Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Book Covers Of Books I've Read

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week's topic is Favorite Book Covers Of Books I've Read.

I could easily have gone totally overboard with this.  After all, there are lots of covers I love because I've read the book so often that the cover is like an old friend.  And then there are all the gorgeous picture books, from Jan Brett to Mem Fox to Grahame Baese...   So I decided to limit my picks to adult, YA, and MG books from the last five years or so.   In no particular order:

The cover of Cinder is just plain awesome: it sums up the basic premise of the book in one simple image.  The juxtaposition of the half-seen cyborg parts and Ye Olde-looking font is inspired, and the shiny red shoe captures the eye instantly.  

Shadow of Night really requires close inspection.  I like the way the rings of constellations mimic an eye, the alchemical representation of the sun above, and the Elizabethan London skyline at the bottom. 

While it's marvelously atmospheric, at first glance, the cover of The Name of the Wind doesn't quite fit the book.  But when you read book 2 (and only if you're really paying attention!), there is deep significance to that solitary tree, and the cover art thus becomes both foreshadowing and warning.  Brilliant.  

I love the way Seraphina's original cover pays homage to 15th or 16th-century German woodcuts, the architecture clues you in to the setting (an analog of late-medieval or Renaissance northern Europe) and the dragon immediately announces that it's fantasy.  Besides, it's beautifully rendered.

Splintered's cover is pretty and weird and a little disturbing, all at once -- just like Wonderland.  And it picks up on the flower and bug elements that are so important in the book. 

Princess of the Silver Woods.  I wasn't going to pick a "dress" cover.  I really wasn't.  Sure, there are lots of gorgeous covers featuring gorgeous girls in gorgeous (and totally impractical) full, frothy, and/or overly-long dresses.  Frankly, the first ones were eye-catching, and now it's a bit too old-hat.  Or maybe old dress.  But there's just something about the lushness of that swirling red velvet cloak, and how it screams "Red Riding Hood", that I love.

Libriomancer is about a guy who can pull things out of books.  Real things.  You want Excalibur?  Isaac can do that.  The cover captures the essence of that premise.  And besides, Smudge!  (He's the fire spider on Isaac's shoulder.)

So far I've loved the books for these covers even more than I love the covers.  Pirate King ... well, I liked it.  I think.  I really love the cover, though, which encompasses a pirate, a ship, Morrocco, and... a movie camera?!  See, the book is about a silent film company making a movie about a silent film company making a movie of Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance.  (No, that's not a typo.)  With, by the way,  real pirates.  And a possible murder.  And Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. 

Then there's Clockwork Mafia.  The book, a steampunk adventure/mystery/romance with an American setting, was fun, but not amazing... but the cover is great eye candy.  ;-) 

Finally, I love the cover of Tuesdays at the Castle for its whimsy, and because Celie has her arms full of books and papers: clearly a girl after my own heart!

There you have it: ten of my favorite covers from books I've read in recent years. So which of these covers do you like (or dislike; that's OK too), and why?  And if you did a TTT post this week, leave me a link so I can come drool over all your pretty covers, too!