Does a book’s cover matter?

Yes. A book’s cover matters immensely. A book is an intimate object, in some ways the most intimate. It resides for a while in your mind, and may reach your heart and soul. Reading a book is like a tryst, a short love affair, and we will speak only of the happy ones. You can easily break up with a book that lets you down, but you will likely never begin a romance with a book that has an off-putting cover. You may have been initially drawn to it by hearing about it, but your decision to take it home with you, bring it into your life, to forego other things for it, is tied up with its looks, perhaps unfairly so, like so many things in life. You spend time with the book, you get to know it, it is in your mind and your thoughts, and the image in your mind is the cover; you carry it around, and others may see you with it and ask about it, and if you show it to someone they will see it and instantly judge it, and you, by its cover; it is sitting on your desk and you glance at it waiting to get back to it, and you see the cover; or, it is in your briefcase waiting for you, and you know it is there, and the mental image is the cover; you manhandle a book and leave it physically different, you may stain or damage it, even so you try not to mar the cover; you have anticipation of getting to it while you look at its spine on the shelf, and you remember its cover when you put it there, before you read it; you have memories of it after the few hours together are over, memories that last years and decades, memories all tied up not only with its words but with its appearance and feel, not least the cover. The book is briefly your girlfriend, or even closer than that, and your memories of her words and thoughts are one thing, but her tangible presence is part of the experience, of course — before, during and after. And the book's cover is her face.