While She Knits

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

Anachred is away from the internet this week, but we can't let the opportunity for a Friday Book Talk to go by.  Today's topic is:

BOOK COVERS

Specifically, what are some book covers you hated?  Why?  Can you post a picture?  Was the book published in the UK as well as the US?  If the covers were different, which did you prefer (or, which did you hate more)?

and did anybody like the covers on reprints of the Vorkosigan books?

Comments

[cleo]

In truth, I rarely pay attention to book covers. I just hate it whenever they get changed because a film has come out.

[appellations.livejournal.com]

*seconds this*

I mean I like Stardust but WHY does Claire Danes have to be on the cover?!

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Oh, do you mean like this (http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=536845), or worse yet, this (http://images.contentreserve.com/ImageType-100/1191-1/%7B38E56897-7AFF-40E1-A4E7-95F3551254A1%7DImg100.jpg)?

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

I had an old paperback copy of The Perilous Gard with a truly horrifying cover. I bought it anyway, because I wanted a copy of the book and it was the only one available, but the cover made it look like a trashy romance. The girl on the front, clearly supposed to be Kate, was not only ravishingly lovely (no, no!), but also modern-looking, with sort of feathery, blow-dried-looking hair. SO WRONG. When they came out with the newer covers, with their wonderful artwork, I immediately bought one and gave away the old copy, feeling slightly guilty for palming it off on the library sale, but thinking that at least someone would probably buy it and discover something unexpected.

[twtd]

I can't stand the cover for The Swimming Pool Library. It looks like it's an attempt at trashy gay porn without being too explicit. It might be appropriate for the book (though the book is about as far removed from trashy gay porn you can get and still have scenes in an adult movie theater), but it doesn't make it a very inviting read.

I know some people in my classes got some odd looks when they were reading a Hitler biography that just had a picture of him on the cover and his name in really big print. I suppose that the cover wasn't condemnatory enough.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

*didn't like covers of the Miles Vorkosigan books*

*seconds the lameness of changing the cover when a movie has been made*

I really don't like those covers they've been releasing Jane Austen novels in--pink or some other girly pastel color, with frills and... stuff. It makes it look as if its some sort of modern pre-teen girl romance, which it isn't.

Bujold

[peanut13171.livejournal.com]

I haven't noticed the reprints of the Vorkosigan books 'cause I have the originals and don't need more copies (I buy used ones to distribute to friends).

This is not a cover I hate, but it really annoys me. It's the cover of the next Bujold, Passage (Sharing Knife 3). It screams midwest farmer family saga:

http://www.dendarii.co.uk/Covers/American/knife.html

Don't have anything agains family sagas, but this book is a fantasy. An adventurous romantic fantasy, I hope. And this cover does not "say" that. It's rather humdrum and boring, IMO, and I doubt it does the book justice.

Re: Bujold

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

are they good? I keep seeing them in the bookstores and wondering if I should pick them up...I've only read the first two Vorkosigan books (chronologically--the Cordelia's Honor ones) and while Cordelia herself put me off a bit, I wouldn't mind reading more Bujold.

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

Man, I will admit that, despite everything y'all had told me about Miles, I hesitated before buying the Cordelia's Honor omnibus because the cover was SO bad. Aw man. Suckzorz.

ALSO LESLIE LESLIE I saw those new Little House covers and I hate them EVEN MORE than I hate the new Gail Carson Levine covers! I mean, okay, I don't begrudge the models getting to dress up all pretty (especially the Levine ones), but the originals were just so CUTE and homey and old-timey and I miss them.

Also, I just hate Photoshopped covers (http://community.livejournal.com/athanarel/208505.html?thread=4078969#t4078969) in general. There's no real style or art to them. That's one of the things I really truly adore about the KoA cover--it's an actual picture. Hah. Gamorgeous.

