I Judge Books By Their Covers: "The Road to Little Dribbling"

Hello, my name is Lindsay, and I judge books by their covers.

Confession: I always judge books by their covers. A book's appearance -- from the artwork to the font to the colors to the texture to the weight and cut of the pages (I like the ragged-edged ones) -- is very important to me. And there are certain kinds of covers I like and certain ones I'd never pick up unless I was already planning to read the book. It's fascinating to see how covers change between editions -- hardcover and paperback, or U.S. and international -- and it's so fun to see who prefers what!

U.K. // Canada

U.S.

If you've been following my book cover posts at all, it'll be no surprise that I prefer the whimsical, artistic covers of the U.K. and Canadian versions over the realistic U.S. cover. I'm more drawn to covers with art over photos anyway, and something about the U.S. cover just looks sort of unprofessional, like it was cobbled together on Photoshop. The sheep is obviously super-imposed and scene in the background could be anywhere -- it doesn't really scream "England" to me. I'm also not a fan of all the serif fonts and the obvious red, white and blue color scheme.

Any book with a dog on the cover automatically wins points from me -- and I do like the Canadian cover better than the U.S. one -- but the U.K. cover is the hands-down winner here. I love everything about it -- the fun and whimsical artwork, the portly man jovially skipping along the path, the white cliffs of Dover, the cheerful colors, the various fonts. Just looking at it makes me happy. And I don't think anyone will disagree that the U.K. cover definitely makes you want to visit Britain more than the U.S. one.

Do tell: Which cover do you like best?

My winner: U.K.!