Nothing but the title: 10%. Likely inscrutable, almost certainly excessively highbrow.
A person or persons in white robes standing near a pillar: 25%. Might be worth a gamble; might be outrageously dull.
A person or persons in white robes, standing near a pillar, in front of a background with two or more moons in the sky: 80%. Almost certainly excellent. Approaches 100% if there is a cat of unusual size somewhere near the spine.
Part of a woman’s face: 5%. Almost certainly a memoir of worst kind.
Part of a woman’s face, hazily obscured: 1%.
Rippling water: 0%. -10% if there is a woman’s face visible beyond the rippling water (the 10% means I will go watch a very bad movie instead).
A human silhouette: 25% if the human silhouette is meant to depict a living person, 40% if it is meant to depict someone recently murdered.
A city skyline silhouette: 30%. Might be a Candace Bushnell title, but just as easily might be a translated Europa edition.
Public domain art: 70%, regardless of content.
A lavishly dressed woman whose face is cropped out of the frame: 15%.
A pair of shoes: 5%.
A keyhole cover: 80%. This is just as likely a trashy 80s mass-market paperback as a bestselling piece of genre fiction; either way I will derive great joy from viewing the stepback.
A picture of the author (celebrity): 60%.
A drawing of a ship: 60%.
A photograph of a ship: 30%.
A picture of the author (non-celebrity): 20%.
A great deal of words jumbled together (drug memoir): 90%. I can’t help myself.
A great deal of words jumbled together (any other topic) 30%.
A literal drawing of the title: 4%.
A drawing of a house covered in snow: 60% if it’s close to Christmas or my grandmother’s birthday, 15% otherwise.
A close-up of the human eye: 50%. I will either love this book or hate it.
The title font turning into trees or roses or something: 0%.
A picture of the film adaptation of the book: 0%. I will order a used copy online, even if I enjoyed the movie and really who cares if people think I only started reading the book because of the movies, what other people think shouldn’t drive how I spend my money.
[Image via Wikimedia Commons]
