Much Ado About Dust Jackets

A few days ago we highlighted an article about the current trend of books without dust jackets. In her latest column Allison Hoover Bartlett, author of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, takes us past the jacket/no jacket debate and explores dust covers’ surprisingly captivating history.

From their invention for practical use, to the incredible value modern day bibliophiles place on antique jackets (an original can “hike up the value of a collectible book from, say, $3,000 to $180,000”), to the world of counterfeit (yes, counterfeit) covers, Bartlett reveals the “intrigue, ingenuity and controversy” in the world of dust jackets.

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Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and was once given a sword by a king, thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals. Formerly of The Rumpus and McSweeney’s and most recently the founding editor of BuzzFeed Books, Isaac is now the co-host of BuzzFeed News’ Twitter Morning Show, #AMtoDM. He also appears frequently on The Today Show to talk books, and is co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (with Recipes) (winner of an IACP award), and the author of a YA novel and picture book forthcoming from Bloomsbury. He uses Twitter.

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