Conflicting emotions

I'm sure every librarian and educator who has had any dabblings in feminist theory whilst learning all about literature has some serious mixed feelings about those darn Twilight books. I'm not going to waste too much time discussing my fears of what we're teaching young ladies to value; plenty of other people have done as much. I will comment quickly on how visually tempting those lovely covers are for teenaged girls of all ages and genders:























But I'd like to commend Syp at Bio Break for this amazingly frightening find. Check it out:























My initial reaction is one of disgust, not only for the rather icky image, but more so for the apparent need to label anything and everything with the trendiest brand name. (I wonder how Ms. Meyer feels about this.) HOWEVER. I am also conflicted, because HECK - why not package the great classics with some shiny new dust jackets that the young'uns might actually feel drawn to? It's only a modest leap from the librarian's "If you liked THIS (stupid) book, try THIS (wonderfully written and decidedly canonized) book!!" pitch in the YA stacks.

However, this all may very well be a vain discussion at this point. My 12-year-old YA consultant recently informed me that she's over Twilight. "I've outgrown it, really," she said. Me too.

A classic trend

Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte
White's Books, June, 2009



Thanks to Apartment Therapy, I have discovered another line of beloved and beautiful classic novels! Book Cover Judge must agree with AT's excellent find! Apparently these texts are cloth-bound and hardcovered, not to mention excellently tailored to each romantic story. I must hold these in my arms! Thank you, Apartment Therapy, for including these therapeutic book covers in your delightful discussions of home design.

And thank you, White's Books, for rescuing classics from the otherwise stuffy-looking academic options we English majors had to buy at the bookstore. (Who wants to read Romantic criticism anyway?) I look forward to the day every apartment (or house) dweller has the option to display only the finest in book design, including all their old favorites!

The AT post.

The publisher.

Changing covers

This article in the Washington Post addresses an interesting book-cover-judging issue: the hard-cover to paperback opportunity for a change in cover! Apparently publishers might need to seek absolution for a bad cover on the second try. Or perhaps reach a broader, or at least a more dependable, audience. How does the BCJudge judge the difference? Perhaps she will address one of these flip-flop covers in the future...