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The old adage goes something like “Never judge a book by its cover.”  It’s sound advice for navigating social circles, but not so much for judging an actual book.  Think about it.  You are browsing your favorite bookstore or library, filled with hundreds (or thousands, or more) stories, each wrapped in their respective covers.  There has to be some way to narrow down the options to those that interest you. The cover is the author’s chance to separate their book from its brethren on the shelves.  A chance for the book to literally jump off the bookshelf and scream “Pick me. Choose me. Love me.”

The Old Adage Goes Something Like “Never Judge A Book By Its Cover.”  It’s Sound Advice For Navigating Social Circles, But Not So Much For Judging An Actual Book.

If the cover was of no consequence, books would largely be released without any cover art or design.  But, they’re not.  And that’s because we know that the cover is an opportunity to pique your curiosity.  If the cover is successful in this respect, then the author has a chance to further draw you in with the synopsis on the inside cover.  Still holding your interest? Great, now perhaps you do a quick online search to see what others have to say about the book. If the book has made it this far in the journey from the shelf to your hands, and the reviews are good, there is probably a good chance this one is coming home with you.  So, I stand solid in my assertion that a book most certainly can be judged (at least initially) by its cover.

But, I’m all for a lively exchange and open to seeing things from other perspectives, so I’ve endeavored to provide you with just some of the pros and cons of judging a book by its cover.

Pros

Book covers are like movie previews. They give you a visual taste of what you can expect once you open the pages. The cover image of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies gives you a vivid depiction of what is to be explored in the pages.  Some covers are a bit more nuanced.  Take a look at the cover of Tara Westover’s Educated; at first glance, it looks like a pencil, but a deeper look reveals a woman standing among mountains.  The image is a profound visual depiction that compliments the story.  

Book covers save time.  There are so many books and it constantly feels like there is just not enough time to read all the great books you want to try.  Each time you read one book on your wish list, it seems as if three others take its place.  Book covers allow you to quickly determine if the cover sparks any interest. If not, you can move on.

Book covers help mood readers.  There are some tropes that you are likely to see played out on book covers.  I know I’m painting a pretty broad stroke, but hear me out.  If you’re browsing for horror books, you’re probably more likely to gravitate towards the cover depicting a blood-stained knife than you are to the cover with the happy couple standing in front of a white picket fence.  (But, there are some sinister horror stories out there, so maybe not…) Similarly, if you’re in the mood for a light-hearted read, there is a good chance you are not going to pick up that 700-page book with a war battle depicted on the cover.  Paying homage to these tropes on book covers is useful in sorting through the sea of books to find just the ones you are in the mood for reading.

Cons

Quick judgments might just be wrong.  Trying to quickly judge whether a book is your cup of tea by glancing at the cover has its drawbacks.  There’s the potential that you miss out on some amazing stories because you judged a book too prematurely.  The cover art of N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season doesn’t say much about the story.  However, the book received rave reviews, even winning a Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Book covers can be deceiving.  A book cover may draw you in with compelling cover graphics, only to disappoint when it comes to delivering the story. I’m too polite to call out any specific books, but you can probably think of at least one book cover that intrigued you, but the actual story just fell flat.  Book covers can get a reader to open a book, but the story must keep them between the pages.

The author’s imagination may supplant yours.  If a book cover contains a picture of one or more of the characters, you miss out on the opportunity to use your imagination to conjure up your own image of the characters.  Think Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, The Serial Killer; while it is a visually appealing cover, do you wonder how your vision may have been different had you been left to your imagination?

Iwas just starting to like that character, when the author killed him off. Now the protagonist will have to look for a new mentor for reading community , but who will he turn to—someone good or evil?

The best stories follow timeless formulas, yet are pleasingly unpredictable. Authors of fiction have unlimited creative liberty when drafting their hero’s journey. While non-fiction authors don’t share the same unchecked liberty, they have significant opportunities to determine the tone, depth of information, level of mystery, and retelling of the order of events in their story.

Unpredictability permeates all fascinating reads: main characters hurdle challenges, side characters distract, befriend, encourage, seduce, enable, poison, or deceive them, and the setting or circumstances morph as the characters navigate their obstacles with courage or fear, difficulty or ease, sincerity or humor. Unpredictability is what makes fiction and non-fiction such fun to read…and discuss.

Real Time Book Discussions Reading is typically a solitary activity. When the three female scientists at NASA face discrimination for being African-American in Hidden Figures, the reader experiences deep frustration. When the allusive main character living in a mansion withholds details about his upbringing in The Great Gatsby, we become curious. Or when the devoted mother disappears in Where’d You Go Bernadette, it’s quite the shock. Yet readers almost always look up from their paper world to find their surroundings unchanged and have no outlet for their questions, take-aways, conspiracies, and revelations.

Put formulaically: Deep Thoughts + No Conversations = Sad Combination for Book Nerd.

