Judging Books by Their Covers - My Ranking of the Booker Prize Longlist

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Everyone knows the famous idiom "don't judge a book by its cover", and even though I'll be the first to tell you that, that is exactly what I intend to do. Whether we like it or not, all humans have a certain amount of bias and I have occasionally fallen victim to it when choosing my next read. There have been times in the past I have chosen to read or not to read a book based solely on its cover and blurb, only to be proven wrong.

Marketing plays a fundamental role in bookselling. Unfortunately, I have found, that the cover art and blurbs on the back do not always correspond with the content within. Sometimes, they can be misleading.

On the 27th of July the 2021 Booker Prize longlist was released, the English speaking world's leading literary award for fiction.

My goal is to read all 13 books before they announce the winner on the 3rd of November.

Below, I rank the books in the order I am most excited to read them. I'll be judging the books solely on their covers and the blurbs provided by the thebookerprizes.com website.

After reading each book, I will write a review. When I have finished all 13, I will rank them again and then compare this list with my new list at the end. It will be interesting to see how my opinion on the books change from now to then, and if the old adage rings true, and how wrong or right my initial judgement was.