Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover...Particularly in France

The Guardian asks why books are routinely given completely different covers abroad, often with baffling results.

From the story...

Having worked in both the US and the UK, Wilson is sceptical about book buyers being so different in each country that they require different covers. "Why is there a need to design different covers for different countries? I don't believe there is one. When I crossed over to New York publishing after working in the British industry, I didn't change my style at all."

"I don't know whether it comes down to bloody-mindedness to do our own thing," says Andrew Smith, a designer at Penguin, "but it has certainly become the norm to start covers from scratch." Could it be that all this re-jacketing zeal – the Alexander McCall Smith reimagined in France to look like an issue of National Geographic, a British Stieg Larsson designed with all the artistic nous of an NHS pamphlet – comes down to pride?

"There probably is an element of that to it," says Smith, who was part of the team behind the black-and-white jacket of Everything is Illuminated. On the colourful nudes of the French edition of that book, he is diplomatic.

"Not really my cup of tea."