for the love of book covers

There is no better way to spend an afternoon, than hitting your local bookstore.

Running your fingers over the spine, feeling the emboss of the text, the photography and typography. It's all good. The combination of image and text is like crack. Your imagination soars and curiosity heightened by the cover (which sometimes carries over on to the spine and back cover. Or if you are Chip Kidd or Dave Eggers, the entire book is part of the art).

This looks good? Flipping over a couple times, maybe reading the first paragraph or a random two or three from the middle of the book. Glance at the cover one more time. Why not.

Friends can vouch how many books I have purchased on the cover alone. Its a hit and miss habit. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you don't make it past page 5.

The Book Cover Archive is particularly great - all the books are indexed and searchable by author, designer, illustrator, publication date, art director, photographer, and even by typeface. WOW!

This site is addictive. Enjoy.