Judging a Book by its Cover

Am currently reading a book that I picked up at Powell's while I was in Portland. And I must admit I chose this book, entitled Souffle, almost entirely for it's exquisitely designed cover. A tale of three unrelated people each redeemed from personal tragedy by cooking? If it were a book by an American author that description would just sound too corny, and would likely have had a corny cover to match. But this is novel in translation from Turkish writer Asli Perker (pictured below), and as such turns out to offer a whole different take on reality than that once sentence plot summery might suggest to an American audience. And it was the cover that clued me, right away, that something interesting and different was going on here. As a person who works in book publishing and spends a lot of time thinking about and discussing covers, who witnesses the care and attention book designers spend on covers, I actually think it might not be too strong to say that you can in fact judge a book by its cover. After all, lot of smart people have gone out of their way to try and make sure there's a cover on there that tells you if this is the sort of book you, particular reader, are going to like.