74 pages on thoughts on book covers. Yup. But it was quite fascinating. I'm a huge Jhumpa Lahiri fan and have read all her books. I was recently looking at my library list of new audio books and saw this was there. I was so excited and immediately started it. In The Clothing of Books, Lahiri details how she feels about book covers, really feels about them. She has published 5 books and that sums up to over 100 different book covers/jackets. 100 different! Different covers for hardcover, paperbac...

I meaaaan, it is a book about books (well, book covers) by Jhumpa Lahiri. I am literally the exact target audience for this essay collection.

ARC to review - EPD November 15, 2016. This slight volume (it was originally presented as a keynote speech given at a festival in Italy in 2015, then expanded) explores book covers and jackets - what they mean to readers and to the writers whose books they cover and it's a fascinating, very thorough explanation of the topic. Early on she notes that often she is forced to accept book covers that she doesn't like and, while does accedes, she is still resentful - it's so interesting that the work i...

Up for a dose of delight? Treat yourself to an hour of sheer joy as you read or listen via audible as Jhumpa Lahiri narrates her reflections on a subject near and dear to the hearts of all booklovers: the art of book covers. What is a book cover for a writer? How much attention does a potential reader give the cover of a book? Should commercial interests override aesthetic ones? These are just three of the many questions Jhumpa Lahiri addresses.“Personally, I think it deplorable to place the wor...

Jhumpa Lahiri is fast becoming one of my favorite go-to contemporary authors. She writes luscious prose about timely issues in both English and Italian, and her short stories contain such depth that she practically tells an entire novel in each one. I am always on alert to see if one my preferred authors has written a new book, and, while I was not met with euphoria that she had written a new full length novel, I did discover an essay penned by Lahiri in Italian last year entitled The Clothing o...

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | |3 ½ stars In this short and meditative piece, Jhumpa Lahiri examines the role that book jackets play in a person's reading experience and the responsibility they have in not only conveying the book within but in catching someone's attention. Lahiri looks back to her youth and recalls how the books she borrowed from at the library were 'naked'. Lahiri considers how book jackets have changed over the years, the amount of information that gets added, sometimes, too mu...

This tiny book talks about what the author feels about judging a book by its cover, how readers get swayed by the cover rather than the content of a book; how she feels when her views about the cover of her own books get looked over; how as an author she feels the cover of a book gets more attention/given importance to; how bookcases show off beautiful book jackets; how she herself gets drawn to books just for their covers!☑️The book is divided into 7 short chapters:1) The Charm of the UniformWh...

This interesting short work from Lahiri is from a speech given fairly recently. It is very specifically on book covers as the outer presentation of the words they represent. It is not about the art of book covers but more about the theoretical presence, existence of book covers themselves. It is a very thoughtful presentation and really made me think back to various times in my life, how I approached books, what use I made of the information on covers, what I might be gaining or losing from the

This was a cute little essay, readable in less than an hour. An interesting dissection into the thought behind the book jacket, what it means and does for the book, and what it represents to both reader and author.I liked it because it's sort of an awakening. Often readers don't give much thought to a book jacket, yet someone is designing them, someone is behind the decision to place this jacket on a book versus that jacket. I was interested to hear that the author has less input than I'd though...

A brief personal meditation on the importance of covers in the book industryIf the writing process is the dream, the cover is waking up.Jhumpa Lahiri in this book gives some interesting glances on how book covers are created: I had a very romantic idea that this was a synthesis between the author and an artist but everything is nowadays handled through email actually, with the publisher in charge for the most part. Lahiri shares her personal reflection on the influence book covers have had on he...

The Clothing of Books was a delightful essay by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Jhumpa Lahiri, as she explores the meaning of book covers. Quite a few years ago when we were in the process of renovating our home, I remember being horrified at the suggestion of an interior designer that I should remove all of the covers from the books in my library. I couldn't imagine anything worse than stripping my beautiful books of their unique identity. Lahiri explores the meaning of book jackets to...

Before getting into what the book is all about, I wonder why this should have been a book. I mean it is a slightly lengthy essay. At 72 pages - 40 pages if a regular font face and all the space is used - it is the size of a short story. So I felt, at 200 bucks, it was just a money making exercise cashing in on the tremendous popularity of the author. But thinking abt it another way, Jhumpa could have bloated it to say 100+ pages easily if she had so desired. So I guess she had written something

'The right cover is like a beautiful coat, elegant and warm...' Really interesting short 'reflection' on the nature and role of book covers in the context of the authors reaction to the issue practically and aesthetically. Lahiri takes little part in the process of producing her covers, accepting that it is a marketing exercise, but acknowledges that she can like or dislike them depending on whether they reflect her notion of what the book was trying achieve. She also talks about the need for

3.5 stars. So much about book covers :)

This tiny book (70 something pages) is about the relationship between the words in a book and its cover art. Lahiri's book is derived from a talk she gave in Italy, her adoptive home at least part time, about the import of jacket cover art plays both in the perception of what a certain book is about and how it impacts authors. This doesn't sound like the most scintillating of topics but Lahiri makes it interesting. Her main theses is a broader one about how people are conflicted because they bot...