Since I have already been going on about the ugly cover of the second book it’s high time to talk about the covers of the first book in the Sunday Philosophy Club series.

No doubt, the first cover is the best of all.  The fourth one is way too colourful and the whole style is not fitting at all. I have no idea what the coffee cups on the other English and one of the French covers have to do with the story. Yeah, people drink coffee, but then again, who doesn’t? Somehow publishers must think that Alexander McCall Smith and coffee go together well. There are also cups of coffee on my cover of “Friends, Lovers, Chocolate” and (this time fully justified) on “The perils of morning coffee".

The German cover is quite good again, however, the German tendency to use idiotic, misleading titles in order to attract the masses is very annoying. I have no idea why. Whereas ALL other languages stick to the original title the Germans changed it into a plain mystery title. “In Edinburgh murder is forbidden”, what on Earth is that supposed to mean? Is murder allowed elsewhere? The Germans just can’t leave well alone when it comes to book titles. No wonder some people on Amazon were disappointed with the book. Then again, if they buy a book with such a moronic title, they don’t deserve better.

I don’t care in the least for the Italian or Spanish illustrations. The Bulgarian cover (the title is a literal translation of the original according to Google translator) reflects the location, the Portuguese one the place where the “murder” happens, which I like in this case.

Which is your favourite cover?

Normally I am not particular when it comes to book covers. I like a beautiful cover and am glad to look at it, but if a slightly less attractive cover is considerably less expensive I go for that one. Even when it comes to series I am not fussy and just buy what is out there, not waiting for a specific cover or anything.

That being said I have set my heart on The Sunday Philosophy Club series by Alexander McCall Smith. I especially like, no, I love the Anchor issues with the illustrated covers (examples here). So I ordered a few of them on amazon.de from marketplace (cheap, you see, I don’t mind used books) and made sure I ordered the right covers.

Now, a couple of days ago I got one of them and was totally disappointed when I received a cover (from now on called “Ugly”) that was not what I had ordered (that one would be “Pretty”). It was this one. Needless to say I immediately sat down to complain to the seller when I noticed that on Ugly’s spine it said “Anchor”. I checked its ISBN number and it was Pretty’s very number. Further investigation showed that on amazon.de the real Ugly had a different ISBN number and was published by Canada Vintage. But my personal Ugly said Anchor and had Pretty’s number. What gives?

On amazon.com they also sell Ugly, this time published by Anchor without an ISBN number, but with an ASIN. Is there something I don’t get?

Am I too anal? Do you particularly care what covers your books have? And if you have a series and there is on Ugly peeking out of between all the Pretties, what do you do?

Here are my finds for this week…

• Steampunk and the Architecture of Idealism, article at FantasyMagazine.com
• Instructions on how to open a new book
• 50 things I learned from the movies
• I registered with DailyLit, a service that delivers fiction in instalments by email or RSS.
• In October there will be another Literary Giveaway Blog Hop hosted by Judith at Leeswammes’ Blog. Make sure you check it out!
• BethFish is hosting a great international giveaway at the moment to celebrate her three year blogging anniversary
• Willa at Wicked Wonderful Words has a great cover comparing post about Wuthering Heights. Check out the absolutely great cover that tries to sell Wuthering Heights with a sticker announcing this was “Bella and Edward’s favourite book”! Emily Brontë is turning over in her grave right now.

I had a look at the various covers of Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. All the covers feature one way or the other the painting by Vermeer, not surprising really.

Here are some British or US covers, some of which have a second painting on them which is also mentioned in the book, a view of Delft. I like those best. If you would like to know more about Vermeer, his life and art, I recommend to go to Essential Vermeer. That site has – among a lot of other information – a great interactive guide to Vermeer’s paintings that explains them in great detail.

Here is a German, French and Italian one:

Undoubtedly, it won’t take very long before the first cover appears that looks like this….

