I CHOOSE BOOKS BY COVERS. IT’S CRINGE AND I AM GUILTY.

Now before you get your critics’ glasses on, let me tell you a joke.

Have you ever walked into a bookstore and got mesmerized by the aura of the written sanctity around you? Bibliophiles would rather use the word hypnotized than mesmerized.

A book, in its purest form, is nothing more than a light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel, being a metaphor, applies to each one of us in its way.

Let’s just say that sometimes the OOTD is so on fleek that you go beyond the existential crisis and break the fourth wall.

While on the road to getting into the habit of avid reading, I have met and read several anecdotes of bibliophiles across the globe. Especially the ones that fell in love with books just by casually brushing the bindings in a bookstore. It fascinated me the utmost to know that first impression works on the same odds in the world of bookworms as it does for the practical world.

A wise friend of mine once told me that the chances of experiencing the denouement of “expectations vs reality” on your first date are higher amongst most of us. Yet, we don’t lose hope to find the one perfect match where the tinder profile is not a mirage, but materiality.”

And, not to act assertive, but isn’t the concept of ‘First Impression’ as everlasting as its flakiness? You loathe it, but you still crave it.

In modern times, a book’s cover art is prominently the speaker of its contents. For an author to either illustrate their version or hire a designer to do the work, the cover art is a creative direction which acts as a prologue to the theme.

More so, a book meets its readers halfway through the cover art.

For a second, if you are asked to go back to nostalgia town and reminisce about the book which intrigued your brain to bring it back home and show yourself a good time, which book would you name? And was it worth it?

Historical records account for Soviet Union artists to be the creators of modern book covers. In the 1920s, Avant-Gardist, Alexander Rodchenko held the light to cover design along with Aubrey Beardsley, a remarkable Illustrator. This collaboration worked together on making book covers for Beardsley’s The Yellow Book.

Beardsley’s illustrations were intricately embroidered and have been under quite an analysis and speculation. One way or another, Beardsley’s approach to etching unique emotions to his illustrations can be found reflected in his designs and he remains a prominent contributor of book cover designs in the Victorian Age.

If I can get an exclusive interview with Aubrey Beardsley, I‘d offer him an iced latte and request him for a humble trespass to his imagination. Since we have lost this golden opportunity, I took a quick detour to the artistic archive and found some fascinating cover art.

Compared to old times, book covers have developed their own personality and genre in today’s world. What we have illustrated on the front cover of a book in present times is not there just to convey the theme or message of a written work, but it has become a mandatory section to gain commercial success. Drawing the attention of your readers goes proportionally adjacent to the competitive creativity that the publishing industries have only kept elevating.

But in my defence, somewhere beyond everything that can be mentioned here as fact and fair information, it’s almost hard not to be that person who could shave their eyebrows or dye hair platinum blonde with blue fringes only to feel the twist of an aesthetic knife through my soul.

As a reader, I ought to get this confession across the table. 75% of the books that I purchase are because of the score on my fascinating meter! That is to say, whenever my mind is blown away by the illustration, photography, allusion, metaphor or creative refraction of the book cover.

So, without much ado, here are five creative book covers that I would trade my last genie wish for:

1. HOLLOW BY OWEN EGERTON

I have a pensive attraction to layered artworks. Egerton’s Hollow satisfies this craving in all senses. The multicolor abstract cover art is a foolproof testimony to what this novel unfolds within its story. Although this list was not my intention to make a point or so, maybe picking a book merely because of its cover art does not sound like a bad idea.

NPR’s Best Book in 2017, Hollow is a moving centripetal force which installs the meaning of struggle in its true sense. This book takes you on a journey of the loss of a protagonist, Professor Oliver Bonds, with a downward spiral that could make your emotional intelligence run a marathon.

As sophisticated and cleanly sculpted as the cover seems, Hollow is the one story that I found closest to grief. And, more than that, how healing is an introspective expression unique to each one of us.

2. THE START OF SOMETHING — SELECTED STORIES OF STUART DYBEK

With some authors, only that we read their past work that we reach the full circle of interpretation prism. William Faulkner and Stuart Dybek are those writers for me.

The book cover of The Start of Something resounds with trail of stories that its reader is about to embark.

