Book Covers: Inside the Abyss

I'm an impulse buyer at times. I've come to realize that and accept that. It's a situational affliction. That's a great deal. Or that looks real good. One of these days, I could just see myself falling. Into. Addiction. The fix. It would just be too much.

The part of the side I see myself like this is in bookstores. So I just happened to go to the bookstore recently to buy a birthday present for a cousin. I knew exactly what to buy and where to find it. I went straight to it.

But I was already inside the abyss. What harm could it be to just look around a little?

What struck my eye that day was I Love Dollars by Wen Zhu. It was not so much because of an author I had heard of (I hadn't) or praise from sources I respected (I didn't), but the cover, the cover, the cover.


Of course, I shouldn't give the cover all the credit, I was after all also intrigued by the synopsis of "a hilarious send-up of China's love affair with capitalism." It goes on to namedrop both Franz Kafka and Larry David, in describing the story collection as a synthesis of "slangy swagger" with "the inanities of everyday life in contemporary China."

But that wasn't the first thing to strike my eye.

I saw those gorgeous James Bond hardcovers:

And there are these new edition series of adventure books:

I'm reminded by all of this, that the Penguin Blog is a great interwebian destination, often detailing the beautiful process that goes into their covers.