Judging Books by Covers

The cluster centers on debates about judging a specific book's content by its cover or spine, literally applying the idiom 'don't judge a book by its cover' to a Hacker News post featuring a tech book with an unusual design.

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Keywords

POD e.g ISBN US URN goodreads.com OK NYROB F451 GWR book books cover page japanese covers author print judge does feel

Sample Comments

teawrecks May 27, 2021 View on HN

What if it's a book about designing book covers ;)

jgalt212 Apr 20, 2025 View on HN

It's an argument to not trust a book by its cover.

thinkingtoilet Jul 16, 2025 View on HN

The book isn't real. I was just sharing an interesting thought from it. Lighten up.

sp332 May 31, 2012 View on HN

You shouldn't judge a book by its spine. Those are usually optimized for bookstore clerks to organize the book into the right area, and might show not really be related to the content very much.

exe34 Feb 15, 2025 View on HN

so if they're good, they're books. if not, they're not _really_ books.

danjoc Mar 17, 2017 View on HN

Is this a print of "the book" or is there some additional content here that we should be interested in?

alkonaut Aug 26, 2017 View on HN

This could just be elaborate marketing for that book...

meatsock Nov 7, 2017 View on HN

i noticed a few askance looks when i read this at a public location, and prefer to use a book cover to avoid this common misperception

zahlman Oct 18, 2024 View on HN

I'm afraid I don't follow: what's unusual about the printed cover of the book, and why is the date of publication relevant to your assessment?

rasz Dec 28, 2020 View on HN

Why bother with real books in the first place? just print the spines.