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.

I read this book by Marina Lewycka a few years ago and thought it was so so. I liked the title and found the synopsis quite interesting, but somehow it didn’t live up to my expectations. What drew me to the book in the first place was the retro style of the cover (which was continued with “Two Caravans” and “We are all made of glue”).

It seems the Germans liked the cover since they kept it, apart from that second one which is a book club edition. The same with the title which is a literal translation of the original one.

Today is about “The Neverending Story” by Michael Ende. The original German title is “Die unendliche Geschichte” which was translated into English literally. I have read this book quite a few times when I was a kid and loved it. I still do. I thought I’d have a look at a few of its covers.

The German covers are all pretty simple. In fact, the simpler the cover of this story is, the better. That’s why I prefer the first one which is a special edition. I have the second one, it is ok. The illustration is rather plain and doesn’t suggest a lot. I don’t like the third one. The snakes, yeah, ok, there is the connection to the book, but other than that I find it rather ugly.

The English covers, well, I like the first one in itself, but I hate the fact that it tries to tell the reader what things look like. The Neverending Story is a book that should leave everything to the imagination of the individual reader. I’m not quite fair here because there are illustrations in my German edition but for some reason they never kept me from creating pictures in my mind at the time. Maybe I was more imaginative when I was younger and never paid attention to pictures in books. The film, however, is a different matter. I absolutely hated the film. The way it depicted Fuchur for example was so disappointing, I was shocked. Unfortunately after seeing that worm like thing it is how I NOW imagine Fuchur in my head whereas before he looked totally different. I have to say it again, I hate that film. And now you know what I think about that second English cover. “Now a fabulous film”, yeah, right. Don’t think so.

I had a look at the magazine from Thalia today and came across a Maggie Stiefvater book that immediately caught my eye. I think, but am not certain, that Shiver is a YA book, not my cup of tea usually, but the plot sounded quite good and the amazon reviews are all raving about it.

This is the blurb: Grace is fascinated by the wolves in the woods behind her house; one yellow-eyed wolf in particular. Sam leads two lives. In winter, he stays in the frozen woods. In summer, he has few months to be human. Grace and Sam finally meet and realize they can’t bear to be apart. Sam must fight to stay human – or risk losing himself, and Grace, for ever.

Doesn’t this sound totally romantic? I am melting away here. I’ll have to give it a try. Just for the cover alone I’d love to buy the German translation, but no, I’ll go for the original.

The German title once more has nothing to do with the original. “Nach dem Sommer” means “After (the) summer”. 

 

The steampunk challenge made me have a look around for various books, among them the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger which was mentioned quite often as a recommendation:

• Soulless
• Changeless
  Now, where is the parasol in the cover, I wonder.
• Blameless

OK, so today I’m not comparing covers, but I’m rather showing you how a cover is created.

I’m talking about the cover of “Blameless”, the third instalment in the series. If you, like me,  love Photoshop this is going to be especially interesting.

Sometimes amazon is spooky. The recommendations they give me are so accurate that I wonder where they get their information from. Now don’t say it’s previously bought books or books I looked at recently. I never buy GLBT books on amazon and the last time I bought a vampire book there must have been last year. So I have no idea what made amazon suggest Carmilla. Anyway, they did and it makes sense, but I have it already. I think I read Carmilla about 20 years ago or so. Carmilla, by the way, was written long before Bram Stoker came along.

This is the synopsis from amazon.

Living a lonely existence in a remote schloss in Styria, on the border of Austria and Hungary, Laura and her father play host to an unexpected guest, the beautiful young Carmilla. Her arrival is closely followed by an outbreak of unexplained deaths in the area, while the young women’s growing friendship coincides with a series of nightmares and mysterious nocturnal visitations, and a gradual downward spiral in Laura’s health. A chilling tale of the un-dead, Carmilla is a beautifully written example of the gothic genre. Believed to be the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s gothic masterpiece ‘Dracula’, written over twenty years later, Carmilla stands out as an all-time horror classic.

And here are a few covers in various languages. I only like the German e-book, all the others – no, thanks. The German one seems to be the only title that adds a little to it. It means “Carmilla, the female vampire”.

German

German e-book

French

English

Spanish

Italian

If you have tasted blood now, no pun intended, and would like to read Carmilla, go to Project Gutenberg and download it for free.

Just because it is such a nice book (I never found it particularly terrifying, even though I usually hate horror of any kind), I’m showing you a few covers of Rosemary’s baby by Ira Levin. It seems there are not too many out there. Main feature is either the old sinister looking building or the ubiquitous pram.

My favourite one is the first one, because I absolutely love old buildings with a bad reputation, if they come with gargoyles (or grotesques, which I know now. Gargoyles are the ones that spout water. My recent reading material was very educating on various subjects, you see), even better.

I have the second German cover, which I find not so bad either with its black silhouette.

Which one is your favourite cover and did you like the book?

Carin’s Friday Coffee chat last week was about our inner Peter Pan. So today I am looking at a few covers of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

German (kids’ and adult edition)

I like the way the cover focuses on the chess match. The adult cover doesn’t say much at all about the book. And even though I don’t see the reason for an adult cover (by now everybody who sees you reading this book knows you are reading a kids’  – or is it YA?- book).

UK (kids’ and adult edition)

Hogwarts Express is quite nice, too. I like the adult cover, even though I still don’t see the point).

US (regular, anniversary and collectors’ edition)

I don’t like the covers at all, too flashy for my taste. The collector’s edition is probably supposed to be reminding us of old, leather bound books, but does it achieve it? Not really.

If I was an American reader I would be thoroughly pissed off about the change of title and would boycott the US editions for that reason. Why they felt the need to change the title for the American market is beyond me. The thing has been called the Philosopher’s Stone (or "Stein der Weisen”) within living memory, so why change it? Even IF there are people who have not heard about it they can google it, for Christ’s sake or – as a last resort – use a dictionary.

Which cover do you like best?

Do you think there is a need for adult covers?

What do you think about the change of the American title?

Let me know!

Are you looking for a specific book over? Would you just like to browse different book covers from various time periods? Or are you in search of covers by a specific designer?

 

Have a look at Alexander S. Budnitz’ Cover Archive! You can search for covers starting from the year 1900 up to now.

A feast for the eyes of book lovers…

It’s “The Gargoyle” today. Possibly this book will be the September book of the Unputdownables Book Club at Goodreads. But I am planning to read it in the buying ban month September anyway. I managed to finally get a copy at my book swapping site, a copy with my favourite cover, I might add. Even though the cover doesn’t play a part in my decision whether to read a book or not, I still like some better than others. In this case I very much prefer the 7th cover with the woman’s back and the heart.

 

I wonder why the English covers have two different quotes in that banner across the heart. One says “Accidents ambush the unsuspecting often violently, just like love”, the other one “Love is as strong as death, as hard as hell”. The German quote (cover 8)  is a translation of the first one.

Another funny thing is that they left out the definite article in the German title. Why would they do that? They could call it “Der Gargoyle” and it would be just fine.

Which cover do you prefer?