At first glance, the cover of Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir looks stark and bold, like someone wrote the title with a Sharpie.

Most letters are black, but some are red. Primarily, the letters are printed with some in script.

What does that tell you about the book’s content? What might the publisher be trying to convey to us with this cover?

That’s where close reading starts–with questions.

Let’s look at what else we can learn from the front and back covers.