buying books based on design aesthetics

i'm not solely talking about buying books for no reason other than excellent cover art (i've done that, mostly with penguin paperbacks from the '50s and '60s). i'm wondering if when you're interested in buying a copy of a book, if you'll hold out for a particular edition of it based on design. this can be as simple as, "i prefer hardcover to paperback."

i was thinking about this because i passed up on a cheap paperback edition of 'the man who loved children' by christina stead because it wasn't quite my style. i'm holding out for a vintage hardcover or trade paperback, at this point.

yeah i do this all the time. i am currently cursed by the fact that i have old versions of 2 of the three dos passos usa books and i can not make myself buy the third one in the new design

i have never bought a book because i liked the cover, but have not a book because i disliked a cover. As I don't usually buy books that are newly published this is usually a case of "i'll buy it when/if i see a nicer edition" rather than "I'll wait for the nicer edition".

I also am slightly annoyed that I have most of Camus books in one edition and The Rebel and The First Man in a different one.

i'm pretty fortunate in that there are a decent number of used bookstores around, but a lot of them also seem to traffic mainly in lousy '80s mass market paperbacks.

There's a nice Everyman hardcover of 'The Man Who Loved Children' in print still--stitched binding, ribbon bookmark...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0679443649.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

When possible I avoid purchasing any of the Vintage editions of Philip K. Dick's books because the covers are just uniformly awful.

I prefer trade paperbacks to mass market just because of ease-of-reading. The type's bigger & crisper, and the inside margin's bigger—the printing doesn't run right into the freaking glue of the spine.

Mass-market paperbacks can be good for their sheer disposability. Sometimes when I'm reading one and mr. bp needs a book I'll just tear off the part I've already read and pass it to him, then another chunk when he's ready for it.

"There's a nice Everyman hardcover of 'The Man Who Loved Children' in print still--stitched binding, ribbon bookmark..."

i still need to start a thread on this book...

I do this as well. Lots of other factors too: I'll pay more for better paper (love that cream paper used by Everyman) or binding. Also take account of typography too. Especially hate Times when it's offset, and have not bought books based on awful setting on bogroll.

If it's a book I want to read I'll buy it regardless of edition and quality of design. If it's a book that I already know I love, and I *really* love it, I will hold out for the particular edition I want. Am currently without two of my favourite books because I lent them to friends and never got them back, and I will only buy them in the editions I first had them in.

Mass-market paperbacks can be good for their sheer disposability. Sometimes when I'm reading one and mr. bp needs a book I'll just tear off the part I've already read and pass it to him, then another chunk when he's ready for it.

What? That's crazily wasteful. You could give the book away or something instead of butchering it, surely?

I hardly ever buy new, so I'm tortured by having a few regrettable movie tie-in covers hiding in my bookshelves waiting for me to find a replacement. Although who can argue against my copy of Lolita with Jeremy Irons' big mug plastered across the dust cover. I don't know if I've ever rejected something on design alone (but then I'm not big into sci-fi and other areas where you're often going to come across truly hideous covers), but I secretly know that my claims of text that's too small etc. are usually excuses for rejecting something on inferior cover design.

Number 1 hellish situation is having lots of books by an author in one design and not being able to find anything else with that design.

That's crazily wasteful. You could give the book away or something instead of butchering it, surely?

By the time two people have read it the spine's probably snapped anyway.
Generally this is far-from-bookstore vacation behavior, one step shy of drawing lots to who gets killed and eaten.

i do this all the time, on both sides of the equation; i love pkd but have very few books by him cuz i cant bear to have the terrible covers of the new editions on my shelf.

i picked up the 2666 w/ the 3 paperbacks inside the cardboard box (intead of the whole long ass book in hardcover)--i thought this was FANTASTIC--like a pre-planned version of what beth does with her mm paperbacks

Plus big-ass books gradually abrade a bloody hole in your sternum.

my husband is the worst for this: if it's available, or going to be available, in a special/deluxe/slipcased/clamshell/numbered/lettered/signed/limited/etc edition, then that's the one HE MUST HAVE. he also collects black sparrow books, mostly bukowski, which do have a nice appearance when you get a couple of rows of them. if it's not in any kind of special edition, then he likes to have the hardcover.

me, otoh, i like great book design but i need books that are easy to read on the go - i noticed that when i first got into book collecting with my husband, i was reading a lot less just because these big hardcovers were 1) heavy and awkward to cart around in my bag 2) often difficult to read in bed 3) making me paranoid i'm mark them up in some way. so now i buy a lot of used paperbacks which i trade back in, and if i read something i really love, i might consider buying a nicer hardcover of it.

man, why did Everyman's Library stop printing the titles on the front cover like that? it's so beautiful and classy!

i picked up the 2666 w/ the 3 paperbacks inside the cardboard box (intead of the whole long ass book in hardcover)--i thought this was FANTASTIC--like a pre-planned version of what beth does with her mm paperbacks

Yeah, this was a great bit of design, and especially suited the fact that the book itself had multiple discrete parts.

