The New Cover Gallery

My favourite Achilleos cover

I have always been a collector of paperback books. When I was very young the first books I started to collect were the Doctor Who adaptations published by Target. With their brilliant cover artwork by Chris Achille
os, and written mainly by people involved in the television series itself, authors like Ian Marter, Robert Holmes, David Whittaker and Terrance Dicks, who contributed massively to the series - these books started to take up precious space in the bedroom at home I shared with my brother.

As my tastes broadened I started to pick up others books, most of which have proved the test of time from the seventies and eighties, like Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes and Sci-Fi books by Asimov, Clarke and Phillip K Dick. The various covers would always have an attraction. The way collections would either be styled or numbered meant you could admire them even after reading, and ordering them on my few shelves (scratch-built by my father) was always a great past-time.

Over the years my tastes have changed - but I have never abandoned my love for a good-looking paperback cover. I'm still attracted by bright designs, great artistry and a consistent format for a seres of books by the same author. I have books that I am not necessarily eager to read, but love the design; a good example would be the Mary Russell / Sherlock Holmes books by Laurie R King, published by Alison and Busby here in the UK - great covers - whenever I see one I don't own I just have to have it.

Alas, the amount of room, and the cost of owning every book that you would love have are incompatible. Well it is for me. I'm sure it is for many of you. So, what can I do about it? Well, I can collect those great covers digitally. I am doing this with Pinterest. I have added a page to the Digital Bibliophilia blog, it is called the Cover Gallery and can be viewed by using the menu link at the top of the blog. It is a direct representation of the 'latest saves' from the official Digital Bibliophila Pinterest account I have created, so that if you want to follow my growing collection you can.

Please feel free to browse as much as you want - I'd love to grow the collection as much as possible, and hope to include many different genres into it over time. I will add 'collections' (known as Boards on Pinterest) to arrange the covers into series as I go along.

I hope you enjoy this new part of the blog.