The paper analyzes and interprets the sign texts whose communication medium is a book cover. The paper tries to demonstrate – on the specific examples of the book covers of the book by the American author George Ritzer The McDonaldization of Society, which is probably the most translated title of sociological literature at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd millennia – that the book covers represent not only an innovative form of semiotic and cultural transfer, but also an innovative marketing and advertising tool of communication and an efficient tool for building a social and cultural identity of the audience that it is addressed to.