Vulture and other outlets reported late in 2018, that J.D. Salinger’s books are getting new covers to celebrate the author’s centennial. Born on January 1, 1919, J. D. Salinger would have been 100 years old this year, so the publisher thought, let’s change the covers.
Are the special covers horrible? No.
Are they any improvement over the originals? No.
Did they get people talking about J. D. Salinger? A few.
I don’t know if I’ll get these covers. I might just for novelty’s sake. I’m much more likely to get the hardcover reissues from a few years ago, though.
Like I said, these new covers aren’t bad, but I almost always hate it when publishers change covers. If I’m collecting a series or an author and the covers change, then my collection looks disjointed. If, heaven forbid, a movie version of a book, especially one with a picture of an actor on it, comes out I’ll avoid it like the plague.
So these 100th anniversary versions could have been a lot worse.
I’m just disappointed that we didn’t get much in the way of the 200th anniversary of the novel Frankenstein. I should have got that Folio edition when I had the chance. Oh well.
MORE OF MY SALINGER ARTICLES: