Absolutely. Cover art (esp SF) is one the reasons ebooks will be slow to catch on.

Not for me John - 'don't judge the book' and all that:-)

The Dust Jackets of the James Bond first editions are indeed works of art. Done by a guy called Richard Chopping I believe. Interestingly, when the Bond novel series was revived by John Gardner in the early 80's the same guy did the dust covers on the first editions. The books might have degenerated into absolute garbage but the covers were as beautiful as ever.

In the 50s and 60's, several UK publishers of both hardcovers and paperbacks maintained what amounted to a stable of cover art illustrators. With very few exceptions, these folks toiled in lonely anonymity, but produced a stream of high-quality cover art the like of which we may not see again.

Like the Muscle Shoals Swampers or the rythym section at Hitsville USA, these folks provided a top-quality accompaniment to the featured work. For books that stayed in print for extended periods, there are actually delightful trains of cover art for the various editions, almost-all of uniformly-high illustrative quality.

Then they went all psychodelic and impressionist on us or, worse yet, they started using photographs (bah!).

The series of Bond covers in the link show something of what I mean. I collect the works of another popular British writer of that period, and the quality and quantity of the cover art - especially for the paperbacks - adds a significant extra dimension to the pleasure of collecting.

llater,

llamas

I owe a debt to Chris Foss (along with a number of other artists) for getting me into science fiction in the first place. As an 11 year-old I remember being captivated by the paperbacks in the book section of W.H. Smiths, adorned as they were with huge, fantastically detailed weather beaten spacecraft, exotic alien landscapes or clunky menacing robots. Very rarely did these illustrations have anything to do with the story (especially if the novel was one of Isaac Asimov's) but they did an excellent job of reeling me into the genre.

But under the dust jackets lurk the books' real covers, which are never seen. I have always suspected that designing those covers is the least satisfying job in Christendom.

Has Jack Reacher changed his underpants once since the start of the series?

The original covers for the US editions of Phil K Dicks novels were pretty funky

http://www.biocrawler.com/w/images/9/9e/A-Scanner-Darkly.png

Incidentally by the same guy who painted the cover for Love's Forever Changes album

I usually begin the night here: http://www.philipkdick.com/covers/palmer2.jpg

After a few drinks, however, I inevitably end up here:
http://www.goodgirlart.com/images2/farm.jpg

Books. Is there anything they can't do?

I love the Lee Child books, but the fact that he is British is irritatingly evident. Americans don't call small towns "villages" or "hamlets." We DO NOT put a washing machine or dryer in the kitchen any more than we would put a refrigerator in the laundry room. We do not say "pocketbook"-- we say purse or bag.

The best book covers in recent years are the P.G. Wodehouse series released by Overlook Press. Simple, colorful, genius!

(Link)

Try this instead:
(Link)

Most of what I know about British culture I owe to P.G. Wodehouse! (And Samizdata, of course.)