And screw movie covers. Though it really amuses me to see advertisements for Jane Austen movies--my roommate last year had the real movie poster for the latest P&P movie, and it said "From the beloved author that brought you Sense and Sensibility and Emma" and it made me laugh because P&P is arguably the most popular book (and I'm pretty sure it was published before either of those, although she was working on it and S&S at around the same time) and the one everyone knows, and it also makes it kinda sound like Jane Austen's been coming up with new stories for us to read, rather than oh, I dunno, she's been DEAD for a hundred and fifty years.

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

Jade, I felt the same. It took a year of poking from Ro and Checkers. But they are fantastic and have the honour of having a goat in y-front and a squid sitting on top of them on my bookshelf (i never did show y'all a picture of that), but anyway they are wonderful to read over and over again.

Cordelia's Honor is more setting the background for the Miles books. I read it after I'd read most of the others and adored it for filling in the backstory but I prefer Miles as a protagonist. Gosh, I wish I could just lend you my copies...!

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

Urgh! I haven't seen the new Little House covers and don't want to. By the Gail Carson Levine ones - do you mean the Princess Tales series? They're messing with those???? Oh, for pete's sake, the girls at school *love* those books, they don't *need* to change the covers!

I hate Photoshopped covers, too; and so many of the newer covers are just so slick and superficial. Even a lot of the ones that aren't actually Photoshopped have a sort of Photoshopped mentality or quality to them.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I don't always like covers with photos of real people on them, but I love this (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n17/n89055.jpg).

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

A book I read a couple of weeks ago had two very different covers in the UK and US. In the UK, they went for the this is literature! (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/0719564565/sr=8-2/qid=1201284795/ref=dp_image_text_0?ie=UTF8&n=468294&s=gateway&qid=1201284795&sr=8-2) approach, while in the US, they went for the hey this book is about books and a beach! (http://www.amazon.com/Mister-Pip-Lloyd-Jones/dp/0385341067/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201284830&sr=8-1) look. I like the US cover. The UK one made me delay picking up it up because it was just so grey.

[emerald-happy.livejournal.com]

oh, I see what you mean about the grey. sdn showed us several covers yet-to-be-chosen for Kelly Link's Pretty Monsters in different combinations of colours. The first was bright pink and red and although I loved the actual design, the pink was...yeah. and then she showed us a grey and yellow one and it did look like the whole "this is literature" approach but grey even with a bit of yellow was glum. *hearts colours combinations*

[appellations.livejournal.com]

I actually prefer the UK cover to the US one, grey as it may be. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer design and illustrations to actual pictures on book covers.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Someone had a link to an article that compared sci fi book covers of British vs. US versions but I can't find the site now. Who was it? Peggy?

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

This is the link to the article (how does one insert a hot link in a comment?)

http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=columns&vol=carol_pinchefsky&article=002

It was from this post in athanarel -

http://community.livejournal.com/athanarel/208505.html

[cailet-06.livejournal.com]

While I don't have a cover in general, what I dislike sometimes about adult fantasy books is that half the time the novel will have a half naked women, half naked man ect.. That pretty much has nothing to do with the book, or an exaggeration. There have been several in which I've been embarrassed to take the book to the checkout desk.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that that is more the norm for Romance novels than fantasy. Not that you don't see it happen now and then on fantasy books.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

Some years ago, before Internet bookstores or Internet anything much, I ordered a new hardcover copy of Elizabeth Enright's THE SATURDAYS, having found in BIP that it was in print. When my copy arrived, I was horrified and outraged. Instead of the original cover that was drawn by the author (as were the interior illustrations) they had this horrible, awful, ugly cover. I was so angry that I wrote a nasty letter to the publisher, Holt, asking whatever had possessed them to do such a thing. I actually got a reply from the children's book editor, saying that the decision had happened before her time, but that she suspected that someone had wanted to "update" the cover, they had hired an artist, and before they realized how ghastly it was things were too far along to change it.

And I was pleased to see, at about the same time, that some of Carolyn Haywood's "Betsy" books had been reissued, so I ordered them. And when they arrived they had reduced the size of the books and print, (remember how they were always rather tall, large books, with larger print inside?), printed them on poorer-quality paper, and put hideous covers on them (again, the author had illustrated her own books, and these covers were by someone else and had garish colors on them and were just *awful*). This time, I took the jackets off the book, folded them up, stuffed them in an envelope with a cutting letter to the publisher, and mailed them back to the publisher. I kept the books only because I could at least read the stories, no matter how icky the format. Unlike Holt, this publisher never replied.

