Rambling Reader: Do you judge a book by its cover?

I have mentioned over and over on this blog how I let the cover of a book sway my decision of whether or not to read it. I know that old adage "Never judge a book by its cover" is good advice to follow, however I also find that generally my gut feeling is bang on when I let the cover make my decision for me.

This is not to say I don't miss out on excellent fiction due to my weakness for cover art. Because there are some books out there that I have not even given half a glance to that I'll read about on another book blog and go, DARN! I should have given that a chance! And suddenly it ends up on my wishlist.

I have certain cover art, shall we say, peeves though. Back in the days of my youth the theme of having real life models on the covers of books (especially YA) wasn't as common as it is today. And I have to say, I really dislike covers that use real people. In the late 80s and early 90s most cover models were drawn versions of real people. I liked this much better because it seemed less,  I don't know, real I think. When you have a photo of a real person on the cover it rather limits your imagination as to what they look like.

These are some examples of books whose covers make me walk right by:

Rachelle Mead's Vampire Academy series might interest me, but I don't like any of the covers. Though the title of this one does have me on the fence. The Shopaholic series, well, if they had better covers I might have tried one, but these just scream CHICK LIT to me and I am so not a chick lit kind of girl. However I have had many people tell me that the books are funny and a nice escape from the world. But I just can't get into the cover. As well I have never read ANYTHING by Meg Cabot, other than her blog that is, because all the covers on all her series (YA and Adult) just turn me right off. Anything drawn in that sort of artsy way turns me off immediately. Or covers with little hearts all over them. Yeech!I also prefer my original LJ Smith Secret Circle books to the re-released covers (as well as not as happy with the combining of the 3 books into two):

But that's just me. I don't know if I would have picked these books up if this was the first time I was seeing them. As much as I love a good witch story, I'm not a huge fan of the covers.

Where as the covers for Melissa Marr's faerie series, Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange and the forthcoming Fragile Eternity are breathtaking. So breathtaking in fact, that I bought the hard cover version of the first book and will continue this series in hard cover because they just feel better that way.

Books I have bought based on cover alone:

I wasn't disappointed in any of those. In fact, Polgara the Sorceress is one of my all-time favourite books and I have re-read it countless times.

Books that I passed by because the cover turned me off, only to have really liked them when I finally read them:

All three of these books (and series) are now must-reads for me. But I never would have given them a chance if I hadn't been gifted them or highly recommended when I was desperate for a book to read.

How about you? Do you judge books by their covers often? At all? Are you generally correct in your judgement if you do? I know it's a horrible habit to have, especially if I REALLY am smitten with a cover I HAVE to own it. It's like art to me. I'm just curious how the rest of the avid reading world might let a cover influence them.