Judge This Book By It's Cover

     When Shakespeare's Sonnets were presented, I was hooked. Not because of the wonderful poetry (sorry Shakespeare), but because of what encased the sonnets. I found the binding intriguing because it was made of animal skin. And not just one animal skin, but several skins worked together to create magic. If you look closely at this mainly forest green cover, you can see where the different skins merge together. Each color is a new skin. That's just so amazing. And the colors and artwork are so intricate. The front and back cover are the same: mainly green, with gold worked through and a white oval in the center. The inside covers have more detail and vary slightly from each other. On the front inside cover, there is a pink flower within the white oval. The work is so delicate, it looks like a drop of water dragging from the edge of the flower's petals. However on the back inside cover, the flower is a more simple white daisy (perhaps?) with a grayish tint to distinguish it from the white oval it is placed upon. Contained within the corners of both inside covers, there is the emblem of William Shakespeare: a smaller W with a larger S covering it, both letters being beautifully scripted. I applaud the creator of this binding. To have melded what was once animal skin into this masterpiece is a work of art in and of itself. Although we like to deny it, we do judge books by their covers. With this collection of works, I would have no qualms picking it up and studying the binding alone for hours before ever moving on to the written works inside.