And this problem has only increased since the social gathering restrictions ushered in by  COVID-19 have toppled in-person book clubs. But in online reading communities, you can geek out as much as you’d like, making your journey through a book significantly more immersive.

At The Chaptr, we read books separately yet simultaneously. This means whenever readers encounter a confusing concept, interesting twist, or emotive anecdote, they can open our book app and hash it out with fellow readers. Real time book discussions also allow for readers to share hypotheses and predictions about what may happen next in the story.

Deeper Reading, Wider Thinking John Coleman writes in Harvard Business Review, that being part of a reading community can help you focus your reading and widen your understanding.  The Chaptr intentionally chooses books from varying genres for this very reason. As Coleman reasons in his article, “Engaging with diverse content—fiction, history, biography, social science—can pull you out of your day-to-day routine and help you make connections between ideas from other fields that might be relevant to your work or life.”

Discussing the book takes you even further. Not only does a looming discussion encourage insightful reading, it also creates a platform for each reader to hear everyone else’s thoughts, interpretations, and connections. Imagine the thought you put into your reading automatically multiplying by however many other minds are in the discussion. Neat, right?

“But In Online Reading Communities, You Can Geek Out As Much As You’d Like, Making Your Journey Through A Book Significantly More Immersive.”

You’re Held Accountable Maybe, as you read this, your eyes veer over to a large stack of unread books sitting on your bedside table. They look back at you oh-so judgmentally (beneath a thin layer of dust). Or at least that’s the picture that the Pew Research’s statistics from recent years paint.

And let’s be honest, there’s little motivation to use our limited free time slowly slogging through a book we don’t particularly enjoy. However, reading communities spur commitment. And a lot can be learned from books that aren’t necessarily our cup of tea; empathy is one of those things, suggests Psychology Today. So, if you’re looking for that extra umph of motivation in your literary life, be sure to sign up for a reading community.

Conclusion The three main benefits of joining a reading community are real-time book discussions, exposure to new ideas, and extra motivation to finish books. If you’re looking for a fun and engaging online reading community, be sure to check us out at The Chaptr!

1 –

Black Buck

By Mateo Askaripour

I’m not sure if anticipated is the right word because this one came out on January 5 of this year, but the reviews of Black Buck are coming back strong.

This book tells the story of Darren, a Starbucks manager content with his simple, if uninspired, life. That is, of course, until he meets the CEO of a tech startup. One thing leads to another and the CEO offers Darren a job, where he becomes the only black person at the company.

Darren creates for himself an alter ego, Buck, an aggressive salesman type. As Buck finds success at work, it begins to elude him at home. To find a more livable balance, Buck hatches a plan to guide other people of color into America’s sales force.  If you enjoyed the 2018 film Sorry to Bother You, you will definitely want to check out Black Buck.  

2 –

Outlawed

By Anna North

Outlawed is another book that came out January 5th, just waiting for you to pick it up. And jeez louise, you really should.

Outlawed is an alternative dystopian history novel set in the year 1894. In this world, women who don’t have children are captured by members of their community and hanged as witches. When, after a year of marriage, Ada still hasn’t conceived, she goes on the lam, joining the outlaw Hole in the Wall gang.

What follows is a swashbuckling adventure across a reimagined Old West, with a message rooted deeply in modern feminism and the consequences of narrow-minded thinking.

3 –

Detransition, Baby

By Torrey Peters

Torrey Peters’ stunning novel about trans lives, cis lives, and all the lives in between came out January 12th of this year, and it’s earning well-deserved buzz.

Reese and Amy seem to have it all, the apartment, the job, the dream relationship. Unfortunately, that’s more than most trans women can say. But when Amy makes the decision to detransition and becomes Ames, everything falls apart.

Reese, lonely and hurt turns to sleeping with married men, while Ames accidentally impregnates his boss. And while his boss isn’t sure if she wants to keep the baby, Ames begins to wonder whether the baby is what he needs to get Reese, the only family he’s got, back into his life.

4 –

Fake Accounts

By Lauren Oyler

Lauren Oyler’s novel tells the story of a young woman who, upon looking through her boyfriend’s phone, discovers he is a popular right-wing conspiracy theorist. Surprising? Maybe, but it’s not exactly a shocking revelation.

She makes a plan to break up with her beau just after she gets back from the Women’s March in Washington DC, but things take a bizarre turn as the lies unfolding in cyberspace begin to have an effect on the reality of her world.  Fake Accounts was released this month, so you can dig into this one now.  

5 –

While Justice Sleeps

By Stacey Abrams

How? How in the world did Stacey Abrams have time to write a political thriller while at the same time organizing for what would become one of the biggest political upsets in modern history – the clean blue sweep of Georgia?

Yeah, I don’t know either, but on May 11, 2021, Abrams’ novel is set to be released.

