You can judge a person by their book covers

The French, as usual, have a nifty phrase for it: livre de chevet, meaning the book that says something (very flattering) about you. A survey commissioned by the British Airports Authority confirmed what everyone knew: namely, that when we lay out £20 on a book we are prone to see it as not just nourishment for the mind, but a fashion accessory. Books furnish a room and - if carried ostentatiously in the right places - they decorate one's person as elegantly as anything from Nicole Farhi.

In the survey, one in every eight young readers confessed to buying a book "simply to be seen with the latest shortlisted title". Those were the honest ones. Of readers who purchased Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (the most garlanded novel of our time), half confessed to never having finished it. Doubtless many never started. None the less, they may not have thought the purchase price wasted. A good book makes you look good.

Publishers are well aware of this. Up to a quarter of the production cost of a novel goes into its dust-jacket. It's not there to protect the book from dust - brown paper would do that better. It's there to make the book (and the book buyer) look good.

When we read in public - in the airport departure lounge, for example - we want to look smart. And, just as important, not look dumb. There are many explanations for the depressing success of The Da Vinci Code. But one is that the first readers could flaunt the book as if it were some tome on Renaissance painting. The vulgar herd followed - and will, apparently, thunder on till kingdom come.

Our quality newspapers all have literary supplements pronouncing on the merits of the books of the day. Rarely, however, do the reviewers give advice as to whether this book or that will enhance the purchaser's image ("Does my sensibility look big in this?").

So what should the style-conscious reader be toting this autumn? The novel of the moment in the UK is Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park - a second helping of "black candy" from the author of American Psycho. But smart consumers will have acquired the US edition, which came out in August, from www.amazon.com. By now, fashion-savvy readers will have tossed the book.

Where fashion is concerned, the only place to be is ahead of the curve, among the early adopters. Britons who want the book they carry to win admiring glances should keep an eye on the New York Times's bestseller list. A good choice this week is The Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly. It won't be out here for a month or two.

Obviously prize books, if bought early enough, signal cultural awareness. But buying the book that won a literary prize suggests a willingness to let others make up your mind for you. Don't, therefore, buy the Man-Booker-winning The Sea. Be seen instead with Banville's 1998 novel, The Untouchable ("this, my friend, is his true masterpiece").

This week sees the release of the TV blockbuster adaptation of Bleak House, and just over the horizon is the movie release of Michael Winterbottom's A Cock and Bull Story, based on Tristram Shandy. Don't risk a hernia toting those breeze-block-sized monsters. Be seen with slender books by the same authors - Sterne's A Sentimental Journey or Dickens's Hard Times. John Le Carré's The Constant Gardener is OK, but be seen with it before, not after, the movie release.

Never, never, never be seen with a book which has a "3 for 2" or "£6 off" discount sticker on it. Cheap. Like buying your coffee from Tesco rather than a specialist coffee shop or deli. If you must buy books from Waterstone's, or Borders, make sure you have an LRB Bookshop bag to carry them in. That, of course, is the bookshop that came up with the "two for the price of three" gimmick. Classy. They also sell the best books in London. Be seen there.

[from The Guardian]