I always judge a book by its cover

And so does everyone else. Just look at the way the Amazon.com style of cover reproduction plus blurb has spread not only to other book sellers, but to a library near you. The Los Angeles Public Library's online catalog has been slowly adding cover images and now they are posting review blurbs as well. That damn invisible hand again seems to have worked faster and better than the public sector at replicating the lost Alexandrian card catalogs thrown out with the bathwater when shiny new Computer Databases came along.

Here's a beautiful book I bought for its beautiful cover: