Book Covers That Made You Buy

Vince W

Vince W

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We all know we aren't supposed to judge books by their covers, but what book covers have grabbed you that made you purchase a book? A few years ago it was this cover of 1984 for me.
iu

How could I pass this up?
 
Good idea for a thread, Vince! Do you want to exclude books that we already had read, but of which we bought another copy for the sake of the art? If not, I could include the Allen & Unwin single-volume paperback of The Lord of the Rings.
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Extollager said:
Good idea for a thread, Vince! Do you want to exclude books that we already had read, but of which we bought another copy for the sake of the art? If not, I could include the Allen & Unwin single-volume paperback of The Lord of the Rings.
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I don't think it matters if you read before or ever. Or even if you liked it. If the cover grabbed you and you bought it, show it.
 
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The original cover for Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory drew my attention when it was new, around 1981. It was about growing up bilingual. That was hardly the sort of thing I'd typically have paid attention to. But I bought the book & liked it quite a lot.
 
I'd been a fan of Jim Steranko's art for Nick Fury and Captain America in Marvel comics. In the early 1970s, he turned out paperback cover art. Here's a specimen. I certainly bought the book for the cover. I never read it.
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The cover art, the title, and the reference to Tolkien helped to sell me on this book by an author hitherto unknown to me -- circa 1969.
 
I bought an Arkham House book by Algernon Blackwood largely because the cover so pleased me.

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At age 14, I began my reading of ERB, as I recall, with A Fighting Man of Mars:
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That's Edward Gorey's art on that Anchor paperback. I'm not a Gorey fanatic, but I do like that one all right.
 
I used to be a member of a SF book club in the nineties, so books such as Iain M. Banks's "Use of Weapons", (my first Banks) was probably bought based on the cover art. Revelation Space, too.

Certain artists invoke an SF feeling and i think that Chris Foss's work is indelibly linked to SF. I'd buy books with his artwork on them. (Fortunately for me, a lot of Edmund Cooper's has a decent Foss cover.)
 
I bought this as soon as I saw the cover. Still love it.

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Also, the various editions that had this format always appealed to me. Unfortunately, I don't think my favourite, Legend, was released with the same design.

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Rodders said:
I used to be a member of a SF book club in the nineties, so books such as Iain M. Banks's "Use of Weapons", (my first Banks) was probably bought based on the cover art. Revelation Space, too.

Certain artists invoke an SF feeling and i think that Chris Foss's work is indelibly linked to SF. I'd buy books with his artwork on them. (Fortunately for me, a lot of Edmund Cooper's has a decent Foss cover.)
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I'm a big fan of Foss' work. John Berkey's cover's were great as well.
 
TWErvin2 said:
Just caught my attention...mainly the tough guy in the tattered pink bathrobe...
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That's... something else :LOL: It looks more like an Image Comics cover than a book cover (I googled and saw that it's independent so... figures.).

The Brazilian edition of William Gibson's The Peripheral:
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FYI: the North-American one SUCKS.
 
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