I used to love the Scholastic paperback covers, back when they used either the original cover or at least an illustration from inside the book. Occasionally they commissioned completely different art, cover and interior, as with WAGGLES AND THE DOG CATCHER and GINNIE AND THE MYSTERY DOLL, and either because I saw the paperback art first or because it's actually so, I actually preferrred Scholastic's art.

However, round about the 1980's they started putting "realistic" drawings on the cover, whether or not they matched the art inside. Everything was done in the same general style, whatever kind of story it was. So GHOSTS WHO WENT TO SCHOOL, with it's funny story and it's amusing, googly-eyed style of drawing inside, had a "realistic" cover. GONE-AWAY LAKE, with Beth and Joe Krush's magnificent spidery-lined drawings inside, had a "realistic" cover. I hated that. (And over the years I've replaced many - most - of my old Scholastic paperbacks with hardcovers, but now I'm considering buying them again as I see them at flea markets and yard sales and such, because really, they look quite good together. Last year I found a website, since lost, that showed a bunch of them, and started wishing I hadn't gotten rid of mine, hardcovers or no hardcovers).

Can our next While She Knits be covers that we love? I've got quite a few of those, too!

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

*has Ghosts Who Went to School with the original cover*

That was high on my list of favorites when I was in elem school - in fact, for both of my older brothers, too. Scholastic Book orders were consistently a highlight of my early school years.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Also, I really loved the original cover art for the Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander, and they were redone to be more realistic and less "artsy," which makes me growl. Though I think they've reissued the old covers now, if I'm not mistaken.

[appellations.livejournal.com]

Peggy! I found ONE Vorkosigan book in the local stores and I put it down because it looked like a trashy romance novel on the cover. If that's the Vorkosigan covers you're talking about, then they are kinda gross.

[aspectabund.livejournal.com]

My most favouritest cover EVAR:

Octavian Nothing: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0763624020/sr=8-1/qid=1201385018/ref=dp_image_0/104-5123853-4094352?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&qid=1201385018&sr=8-1

It's just such an amazing cover, art and subject both. I thought it looked a bit like a watering can on his head, but when you find out what it really is (near the end of the book) you kind of look at it in horrified fascination.

Also, librarians: what is that peculiar silver sticker with a P on it mean? I've never seen it before. I have the book, but it only has the National book award sticker on it.

Anywa, I'm also fond of these covers: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0385602642.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg http://www.ofertondelibros.com/images/large/isbn978075/9780756401450-l.jpg

On the note of Photoshopped covers, I agree that they generally suck, but when done well, I am happy inside. Such as this: http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/8920000/8925677.jpg

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

And I could hardly bring myself to look at the cover of Octavian Nothing because it is so horrifying. The P is for a Printz Honor and OMG I sat with M.T. Anderson at breakfast at the ALA conference the day before he gave his speech at the Printz reception and his speech rocked even though he was sick and he had to leave early and at breakfast he gave me his fruit cup which I considered keeping until the end of time but I didn't I ate it instead. :)

[sublimelysuki.livejournal.com]

A book cover I particularly disliked was [i] When Demon's Walk [i] by Patricia Briggs. Mostly because unlike other content-cover fiascos where the cover designer obviously didn't read the book, these covers actually had a scene from the novel, but dressed the character in bellydancing/harem chic. One character is actually disguised as a boy at the time.

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

Such a betrayal, to portray an actual scene so wrong!

Welcome! Thanks for posting!

Life As We Knew It

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I'm in shock over this one. The original hardback cover--very chilling.
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n41/n206652.jpg

Now go to the author's site and read about the mix up with the Scholastic paperback cover--all pink and cutsey.
http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/2007/10/cover-story.html

I'll be buying one of those "collector's editions" at my bookfair tomorrow.