Tag Archives: book covers

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Favorite Book Covers

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Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week.

This week’s theme is Top Ten Favorite Book Covers of Books I’ve Read. I’m a sucker for an eye-catching cover, so my main challenge this week will be in limiting myself to just ten.

To get the full effect, I’m leaving most of the pictures here BIG size. ‘Cuz they’re just too pretty to shrink.

In no particular order:

1) Soulless by Gail Carriger. Proper Victorian lady, crazy-ass parasol, top hat and goggles. Not to mention the tagline at the bottom: “A Novel of Vampires, Werewolves, and Parasols”. I love the screaming pink title as well. Here’s one cover that is visually appealing and at the same time completely conveys the feel of the book.

Soulless (Parasol Protectorate, #1)

2) Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler: Book one in the Jane True series introduces us to a small-town girl whose world is about to get blown open as she discovers her secret heritage — as a half-selkie! I love the punky feel of this adorable cover:

Tempest Rising (Jane True, #1)

3) Lamb by Christopher Moore: Specifically, this special edition of Lamb, featuring a leatherette cover, gilt-edging on the pages, and a silk bookmark. Quite Biblical, wouldn’t you say? And totally appropriate for Christopher Moore’s one-of-a-kind view of “The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal”. One of my favorite books ever… especially with this cover.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

4) The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley: This is the book that — for me — completely defies the “don’t judge a book by its cover” rule. As soon as I saw the cover, I fell in love. Had to have it. The fact that I ended up really enjoying the story (timeslip romance, Scotland, Jacobites, etc) is just a plus. This is just gorgeous:

The Winter Sea

5) The Silent Land by Graham Joyce. This book is fantastic, and the starkness of the cover, with its eerie landscape and empty chairlift, is a perfect portrayal of the book’s mood and setting. It’s hard to tell from just a picture, but the book jacket is translucent white, with the black areas showing through from the book itself. Amazing.

The Silent Land

6) Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith: The book that started the classics/monster mash-up craze! I know we’re probably all sick of them by now, but P&P&Z was really an original at the time. I love the cover — you could easily walk right by it in a bookstore, assuming it’s just a portrait of a traditional Regency-era young woman… but then the teeth or throat jump out at you and practically force you to do a double-take. So simple. So clever.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

7) The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman: The girl on the cover is just so beautiful, and I love the sepia tones and uncluttered layout. The cover gives the book a classic yet exotic look. Stunning.

The Dovekeepers

8) The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater: I like these books individually, but love them when you put them all side by side. The colors, the changing seasons, the wolves — it all works. Plus, the print inside the books matches the color theme on the jackets, which seemed weird at first, but actually works nicely once you get used to it.

9) The Radleys by Matt Haig: White picket fence… with just a drop or two of blood. Not your average day in the suburbs, that’s for sure.

The Radleys

10) Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll.  This is one odd, twisty book, so hard to describe — but I really love the intricacy of the black and white cover, with just a touch of red for added oomph.

Bones of the Moon

Wait, what? I’m up to ten already? How can that be? As I do on so many top 10 lists, I must give a shout-out to my honorable mention books. I love these covers too, not necessarily any less than the ten above — but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere, right?

My honorable mention — but I really, really love them — book covers are:

  • Under the Dome by Stephen King
  • 11/22/63 by Stephen King
  • Sunshine by Robin McKinley
  • Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce
  • Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
  • Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall by Bill Willingham

SunshineSisters Red (Fairytale Retellings, #1)Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

Someone stop me!

So what made your top 10 list this week? Do tell!

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What’s black and red and read all over?

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Some of the most striking book covers on my shelves, that’s what.

There’s something about that black and red combination that is so sharp and so eye-catching — maybe that’s why we’re seeing more and more of the black and red look in bookstores these days. I suppose you could credit this one for really popularizing the color combo:

This is not a Twilight post! I’m talking about the color scheme here.

Then publishers decided to Twilight-ify some of the classics, as if adding shiny black and red covers would suddenly make teens salivate over Emily Bronte:

Let’s ignore the “Bella & Edward’s favorite book” caption at upper right, shall we?

They’ve even done it to Austen:

“The Love That Started It All”. Please…

Well, I do have to admit that the black and red look is quite catchy… and perhaps a bit sinister. Does this version imply that there will be blood in Pride & Prejudice? (Gotta love that ampersand, by the way.) Teens who pick this one up expecting sparkles and red eyes may be a tad disappointed.

As I was reshelving books this past week, I pulled out some of my favorite red and black covers from my own collection. Excuse the shoddy camera work — that just proves that these are really mine. Here are some from my shelves that I think are most effective:

Replay by Ken Grimwood

A wonderful, awful, disturbing book of timey-wimey weirdness, as a man replays his life over and over again. If you had the ability to change your life, would you? The black and red cover with the repeating half-photo gives me a bit of the chills.

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

This YA book is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, with a Buffy-style heroine who kicks butt, brings down the monsters, and tries to make a better life for her sister.

Restless by William Boyd

I will admit to not having read Restless, but it sounds fascinating — and I do like the cover. Stark and a bit mysterious.

Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll

Such an odd book, mind-bending at times. I’m still not sure whether it worked for me, but one thing’s certain — I do love the cover.

The Radleys, a genre-defying story of vampires living in the suburbs, got a comic-esque cover aimed toward the YA audience in the UK (above), but I actually prefer the US version, which conveys more of a sense of something sinister lurking behind the domestic facade:

The Radleys, with the US version, marketed as adult fiction

Sadly, my more camera was not up to completing its task, so although this book lives on my shelves, I could not get a decent picture of it and had to resort to importing an online version:

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

This story of dark secrets in a small town is well-served by the sharp cover art that combines a gothic feel with modern images.

Another that I’ve read, but only as an e-book:

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

This modern retelling of The Scarlet Letter is hauntingly well-done, and I really love the sharpness of the cover portrait.

Finally, I just came across this image of new editions of classic works by Stephen King:

I think I’ll be dreaming about these tonight. Wouldn’t they look terrific on my shelves?

That’s all I’ve got. How about you? What black and red beauties have caught your eye lately?

Look at all the pretty!

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I simply must pass along this piece from Tor showcasing Barnes & Nobles’s new leatherbound classics* series. These are beautiful! Must get many.

*Classics, like beauty, apparently being in the eye of the beholder, this collection of classics includes not only the Brothers Grimm, Arabian Nights, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens, but also Stephen King, Michael Crichton, and Douglas Adams. Not that I’m complaining.

And here are some of the gorgeous volumes that fill me with book lust:

At $18 a pop (mostly), and considering the heftiness of some of these volumes, I’m not going to be rushing right out to buy them all. But maybe as special treats, here or there? Perhaps I need to start dropping hints now to my various and sundry family members who always tell me “I never know what to buy you” when my birthday rolls around…