Mass-market paperbacks can be good for their sheer disposability. Sometimes when I'm reading one and mr. bp needs a book I'll just tear off the part I've already read and pass it to him, then another chunk when he's ready for it.

Episode of M*A*S*H

Dalkey puts wonderful art on their covers.

if i want to read something and i hear that the movie version is coming out, i will buy the book immediately to avoid the "now a major motion picture!" cover

Sorry for the self-promotion, but I interviewed the guy who does all the more recent Dalket covers here: http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.com/2008/10/interview-with-nicholas-motte.html

Dalkey, I mean.

if i want to read something and i hear that the movie version is coming out, i will buy the book immediately to avoid the "now a major motion picture!" cover

― Ømår Littel (Jordan)

totally

Wonderful interview!! I love Dalkey.

I've been collecting New Directions covers done by Alvin Lustig for a couple years now. I think he's wonderful.

http://www.alvinlustig.com/

Wow--those are nice. I wonder if I can angle an interview with him too. I will try!

Seriously, though, they are beautiful. A shame he only lived to 40.

i really like publishers whose books look uniform together on a shelf - dalkey, exact change, black sparrow, new directions, etc. when i was in grad school, university of minnesota was my favorite publisher of academic books for the same reason.

i saw a new directions book with a color cover and was kind of surprised, since i've always known them to be black & white only.

A friend of mine showed me a house he was care-taking. I was marveling at how the people had all blue books! Then my friend told me that the guy was the president of a yacht club, and they were all nautical books. I was disappointed. I wanted the people to be BLUE BOOK COLLECTORS!

A lady I used to clean house for (actually, the next-door neighbor of the yacht-club guy) once asked me to remove all the "thin books" from her living-room bookshelves. They were banished to a guest room closet.

Was this a snob thing? "I only read big important books!"

hide the poetry!

What poetry?

Every end table in the house had glossy hardcover books placed just so, but when you opened them they went CRACK. Virginal as nuns, they were.

I was ogling an Everyman Library copy of Ulysses at Powell's today, not because the cover was so juicy, and not because I don't already have an OK copy (a 1986 Random House reissue), but the typeface and page layout were the epitome of clear, readable excellence. I almost dropped $27.50 for it on that consideration alone.

When possible I avoid purchasing any of the Vintage editions of Philip K. Dick's books because the covers are just uniformly awful.

― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, June 25, 2009 7:42 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

Yep, I have often fantasized about spending a month just tracking down 60s and 70s printing of PKD books on eBay, although I'm sure prices are pretty high by now. There's absolutely no comparison:

http://www.philipkdick.com/covers/palmer2.jpg

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n373.jpg

Vintage in general seem to have really shitty covers, which sucks because all the Faulkner paperbacks seem to be put out by them. I so despaired of my Vintage edition Absalom, Absalom! that I ordered the one pictured below instead, only to find out it was printed on cheap gray paper and the text had all been squished together.

http://img.infibeam.com/img/558f99e9/574/6/9780075536574.jpg

i was picturing the ugly uk philip dick modern covers, not the uglier american ones.

here is the version of palmer eldritch i have btw:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1292/862998275_8610ce4446.jpg

and here's a french edition of ... well. the website says it's 'we can build you'. i dunno about that.

http://www.philipkdick.com/covers/Build1fr.jpg

beautiful

Is that the one where they all go to a planet that manifests what they want the world to be like, and then they all have to put up with each other's wishes?

i can't remember much about the plot of 'we can build you': it had an abraham lincoln robot, i know that much. two guesses for the one you mean might be 'eye in the sky' (great) or 'a maze of death' (grim).

Oh man that French cover is unbelievable. Would kill to have that on a t-shirt, or sticker.

That Palmer Edritch cover looks suspiciously like a re-used cover for Dune. The French cover is AMAZING.

Sort of in love with the Penguin Boy's Adventure series:

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/penguin_sets/images/boysadventures/boysadventure_jkts_3.jpg

haha whoops. This perhaps?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hvV0JHPYX_I/SBp30SP-WmI/AAAAAAAAAiE/lNP_U0OPtjM/s400/Penguin+Boys%27+Own+2.jpg