Click here to see Let’s Talk!
I am such a cover person, I cannot even answer this question.
Seriously, I can’t. There is NO WAY.
But what I CAN DO is show you a few of my favorites,
some that pop up in my head quickly.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- I love to see a cover that is cohesive to the book’s plot or theme. (Ex: If the girl is wearing the dress, is that scene in the book? Hope so! Otherwise, it’s random.)
- Sometimes minimal covers with titles in really great fonts work well too. Great fonts and good color choice catch my eye and stick out in my memory.
- I’m always drawn to the use of the color red in a cover/book spine and I find myself oftentimes gravitating towards those book spines in the library, bookstore, or on my own shelves at home.
- Designers, PLEASE display the title larger/more prominently than the author’s name. Just do it.
(I am greatly peeved when the author’s name is larger than the title on the cover. I see this a lot with adult fiction books, namely mass market paperback. Lots of times it may be those authors that are constantly churning out books, as if it is the author’s name drawing the reading of the book rather than the title or the story. Ugh, RANT. I digress.)
Never ever ever.
***************************************************************
What are some of YOUR favorite book covers?
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!
I really like the first 2 you showed (The Night Circus & Railsea) – the rest, not so much. One of my favorite covers of books published this year (haven't read it though), is Nameless by Kyle Chais.
Ok, yes, Nameless has a great cover and also that story sounds awesome. I hadn't heard of it before!
I completely forgot to mention that I only put covers for books that I have already read on here. There are a ton that I have saved or bookmarked or snapped as pictures on my phone, but I haven't read the books yet. In order for me to narrow it down, I had to figure out SOME WAY to only put five, so I told myself I'd only put up books that I'd read before.
Otherwise, I'd have up some other great ones like: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan, maybe The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt, maybe the paperback version of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline…
Thank you for reminding me about that and for stopping by Tanya!
I really like the old-school Hobbit and the Railsea covers.
I think the 1st edition cover of The Dark Tower VII is still my favorite.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7fnbm1JQ81rsfc7ro1_500.jpg
I agree, it's a good one!
Oh, I love all those too, but The Hobbitt cover is my fave of your picks! I tend to love any cover that has a graphic feel to it (Sisters Red and Unspoken come to mind) and The Hobbitt cover almost reminds of a Japanese woodblock print design. Beautiful:)
(Here is my current fave cover btw:
http://pinterest.com/pin/207376757812281375/)
Oh, and I am reading The Diviners right now and it is AMAZING. Gosh I love Libba Bray!
YES I agree with what you said about the graphic feel!
Oh that IS a beautiful cover! Her first cover was really pretty too but this new cover that you have pinned is absolutely stunning. See, I would want to read that without even knowing what the book is about just because of how pretty it is.
"I'm always drawn to the use of the color red in a cover/book spine." YES!!!!!!
I definitely agree all on points. And I LOVE Those covers.
I could talk about book covers and spines for hours. I almost love the design aspect as much as the stories.
SO MANY YA books feature girls in dresses. And often they have NO relation to the book. So I agree that I like to see a connection to the dress and the content of the book – great point. I really like the Night Circus and Great and Terrible Beaty covers above. As well as the Hobbit one. It is lovely graphically. And I'm still obsessing over the Song of Achilles cover. I sometimes like to pretend I'm an archaeologist (since Indiana Jones), so I love the artifact on that cover.
I was initially attracted to the story The Night Circus because of the pretty cover, mainly because of the use of red. Then I read a blog post about how the cover was designed and I knew it would be a favorite forever. If you haven't seen the story of the making of that cover, I want to send it to you. It's so cool.
I really love the pretty dresses covers, even though lots of people tend to rage against them. BUT I want them to be relevant to the book, not just a ploy to get me to read the book. That annoys me a little bit. An example is Wither and Fever by Lauren DeStefano – every single aspect of those covers, front and back, every single detail is in the story. From the faces to the poses to the props. But when the Fever cover was revealed people were taken back and I remember some weirded out blogger friends because of the cover model's appearance. It DOES look weird, but it is part of the story. So for me, that works.
Also, the Achilles cover is neat because it has a tiny bit of a texture to the mask. Not too much, but enough to make you notice it. It's just raised a little bit, which is cool. But the spine is even cooler on my edition. It's orange. It stands out against the rest of the book. I can't find a picture online to compare it to – I don't know if it is orange because it was printed after the Orange Prize was awarded or it was always orange – and I keep forgetting to look when I'm uptown near the bookstore.
I LOVE covers. I don't know if you and I have the same tastes though. Grave Mercy is a cool cover, I'm just not so sure about the rest. I really like an illustrative cover. Most of my favorites are Middle Grade books. I agree with your pet peeve – totally feel the same way as you about that. I also can't stand it when the title crossed over the picture in a way that it feels obstructive or intrusive.
Some cover I really liked:
The Humming Room
All The Hex Hall Series covers
Many of the Fallen Series covers
Imaginary Girls
If you go to my blog and grab the label cover crazy you'll quickly get an idea of what I like. 🙂
(Those are just a few off the top of my head.)
Oh yeah! I like a lot of those and you had a lot highlighted that I haven't seen before or had forgotten about. My favorite from your blog is Cyn Balog's Touched, which reminds me of Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion.
Oooh, I love that edition of the Hobbit. Mine is very plain. I also really like the cover for A Great and Terrible Beauty, even though I seem to be in the minority on not loving that one. 🙂
Great point about the title being larger than the author's name. Kinda makes me want to go through my shelves and see how many books I have where the author's name is bigger!
Yeah, this is the edition of The Hobbit that I WISH I had – mine is a little older than this.
The Night Circus is one of my absolute favorite covers EVER. It's SO perfect.
I also loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone (really, that book cannot do any wrong in any way!), the Need series, The Body Finder series, the Alchemyst series, Stephanie Perkins' books, Cassandra Clare's books, the Hourglass series, Illuminate, the Possession series…I could go on and on! I'm definitely a cover lover.
(Oh, and I just remembered: The Leather-Bound Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Box Set)
The Night Circus, yes. I've gone back and forth about whether or not I like the paperback cover better, but ultimately I think I like this one best.
You know, I agree about Daughter of Smoke and Bone and actually almost put it on here – I like the next book too. Cassandra Clare's books are really pretty and the Hourglass books too.
i love the hobbit
I love covers! But I don't think we have the same taste at all. I like GRAVE MERCY, but the rest of your picks, I don't know.
But you inspired me to do a cover post of my own! My favorites are here:
http://www.rachelneumeier.com/news/