Judging an Audio-book by its Cover.

We have a book display, one display in fact, which is in front of the info desk.  It is currently filled with titles that we have multiple copies of.  Last week, I saw the audio-book and physical book covers for The Help and I almost pulled them from the display thinking they were different titles altogether.

This is the regular US edition cover.  Not surprisingly, there is a different cover for the UK version.  As you can see, it is very simplistic, it has a calming affect.  The cover is completely passive and no one would be able to guess the plot based on it.













Now we here is the audio-book cover.  It is such a stark contrast to its tree-based counterpart.  This cover is very aggressive and does offer some hints at the overall plot.  It almost has an "American History X" feel to it.

If someone checks this out looking for a gritty, violent story based solely on the cover, well, they are going to be highly disappointed.  They say not to judge a book by its cover, but it's going to happen, just looking at these two covers, it seems like they are two completely different stories.

This is the first time that I have ever noticed such contrasting covers for the same book, but I will keep my eye out for more.  This kind of trivial stuff interests me, what can I say, I like to live my life one check out period at a time.

Speaking of book displays, patrons LOVE them just as much as librarians do.  Anything you put in a book display will get checked out, ANYTHING.