This novel follows Avery Keene, a law clerk for a Supreme Court Justice. It’s all going well, despite the challenge of the job and the long hours, but things are upended when Avery’s legendary boss slips into a coma and his instructions call for Avery to be made power of attorney.

That’s when things heat up for Avery, as in the midst of the political angst she discovers her boss was on course to unravel a conspiracy involving two companies in a high-profile merger that was already before the court.

6 –

The Removed

By Brandon Hobson

Released on February 2nd, The Removed follows the Cherokee Echota family. The family is no stranger to struggles. Son Ray-Ray was killed during a police incident. Daughter Sonja has become something of a recluse, prone to wild romantic flings, and son Edgar hasn’t been seen by the family in years because of his problems with drug addiction. Add to this the fact that the Echota father is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and it becomes clear the family is facing a number of challenges.

As a Cherokee National Holiday approaches, and with it the anniversary of Ray-Ray’s death, Maria, the Echota family mother, attempts to gather everyone together to talk about Ray-Ray’s memory. As the day approaches, each family member feels their grip on reality blurring ever more into the spiritual, and each attempts to understand and rationalize this in their own way.

7 –

W-3

By Bette Howland

Bette Howland’s memoir about her time in Chicago’s psychiatric ward after a suicide attempt in 1968 is a visceral, moving portrait of lives on the brink.

This memoir was first released in 1974, and it was reissued this year on January 12th. After reading it, I can honestly say it feels more poignant and relevant than ever.

8 –

The Prophets

By Robert Jones Jr.

Released on January 5th, The Prophets became an instant bestseller.

A piece of historical fiction, The Prophets is a story about Isaiah and Samuel, slaves who are in love. At first, the other slaves acknowledge their love and respect it as a thing of simple beauty. But when another slave adopts the religion of the plantation owners and begins to preach, Isaiah and Samuel’s love is called into question.

This beautiful, touching, shattering story wrestles with the problems inherited by slaves and their owners. And the way past, and future generations have battled with that same sense of inheritance.

9 –

Filthy Animals

By Brandon Taylor

Brandon Taylor used to be a scientist. It’s true. He turned to fiction with 2020’s Real Life, an astonishing coming-of-age tale.

He’s back in 2021 (June 22nd to be exact) with Filthy Animals, a collection of connected short stories about creatives in the midwest.

Native American Literature Books typically arises from the traditional written and oral-literary pieces of the indigenous peoples from the Americas, in the now-United States. It is different from the First Nation writers from Canada and is also known as Indian literature or American Indian literature. Native American literature can be found dating back from pre-Columbian times to the modern authors of today.

Traditional Native American literature consists of ancient pictographic and hieroglyphic writings with a diverse set of myths, folktales, and oral traditions consisting of story-telling, poetry, chants, and songs. This was brought to the public light when Native Americans started publishing their people’s cultural, traditional and historical accounts in the nineteenth century.

As more Native American writers penned down new literary texts during the 1960s, a new era of awakening was born. This gave the Native American writers a redeemed voice and created a new place for them in the American culture. Literary critics have touted this era as the Native American Renaissance.

Native American literature gives the world a peek into the Native American culture, which is not known by many even in the US. The literary texts by these authors highlight the various rich and vibrant cultures of Native American tribes. Moreover, this literature became a great way to represent the complex, entangled and beautiful sect of modern-day Native peoples. Some of these works of art that have shown the struggles and perspectives of the Native peoples resound a coherent socio-political perspective.

Below, we list 5 books that we believe are must-reads from Native American literature:

Heart Berries: A Memoir By Terese Marie Mailhot

This memoir publicized the trials and tribulations faced by modern Native American women. In her New York Times Best Seller, Mailhot has published her journals from the time she was institutionalized due to a mental breakdown on losing her firstborn son’s custody. Mailhot has brought a lost bold voice of a Native American mother with a heartfelt account of her oppression.

Ceremony By Leslie Marmon Silko

Considered to be a Native American classic, Ceremony takes you through different timelines from the lenses of a World War 2 veteran who deals with family, spirituality, war, witchery, mental health, and healing.

An Indigenous Peoples’ History Of The United States

By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Dunbar-Ortiz, a historian and activist presents a period of the history of the USA from the eyes of the Native people. The book gives you an account of how the indigenous people resisted the expansion of the US empire.

Pushing The Bear By Diane Glancy

This historical novel tells the tale of hardships the Cherokees had to endure on the Trail of Tears when they got evicted from their own land. With different voices of the narrator’s family, this novel is a good read with accounts of a sad period of American history.

Winter In The Blood

By James Welch

This is an essential Native American read that follows a young man’s journey in a world he doesn’t understand while dealing with the concept of death. This dark and gritty novel was also adapted into a movie.

Our mission is to bring together book lovers and facilitate a village where thought-provoking discussions can flourish and friendships blossom.  To help accomplish this, we integrate social media into our reading experience in a way that promotes meaningful engagement between readers and enriches, not detracts from, the reading experience.