Although as compared to Dybek’s famous work The Coast of Chicago, The Selected Stories of Stuart Dybek is not a “10 out of 10” work. Yet, if you are fan of biographical short stories embroidered in order and retelling the personal journey, this book is for you! Nineteen tales bound together to unravel Stuart’s urban life in reverse chronology, the curiosity that this cover art exudes will also set you on a roller coaster of a fictional + non-fictional junket.

3. VOICES IN THE NIGHT BY STEVEN MILLHAUSER

To single out a particular moment is to distort the record, for it suggests a clear history of cause and effect that can only betray our sense of what really happened.

Another collection of short stories!

Millhauser’s Voices in the Night is the nemesis arch that we are looking to reach out for amidst the chaos of a tangerine fudge. On the first look, the black and white cover made me fantasize of an unpublished collaboration between Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes (p.s.: I wish it weren’t a fantasy!) Protruding overlay; Simply mysterious — something which every Gone Girl fan craves for.

Millhauser was awarded Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for his novel, Martin Dessler. But rather getting caught in the magnanimity of an author, I opt to follow my judgmental self, unapologetically. Surprisingly, this book aligned with my manifestation.

Millhauser has built a world of revelations within 16 short stories — not the kind that we usually talk about at the evening tea; instead the one that is archived in recordings file of the distressed phone.

My favorite picks from this collection are —

Miracle Polish,

Arcadia,

Elsewhere and

American Tall Tale.

4. THE STARGAZERS' SISTER BY CARRIE BROWN

Though out of context, Carrie Brown passes the same vibe check as Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft.

Nothing scares me more than delicately celestial art. I guess, my airy potential wouldn’t know how to deal with beauty that embodies the haunting from an existing universe which makes the character of Caroline so relevant.

The Stargazer’s Sister fell onto my lap while I was making a hypothesis of alternate ending to Where the Crawdads Sing. This book makes me flex the hardest as a reader who has fickle ambitions of meeting Margaret Atwood in a Van Gogh Museum.

Now let me take you away from my premonitions’ avenue; back to the book — This novel explores the siblings relationship between a renowned astronomer, William Herschel and his younger sister, Caroline, or just Lina (I guess, you get the closure to the title of the book).

Few notes on Brown’s The Stargazer’s Sister- This brother-sister duo has an eighteen year gap in age; it is a historical novel — Herschel is known for the discovery of planet Uranus; Caroline Herschel was a collaborator to William’s work as an astronomer;

Now, once you have ingested these threaded facts, you come to acknowledge that Brown takes you to the establishment of a woman whose “genius” has been underrated. And, this is her story. The philosophy, the feminism and Caroline’s stream of consciousness is not hefty or borderline forced. The plot moves at one form of velocity (kind of little slow) yet, it aligns wonderfully with its readers’ intuition and attention span.

5. A MANUEL FOR CLEANING WOMEN BY LUCIA BERLIN

Null.

Not applicable.

Before we dismiss my taste in making choices out of sheer “plastic” judgement, you have got to read the book.

My reading streak has not been the same since Lucia Berlin’s A Manuel for Cleaning Women arrived on the scene. A combination of sarcasm, courage and sadness — this collection of short stories is a triple threat (more like triple treat).

“I exaggerate a lot and I get fiction and reality mixed up, but I don’t actually ever lie.”

This quote is my soulmate lingo.

Released in 2015, this book won New York Times Bestseller for all the right reasons. But most importantly, Berlin was being compared to Raymond Carver.

Lucia Berlin’s life is extraordinary. It is reflected throughout these 43 short stories, collectively etched in autobiographical hue. Her brilliance was truly acknowledged, posthumously by this book. Even if you are a beginner, you would cherish discovering Lucia who has inspired many authors across the globe to be as innately free as they can be.

For your ease, I am sharing my own list of stories in order — a mind map. On my revisit, I retraced this work via a mind map. Was it worth it?

You can let me know.

P.s.: As I am writing this anecdote, I just came across an update — Cate Blanchett will be starring in the movie adaptation of A Manuel for Cleaning Women, releasing in 2023. Universe has been conspiring in favor these days, I guess!