Novels with beautiful covers are will beat e-books, says Julian Barnes
Traditional books look more appealing than electronic versions if they have striking front covers, according to Julian Barnes.
The Man Booker Prize winner suggested that the covers of paper books are there to entice the reader in and this is something that cannot be achieved with e-books.
Upon winning the literature award this week for The Sense of an Ending, Barnes thanked his cover artist for his success.
He said: "If the physical book, as we've come to call it, is to resist the challenge of the e-book, it has to look like something worth buying and worth keeping.''
Barnes added that the success of books is partly down to the cover art, which he said encourages people to buy and read in the first place.
Amazon and Waterstones recently reported that sales of e-books are outstripping paper versions.
The online book trader announced that it is selling more e-books in the US than print books for the first time and that the popularity of virtual reading is steadily increasing in the UK.
