Book Covers

Book CoversFebruary 9, 2008
I like books which look good. Speaking of Mills and Boon, they’ve recently begun to print their books in India but the paper they use doesn’t seem to be as good as the paper they use abroad. Also, the covers prominently say that the books cost only 99 INR each. Apart from the fact that 99 for a book is not ‘only’ 99 in a country where Wordsworth Classics — Dickens, Austen, etc. — cost 90 INR and Bantam Classics — Homer, Virgil, Twain etc. — cost 125 INR, there is something extremely unpalatable about buying a book which reminds you that you’ve bought an inexpensive edition. And I think that that’s why I’ve never bought a Dover Thrift Edition or, for that matter, classics published by Wilson despite their having faux leather covers.
Perhaps it is entirely about being snobbish but given an option between a buying a good-looking book and one which, well, isn’t, I’d always choose the former. Sometime ago, that prompted me to buy a beautiful edition of Jane Austen’s works, my favourite author — never mind that she never moves very far out of a living room — in small, gilded volumes.
That being said, I also love to go to second-hand bookshops and look through layers of dirt for old books. The books I’ve picked up doing that include The Old Curiosity Shop by Dickens which I bought for 10 INR and The Second Treatise of Civil Government by J Locke for 7 INR.