We all ponder the importance of covers in selling a book.  Okay, I ponder and assume I do not ponder alone.  Now there is an academic text on the subject.  Two graphic design/art history professors from Rutgers looked at "dust jacket" designs from 1924-2004 and then wrote a book about their venture, By Its Cover.  It’s interesting to note that the book about book covers has a bizarre book cover - follow that?

Here are three of the five best covers as determined by these two gentlemen.  I’d put up all five but two of the covers - the 1950 edition of DH Lawrence’s The Man Who Died and the 1960s version of Hans Selye’s The Stress of Life - appear to be out of circulation and I couldn’t track them down anywhere on the internet despite my valiant efforts.  Guess someone out there didn’t think the covers were all that great, or even good enough to keep producing them.  Go figure.  For those who care (all one of you) the covers are displayed in this week’s Entertainment Weekly, the source of all great information.

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