The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This tiny book was originally an essay Jhumpa Lahiri wrote for a writers festival in 2015.
I listened to the audio book, read by the author herself and I thought it was lovely, as usual with her writing. Jhumpa has a lovely voice and she is definitely one of my favorite writers. The audio only takes 1 hour which felt like a breeze after my last audio book that was 16 hours plus long.
While I was listening I thought about the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover”, which I feel we do all the time, and of course not only with books, but we really should be careful. At least I know I have picked up books that pop up among others, drawn to them by their cover, at least a few times. And sometimes I am really surprised while I read them and find out I had a totally different idea in my head. I do think the book covers set an expectation in the reader and I thought it was so interesting she mentions Virginia Wolf collaborating with her sister on the selection of the covers for her books. The sister didn’t even read the books but Virginia Wolf would tell her the story.
Since I love visual art and illustration I think a beautiful cover would be the cherry on top of a good read. Still, I will try to remember we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover!
Brownie! 