Posted by Hemant Mehta in Saint Gasoline does a nice, quick job of arguing why atheist books should stay away from imitating the popular Christian I-always-smile-now-take-a-picture book covers:
I suppose that wouldn’t sell so many copies. But it’s still more appealing than Christopher Hitchens’ book cover.
I also enjoyed his commentary:
The last thing I need when buying [a] book for a good intellectual romp is for the checkout clerk to think I’m buying some sort of lame self-help book because I am self-conscious about my penis size. That’s exactly what those sorts of covers say to me. Book cover: “Hi, I’m a smiling, masculine professional, here to assure you that you shouldn’t have low self-worth. You are a great, wonderful human being, or else why would I be smiling? Don’t you trust my apparent sophistication and seemingly targeted judgments?” This sort of cover would be horrid, and I hope to never see anything like it again, for the rest of my days.
[tags]atheist, atheism, Saint Gasoline, Christian, Christopher Hitchens[/tags]
I’m in total agreement. For me, the only time that a person should appear on a book cover is when the book is a biography or a historical study of some sort that is well represented by the person.
Yeah… and remember, there are books with memorable covers that aren’t of the book’s author. The author-on-the-cover thing works for some genres, but not all by any stretch of the imagination.
On the other hand, atheists have used it when appropriate: see Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel.
Oh, but that photo is still funny, and shows why personal photos are so very often a bad idea.
Actually, Hitchens’ book cover is excellently designed and very appealing.
I agree.
But this says something else to me:
If his self-esteem relies on other people, he does need self-help.
I’d buy that damned book, and not only that, I’d shake Mr. Smilerton’s hand…
Kinda weird – this Smilerton guy looks like a strange cross between TBN’s Paul Crouch and Jerry Orbach (”Bob” rest his soul). BTW, did anyone know that Orbach had a role in Disney’s Beauty and The Beast?