The Literate Kitty

The saying “You can’t tell a book by its cover” is an interesting one, because we almost never use it when talking about books, do we? We pull it out to describe the slovenly fellow who paints delicate watercolors... the fragile-looking woman who packs a mean right hook... or maybe, the old, driven-by-grandpa four-door that surprises with a souped-up V-8 under its oxidized hood. The point is that none of those things involves a book.  More interesting, perhaps, is that the saying isn’t strictly accurate; I think you pretty much can guess what a book will be like by studying its cover. The artwork may not jibe completely with the author’s words, but you can usually get at least a sense of what kind of story you’ve picked up, and if there are any blurbs, quotes, or snippets on the cover, those all provide yet more clues to what lies within.  But, what happens when there is no cover? With the growing popularity of e-books, it’s becoming more and more common to access someth...