Keep checking out to discover a couple of different ideas connecting to the method we see book covers set beside their history.

When we purchase a book it becomes something very very personal to us. It can in some cases be unusual seeing a book you love with a different book cover, just because it is not your book. This personalisation, and indeed ownership, of books was at an entirely different level at the dawn of the era of printing, with book covers being developed by the owners themselves, and what they thought would be the best books covers for the book. They would buy the book itself from the printer wrapped in paper, then bring it to a binder who would incorporate the covers to the customer's specs. This typically meant being outfitted in leather and then inscribed with the name of the book, and, typically, the name of the book's owner. People like the co-founder of the impact investor with a stake in World of Books can most likely value the ownership that people come to feel in relation to their books.
We like checking out books due to the fact that they are extremely gorgeous things. This is true, however the nature of beauty that we may be discussing is certainly different to what we might be discussing if we were talking about, for example, the visual arts. Or is it? For as long as we have actually had books we have embellished them with beautiful book cover designs that attempt to mirror the appeal of what is inside. This dates back for as long as the codex itself has actually been around, with medieval monks, those charged with the security and duplication of the scarce texts that could still be discovered, ornamenting each hand written text with amazingly rich and stunning designs. In fact, such was the charm held within these books that many of these creative book cover designs were sculpted into ivory or solid gold, studded with gems, and inlaid with rivers of precious metals. Individuals like the co-CEO of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones can probably value the way that the beauty of these book covers was developed to match the beauty within the book.
When you actually consider it, it is rather incredible that a book's cover, no matter how lovely it is, manages to stand so eloquently for something that is nearly the complete antithesis of its art format-- writing in black and white. In fact, book covers have actually been designed to reflect the vibe of a book and appeal to its desired audience since the advent of big scale publishing in the Victorian Era. Artists were charged with finding what makes a good book cover for certain people, or to put it simply, marketing. People like the CEO of the asset manager that has a stake in Amazon can probably appreciate the function of marketing in designing book covers.