Recently I put up a brief review of Scot McKnight’s newest book, The Blue Parakeet. You can read the review here, if you wish. The Blue Parakeet is Scot’s effort to help us think about how we interpret the Bible, and to guide us into a more faithful understanding of Scripture and its truth. One of the striking things about this book, in addition to its content and unusual title, is the cover: bright yellow, with a prominent bird, a parakeet, of course.
Yesterday I received another book in the mail, The Attentive Life: Discerning God’s Presence in All Things, by Leighton Ford. I’m looking forward to reading this book because Leighton is a highly-regarded, mature, wise Christian leader. And I need to learn how to be more attentive to God’s presence in my life.
But when I saw this book for the first time, I had a strange sense of déjà vu. Here, once again, was a bright yellow book with a prominent bird on the cover. This bird is smaller than the one on Scot’s book, and it is a red cardinal, not a blue parakeet. Nevertheless, the similarities are striking, don’t you think?
I wonder if we’ll start seeing more books like this with yellow covers and birds. (Christopher Hitchens’ god is Not Great had a yellow cover, but no bird. I wonder what bird would be appropriate on that book.) By the way, though I haven’t read The Attentive Life yet, I’m sure it will be worth reading. I’ll let you know when I finish it what I think.
All of this yellowness gives me an idea. Perhaps my publishers should re-release my books with a new, yellow cover color scheme. For example, Dare to Be True is languishing these days at around 900,000 at Amazon.com. Maybe the problem isn’t the book, but the cover! Maybe people just aren’t interested in white books anymore. They want  more pizzazz . . . and birds.
Think of the possibilities if Dare to Be True had a yellow cover . . . and a blue jay! Nothing would stop this book then. Look out New York Times top ten. Look out Rick Warren and The Purpose Driven Life. Here comes the new, yellow version of Dare to be True!
Well, then again, maybe not.