The OF Blog: Cover Art and the Revisiting of Books Long Ago Read

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Cover Art and the Revisiting of Books Long Ago Read

Every now and then I'll see a post on other blog about upcoming books or books they desire to read/review soon.  Often these title lists will include cover art.  Without reading any blurbs, I generally can tell which type of fiction (for the majority of the blogs that I read on occasion, it's SF/Fantasy) the books are by the cover art alone.  Bold, moving characters set against a vivid landscape, with garish fonts heralding the story to come.  This seems to be the norm for these types of novels.  Yet there are other types of fictions, fictions whose cover arts may give some hints at what is within, but often the images are more muted, yet (for me at least) more pleasing to the eye.

Below are six titles that I've read at some point in my past.  A couple at least (I'll let you guess which ones) are touchstone reads that recall important moments in my personal (and reading) life.  But there are some interesting motifs illustrated in most of these, things that make me more eager to read them than any straightforward "genre" work does lately.  Feel free to give your thoughts on the covers and/or the books.  Also, I plan on re-reading these in the next 2-3 weeks.  Let me know which ones you'd like to see reviewed.


First read in 2005, right after the English translation was published.


First read in 2007.



First read in 1994.



First read in 2007.


First read in 2010.


First read in 2008.

And yes, I purposely provided no descriptions of the stories, to see if you were curious about any of these works based on their covers (or were already aware of them) without description getting in the way of visual first impression.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would love to see you review Dictionary of the Khazars.

srs said...

I suspect the first book started your fascination w/squirrels...

I'd like to see your review of the Valente. I've read one of her novels and had very mixed feelings about it. (Excellent writing, story basis not as compelling.)

Larry Nolen said...

I will, likely after I buy the Serbian edition to read in parallel. I am still working on learning the language, after all.

As for the squirrel bit, it has nothing to do with books, I promise. Bit of an in-joke between me and a woman dear to me. As for the Valente, in the near future, no doubt.

 
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