones that were showing up on amazon and the like.) After some searching, I found the right cover for two of the books, but I wasn't able to find the same one for the book "saturday" by ian mcewan. Let me also say that all three books were purchased new, and not long ago either. I'm not sure what's going on.
On a recent note, when I'm looking for new books and don't have any particular ones in mind, I tend to glance at their covers (the ones on the bargain table at the brookline booksmith are set up perfectly for this) and pick up the ones that pique my interest. This doesn't mean that I buy them based solely on the cover. If the description looks boring, I put it back. However, it is the first thing to catch my eye. I'm sure that there are tons of great books out there that I'll never read because they have crappy covers. Actually, not long ago, I was cruising the bargain table, and picked up a copy of "the fig eater" by jody shields. I liked the cover, and thought it would be good. It was also only $3.99, so I got it along with two or three others. I got home, and was putting them on my shelf of not-yet-read books, and realized that I had already purchased the same exact book, but hadn't gotten around to reading it yet! If anyone wants a copy and is interested in doing an e-mail bookclub type thing, let me know. Whoever responds first gets it.