That old axiom about judging books by their covers? It’s bullcrap. You can totally do it—and with a reasonable degree of success. That’s what our most recent Book Lab experiment proved: most of the books we chose lived up to our cover-based expectations. (Click here for the setup.)

This is not to say that the cover is always going to be a good measure of a book’s contents—both Jennifer and I were disappointed in our books, despite their appealing covers. But book designers are trying to depict something about the essence of each book with the covers they create.

November’s mental_floss magazine included an interview with book designer Keith Hayes about this very subject (one of Hayes’ more well-known covers is Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch). Contrary to what I’d expected, Hayes says “You can’t start a design from what you think a buyer is going to like….We think about…

If book jackets are designed to appeal to the aesthetic of a specific readership, as determined by our first Book Lab experiment, then what appeals to us, individually, as readers? In our follow-up investigation, we examined this question by choosing books from the library’s New Fiction display, based solely on the appeal of their covers. This could include:

• Art
• Endorsements by other authors
• Prize-nomination or award stickers
• Title
• Author

We were not, however, allowed to read the summary of the novel — we were interested in what compels us to pick up a book in the first place. What assumptions do we make about content or quality based upon the cover?

By limiting our choices to the New Fiction display, we also eliminated outdated aesthetics, which could negatively influence our decision, but are ultimately irrelevant. Remember how in the eighties all the women’s books had big flowers and…