Already the first covers turn up that promote the book as “now a major motion picture” (see third English one).

Have you seen the covers of the new Penguin threads deluxe editions that are going to be released in fall? I am so drooling over the pictures at Jillian Tamaki’s blog. She is the artist who designs the new covers for “Emma”, “The Secret Garden” and “Black Beauty”. Aren’t they just gorgeous?

The covers of the books sold will obviously not be hand-embroidered (a bit too expensive for most) but will be sort of embossed and a tactile experience nevertheless.

The Atlantic.com also has a short article about this the project.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Image is a screenshot from Jillian Tamaki’s blog.

I found “The mysteries of Udolpho” by Ann Radcliffe on my German swap site recently. Its cover was quite surprising as it reminds me rather of a 1950s detective story than a Gothic novel from the 18th century.

So it was time for another cover compare. These are the other English covers I found, but I am sure there are many, many more:

Then there is a French and an Italian cover.

 

My favourites would be the first English cover in the second row. I like Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings, especially this one which is called “Kreidefelsen auf Rügen”. I also like the Italian cover, I just can’t resist pink!

Strangely enough there doesn’t seem to be any German version. A translation was published in 1795 called “Udolphos Geheimnisse” (a literal translation), but there is no new edition, no cover to be found, no nothing. Either there are not many German Gothic fans or they all ask for the original.

Which cover do you like best?

If you are now interested in reading this, The Mysteries of Udolpho is available as a free e-book at Project Gutenberg. Enjoy!

There are quite a few different covers out for “The garden of Eden” by Ernest Hemingway.

My two favourite ones are the first two. The third one is ok, I suppose, no. four I am not sure about. What exactly is this supposed to be? The first German one, hm, the girl is not at all what I picture her to be like. The second German one is absurd. Is this supposed to be David? Ridiculous! The beach is ok, not saying much about the story and definitely makes it look more idyllic than it is. The book contains other love stories as well, but The garden of Eden is the cover story.

Which one do you like best, especially if you know the story?

I read “The sun also rises” by Ernest Hemingway in February and quite liked it. So, it’s time to look at some of its covers. The title of the book when it was published in the UK in 1927 was “Fiesta” and this is what it is still called in Germany.

I couldn’t find a lot of German covers unfortunately, but there are plenty of English ones (and still more than I am showing here).

Most of the covers focus on the bullfight, not surprising given the book title, but even though the “fiesta” is an important part of the book and there IS a bullfight I think that an image of a bullfight gives the potential reader a wrong impression of the book. Mine is the 6th one, one of the least attractive, but swappers can’t be choosers.

 

I also found an Italian cover, which I actually like best (in spite of the bull motif).

And yet another one, this time Spanish…

 

Which one do you like best?

The reason I have been a bit quiet here lately is that I started reading The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. For once I am reading the book in the original language, but everything else wouldn’t have made much sense, would it?

Time for another cover comparison…

The left photograph looks very much like I imagine the sanatorium to look like. Obviously they just took that image and turned it into an illustration in the third cover. The snow in the second one is quite nice to look at, and makes sense, seeing that it even snows in August up there where the sanatorium is located.

 

I like the photograph on the left with the view through the window. Even though it gives the story a more positive spin than it should have. Actually there should be a thunderstorm outside. It’s not that a lot of patients seem to leave the sanatorium in good health. The third cover, not sure, the place rather looks like an abbey to me. The second one – plain boring. I don’t like it.

What is your favourite?

I read this book quite some time ago for a reading group that never was that successful, but I am grateful that I joined simply because I probably wouldn’t have read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini otherwise.

Even though the yellow covers might reflect the title in  a better way I prefer the other English version. I love the sky and the colors on that one.

I suppose you could translate “splendid” as “strahlend” even though that word would not have come to my mind immediately. To me the German title definitely lacks something, a two-syllable adjective would have been better, because as it is now it just won’t flow. But I am nitpicking here.