Clothing of Books

How do we judge a book cover? Are book covers like the clothing that wechoose to wear? What do they say about us? And what is it like to have yourclothing selected for you? These are the questions at the heart of this thoughtfulmeditation on the art of the book jacket, from acclaimed, bestselling authorJhumpa Lahiri. Exploring her relationship with covers--both as a writer and as areader--Lahiri probes the complex relationship between text and image, authorand designer, art and commerce. From her lasting affection for the specificeditions of classic works she read in college to the shock of seeing one of her ownjackets unfaithfully adorning a different book, Lahiri analyzes what jackets meanto her, what happens when they don't seem right, and how, sometimes, 'thecovers become a part of me, and I identify with them.'