Do! Judge A Book By Its Cover–Issue Thirty-Two: Non-Fiction (Part 4)

“Do! Judge A Book By Its Cover” is a regular feature on Pop! Goes The Reader in which I pay tribute to some of the best and brightest the publishing world has to offer in the way of book cover design. This feature is inspired by Katie’s feature Cover Love on her blog One Page At A Time. The idea is being used with her gracious permission.

I think we’re all familiar with the age-old adage “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. And you know what I have to say about that? Rubbish! Covers are an invaluable part of a book’s package. A truly great cover can tell you a lot about the novel contained within its pages. Book covers can also catch your attention and attract you to a novel you might otherwise ignore. So go ahead, judge a book by its cover – We all do it!

Hey, Pop! Goes The Reader is back, and I come bearing gifts in the form of even more beautiful book covers! For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter and were unaware of the reason behind my recent impromptu hiatus, a little over a week ago my MacBook Pro stopped working unexpectedly, taking with it literally years of work. A number of hours, much hand-wringing and one patient Apple employee later, I was told that everything I had created, including several incomplete manuscripts, completed book reviews and countless other invaluable items were lost forever unless I wanted to pay upwards of $1,200 to hire a recovery specialist to salvage what I could. Suffice it to say I did not take this well. There might have been tears involved. While much of the blame is mine for not having backed up my work as I had been reminded repeatedly over the years, the result was psychologically and emotionally crushing and, among other things, I was left with little content for the blog. As they say, however, there is indeed a silver lining to every cloud, and I am now the proud owner of a brand new MacBook and have been hard at work creating new content to replace what was lost. Which brings us to this week’s edition of Do! Judge A Book By Its Cover! Some of my favourite covers this week include The Lady In Red by Hallie Rubenhold, Better By Mistake by Alina Tugend, My Life In Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead, Enlightenment 2.0 by Joseph Heath, Popular by Maya Van Wagenen, Who Owns The Future? by Jaron Lanier and The Secret World Of Oil by Ken Silverstein.

Hot Art by Joshua Knelman ● The Tower of Babble by Richard Stursberg ● The Lady In Red by Hallie Rubenhold

Paraphernalia by Steven Connor ● The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison ● Encyclopedia of the Exquisite by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins

Sugar In The Blood by Andrea Stuart ● Better By Mistake by Alina Tugend ● The Book Of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon

My Life In Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead ● Enlightenment 2.0 by Joseph Heath ● The Road To Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead

Popular by Maya Van Wagenen ● At Home On The Range by Margaret Yardley Potter ● What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell

At Home On The Range by Margaret Yardley Potter ● Give Me Everything You Have by James Lasdun ● The Joys of Excess by Samuel Pepys

The Great Indoors by Ben Highmore ● The Arc Of War by Jack S. Levy & William R. Thompson ● The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

Who Owns The Future? by Jaron Lanier ● Recipes from the White Hart Inn by William Verrall ● You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier

The Novel Cure by Ella Berthoud & Susan Elderkin ● Utopia Or Bust by Benjamin Kunkel ● The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

The Secret World Of Oil by Ken Silverstein ● How We Got To Now by Steven Johnson

Now it’s your turn! What are some of your favourite non-fiction covers? Did I list one of your favourites here or is there one I forgot that just has to be included? Let me know in the comments!