On Judging Book Covers

I was perusing some books the other day for a possible review and the book covers from publishing house Atticus Books totally caught my eye. Now, I know there's no shortage of bad books with decent covers out there, but have you ever noticed that there's an insanely small amount of good books out there sporting incredible covers? What's up with that? If I ever get a book published you can be sure I'm going to insist on good cover art.

Props to Atticus Books for investing in good cover art and extra props to them for writing me back in less than a day when I asked who their artist was. The books at Atticus Books that really caught my eye are those designed by UK designer Jamie Keenan.

So yes, I know the adage 'don't judge a book by it's cover', but I have to say a good cover certainly draws me in. I've been known to hold out for a book until I can get it with a more attractive cover, and -so bad- known to buy a book for solely it's cover. Anybody else into book covers like me? 

Btw- I've downloaded one of these books and am looking forward to reading it during the semester break. Sadly my reviews don't usually send me a free hard copy of the book, so I'm without cover art (hence the blog post, ha).

What are you reading now? I'm reading a book that's about to get a bad review, so I won't bother sharing the title. However, my book club is meeting in a couple of weeks to discuss Abraham Verghese's 'Cutting for Stone', a book I highly recommend. Incidentally, I held out for the red umbrella version of this book. =)