A Few of My Favorite Things…Book Edition

Posted April 6, 2012 by Asheley in Uncategorized / 18 Comments


A great story will stand alone no matter what a book looks like, 
but this gal tends to fall hard for the extras. 
I thought I’d take a trip around my bookshelves and show you 
a few of my favorite things. 

What does Asheley love?


1. Awesome Title Pages
I can often be WOW’d by something awesome before I even start a book. 

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (my favorite title page EVER)
The Passage by Justin Cronin
Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley 
Don’t Breathe A Word by Jennifer McMahon 
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2. Deckled Pages/French Flaps
So pretty. You know you love them too. 

Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins 
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

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3. Spine Art
I’m partial to the ALL CAPS look but I like cohesive themes too. 

The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder
Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and The Answer,
and Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
Eon and Eona by Alison Goodman
**************************************
4. Maps
Nothing much cooler than a map in a book!
I think it almost guarantees a great story, right?
(I know they’re hard to see here, but you get the idea.)

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
Eona by Alison Goodman

Graceling by Kristin Cashore (Well HELLO, Seven Kingdoms! I love you.)
Wicked by Gregory Maguire 

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5. A “Splash of Red”
Red is my favorite color and it can make most covers look better. 
But that’s just my opinion…

Clockwise: Switched by Amanda Hocking,
When She Woke by Hillary Jordan (back of the ARC)
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller

Pretty In Red
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6. Details
On the inside. They just make things look nice. That’s all. 
The words on the page are awesome. But more than that is awesome-r

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson


Eona by Alison Goodman (Those are dragons. DRAGONS, y’all.)
Wither by Lauren DeStefano

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7. Numbered Spines
I LOVE it when series are numbered on a spine. 
I HATE it when they are not. I need all the help I can get.

The Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness
Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series by Rick Riordan
The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling
These numbers may be hard to see, but y’all know they’re there.
Y’all KNOW. 
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8. Illustrations
No explanation necessary. 

Wicked by Gregory Maguire, illustrated by Douglas Smith
Fablehaven by Brandon Mull, illustrated by Brandon Dorman

Wildwood (ARC) by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis


I want to repeat that that none of this stuff is necessary. 
Most of the best books I’ve ever read have had 
exactly NONE of these things. 
These are all extras. 

What “extras” are your favorites? 
Did I leave any off of my list?

Asheley

About Asheley

Asheley is a Southern girl. She loves Carolina blue skies, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and NC craft beer. She loves all things history but prefers books over everything.

You can find her somewhere in North Carolina, daydreaming about the ocean.

Find Asheley on Litsy @intothehallofbooks!

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18 responses to “A Few of My Favorite Things…Book Edition

  1. *DIES* I LOVE ALL OF THESE THINGS. I love maps so much that I did a post about them a couple weeks ago. I wanted it to be longer so that I could show ALL the maps. I love maps. If I'm reading a book–especially a fantasy–that doesn't have a map, it bothers me the whole time I'm reading.
    Deckle edge and french flaps are THE BUSINESS. The Iron Knight has both-HOLLA! And I love little details on chapter-openers, too. Born Wicked has them.
    Sigh. I love all the things. And you . 🙂

    • OH, why did it take me so long to find you?

      I wanted to include every favorite thing from my bookshelf but the blogosphere isn't big enough. This post is actually just too long, but I'm chatty in every aspect. Including my blog posts. We all know that!

      Maps! French flaps! Deckled edges! Details! All these things, yes yes yes!!

      We are books twinsies.

      (Except I don't own the Iron Fey. I need to fix this.)

    • Heather – AGREED. Maps are so awesome. I had the hardest time trying to figure out which maps to include in this post, and then I shouldn't have put four on here because they're all too small, but GAH they're all so cool. Like on the one from Wicked, you can see the Yellow Brick Road! And WHO DOESN'T LOVE THE SEVEN KINGDOMS from Graceling and Fire?? There's a map in Monsters of Men too, but I didn't want to give away any spoilers for those who haven't made it that far into the series!

  2. Great post, I like the pretty books like Anna the best 🙂 and the spine art.
    I realised how few of my books have numbers on the spine too. It would be great if all series were numbered 🙂

  3. ♥ I LOVE ALL THE THINGS.

    The book I'm reading right now has deckled pages (& thank you, now I know what they're called!) & I'm constantly running my finger along them.

    Don't Breathe a Word was one of the first books I reviewed! /funfactfortheday

    Numbers on the spines makes life so much easier.

  4. I fully approve of everything on this list. Except for the red. I'm not getting that… but I do enjoy a nice deckled edge book.

  5. I love this post! I adore ALL of these things! Especially maps, the details, and deckled pages. One of the coolest little details I noticed in a book this last year was I believe is Scott Westerfeld's Peeps (though it may have been The Last Days). The page numbers were underlined, with the line extending to the end of the page; the page numbers moved very slightly up and down so that you didn't notice, but when you closed the book the lines created up and down ticks like a heart monitor would. I thought that was such a cool touch. These are the reasons switching to digital can never be 100% for me!

  6. Oooh. Where Things Come Back has such a pretty title page.
    It was only last year with the release of Anna and the French Kiss that I discovered deckled edges was a thing. I used to think they did something wrong in printing 😛
    Maps are so stinkin cool! Speaking of maps, I wish they'd do an official Hunger Games map. That would make me happy.
    Illu-freaking-strations! Heck yes!

  7. DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ABOUT NUMBERED SPINES! Really pub? How freaking hard is it to put the series number on the spine! Gosh I freaking hate this! Especially when I'm in a store buying a book and I can't remember the series order or if I've never read a series/book before… I need to know these things!

    Also, I love deckled pages and maps 🙂

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