MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Is there anything more pointless and annoying than dust jackets. Without a doubt the biggest waste of paper ever and ****ing annoying to go with it. Always sh**er than the actual cover and generally make reading the thing less pleasurable. Rant over.
I always use the flappy bit as a built in bookmark, swapping from front to back somewhere near the middle.
So, whilst there was a bit of swearing - I'm a fan - and the subject was totally first world, I'm going to have to disagree.
Cardboard sleeves on DVDs/Blu-rays/CDs.
Slightly foxed (sorry) as to the point of them. Straight in the recycling.
Do tend to keep dust jackets on certain things that might be worth a bit in the future, but yeah, a bit pointless.
More annoying is that my collection of inherited early/mid 20th century austerity hardbacks seem to be disintegrating at a serious rate.
Lots of 19th century stuff I've picked up and inherited is in better nick.
Anyone else annoyed that the era of lining pub walls with acres of eminently stealable obscure hardbacks has passed?
Weatherspoons have stolen lots of hardbacks for their pubs
My Dad had an article published in Slightly Foxed.
That is all.
Always sh**er than the actual cover and generally make reading the thing less pleasurable.
Say what now? For starters, the dust jacket is easily the most identifiable part of a book when it’s on a shelf, and the difference in colours and text makes individual books easier to identify, but making reading less pleasurable? Seriously? Christ, you really are a sensitive little soul if a book’s dust jacket makes reading less pleasurable! Just how the **** do you manage when the actual words on the pages start getting a bit controversial, contentious, or even a bit difficult to follow? If a dust jacket causes you such an emotional crisis, then I would respectfully suggest you take the drastic action course of action and take the sodding thing off!
...and breathe.
FWIW, I keep the dust jackets on all of my hardcovers, especially ones I have that are signed, because they protect the book and increase any future value they may have, plus, and this may be a difficult concept to grasp, but many hardcovers have nothing but text blocked onto the boards, while the dust jacket frequently carries a design that is often pleasing by way of illustration and/or typography, which, in turn enhances my enjoyment of the book, as they frequently prompted me to buy the bloody thing in the first place!
More annoying is that my collection of inherited early/mid 20th century austerity hardbacks seem to be disintegrating at a serious rate.
American paperbacks are the worst for this, their bindings are hopeless. I have paperbacks I bought in the early 70’s that I still read, but are intact, although worn and dog-eared. American books bought twenty years later quickly showed their origins as trees by becoming deciduous as the ‘glue’ holding the pages dried out and cracked. And they weren’t cheap, either.
I keep the dust jackets safely and separately from the books; they are often far more fragile and expensive.
I thought the whole point of just jackets was that the people on your busy commute will think you're reading Finnagan's Wake when you're really reading Being Reem by Joey Essex
I'm with the OP on this, dust jackets just get in the bloody way. The point of a book is to read it, not look at it sitting on a shelf.
I keep the dust jackets on all of my hardcovers, especially ones I have that are signed, because they protect the book and increase any future value they may have,
Having books signed is another thing I never understood. WTF is the point of that? And WTF does the dust jacket protect it from? Dust? That's easy enough to brush off, doesn't get in the way of reading the book. As for the future value, it's a bloody book. The value is in reading it. When you're finished, give it to someone else to read.
Having books signed is another thing I never understood. WTF is the point of that?
I struggle to see what the point / value of signed 'anythings' are. My gran had an argument with a bookshop owner in London as an author had signed and dedicated a book she was was wanting to buy to 'Emma Chiset'. She'd thought he was just a shop assistant so all she'd done was handed him a book and asked 'How much is it?'. She then refused to buy it because it had been scribbled in and the shop was trying to insist she did because she'd had it signed.
And WTF does the dust jacket protect it from? Dust?
Really they're just a bit of promotional /shop display material. It gives the publisher a chance to update the cover with new promotional text, the latest rave review, a more flattering picture of the author or mention of that prize the book just won without having to re-print the whole book. Theres no practical reason to keep it once you've gone past the checkout.
But like all sorts of ephemera - its the ephemerality of it that makes people treat them as precious or collectable - like toy cars that have never been played with and vinyl records in mint condition.
American paperbacks are the worst for this
TBF to them, they were designed to be thrown away after reading. See the Colin Chapman design theory,,,
As CountZero says they help with design. Most HBs are printed on materials like Wibalin, which isn’t easily printed on. You can get gloss HBs on which you can print designs, but it looks awful.
It’s also much cheaper to print the designs on dust jackets.
increase any future value they may have,
Where is this market in used books? Obviously I’m sitting on a small fortune here and should stop giving my used ones to Oxfam. 😂
Where is this market in used books?
Good job I bought 10 first edition Harry Potters. 😁
That Emma Chiset yarn was a Kenneth Williams joke
Or alternatively, get a Kindle paperthingy, where you can end up forgetting both title and author as the front cover is never seen. Funny old world.