I thought I would post this link so everyone can enjoy them too, but basically these lovely folk had an idea to make dust jackets for books which say ‘bugger off I’m reading’ in a nice way.
I wish these had been around in high school. I used to ride the bus to and from school, and living in a rural area meant the ride to school was about 45 min and home was about half an hour (this is because the bus made a circuit and I had to take the longer trip in the morning but could skip it in the afternoon). I gladly filled the dreary journey with delightful books like ‘Tomorrow When the War Began’ and ‘The Belgariad’ and ‘Wheel of Time’. However, every now and then someone would have to sit beside me, and on occasion they decided my reading a book was me crying out for human contact.
Now I wasn’t anti-friend making, but if I’m reading it’s because I want to, not because I have no other choice. If I didn’t want to read I could stare out the window at the forests and farmland whisking by – it’s a pretty nice view after all (and still better than talking to some of the people on that bus).
What makes me giggle now as I recall this is when I was fourteen one of the girls who sometimes sat beside me was my now sister-in-law! She confided in me she was always intimidated by my book and didn’t want to talk with me, even though she was interested in becoming my friend.
Just as an interesting cultural aside on dust jackets, in Japan (Kyoto specifically) when I bought a few books, they wrapped them in brown paper dust jackets which advertised the store and hid what book I was reading from any prying eyes. It was very cool and I kept the dust jackets even though I removed them. Here’s a picture of them. I love they even put the website and QR code on the inside. Though as a marketing strategy perhaps the QR code should also be on the outside for non-readers to scan…
Japanese Bookstore Dust Jackets
