Reading Reflection 11/1 -Jaxon

 I think judging a book by its cover is natural, and that's why first impressions are so important. To be honest, when I go to the bookstores and look at an enormous number of books, I don't really have time to give each one of them a try, so it's always the ones with appealing titles or fancy covers that catch my heart. Especially for literature, from the title, I usually can't tell what type of stories they are, so I often try to speculate from the cover. Unfortunately, from what I recall, I didn't encounter any interesting book covers in China, and I will say from the book covers I saw, they are either too abstract(unrelated to the story) or too direct. (like an apple and an apple's picture) I used Kindle a long time ago when I was a primary school student. At that time, Kindle was kind of too advanced, but most importantly, I was a kid, and I had a bunch of time, so instead of reading books on a tiny screen, I enjoyed reading a physical book more.

I can tell that Chip Kidd is a great artist since his designs and the way he implements them is so surprising. I like Jurassic Park, but I just realized I never took a careful look at the icon. He describe his work process of the picture easily but I don't think it's as easy as he spoke. I especially like the way he created the jacket for "Naked." It fits the story perfectly while giving the physical book an interesting interaction when readers peel off the jacket. 

In my opinion, nowadays, e-books and physical books' functionality are separated. E-books are more portable and convenient, and physical books now have a better collection value. I know in Japan, many books have a kind of "pocket version" where they are smaller and more portable. I don't really see that in China or America. I still carry one portal book I bought from Japan, but since I don't ride T to commute, I don't really find a chance to read it since it's less convenient than my phone when I was lining, and the page size is too small when I try to sit down and read those portal books.