Susan Hill, "Howards End Is On The Landing" and EBooks

[Patricia]

The novelist Susan Hill (author of The Woman in Black and the Simon Serailler series of detective novels) began to notice that her house was awash with books. She decided not to buy any new ones for a year; using the time to re-read her favourites and to catch up with her extensive stash.

She has written about her experience in a book called, "Howards End Is On The Landing: A Year of Reading From Home."
There's an interview with her on the BBC Radio 4 programme, "Front Row."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mzzsq#synopsis
(Available for the next seven days only.)

Oddly enough, Ms Hill isn't fond of electronic reading and feels that her books are often sold because of their covers, so ebooks won't be so attractive. But she agrees that her publishers find them useful for reading manuscripts. She also feels that reading online reduces a person's concentration span dramatically.

[Superlucky]

She wrote a book about reading. Weird. I'm actually sufficiently intrigued to buy it, but only if she makes it available as an ebook, which is doubtful given her attitude. She's another one of those people who fetishize books. It's a disproportionate emphasis on a product's container, IMO.

[khalleron]

Well, I do remember when CDs first became popular, and people bemoaned the loss of the great album cover art, so that is nothing new.

But then most authors I know bemoan their own lack of control over their cover art (I know one who referred to the European cover of one of her books as "the Pillsbury Nazgul". Although atrocious book covers seem to be mainly a SciFi, and perhaps a Romance, kind of thing.

Good Lord, remember Daw? Those covers were almost all completely awful - but it didn't stop me from reading a fair number of them.

So, cover art? Good when it's good, but it seldom is, and it's the words that matter anyhow.

[Hellmark]

I dunno about you, but I never consider the cover when buying a book. I mean, there's that old saying and everything.