Interlude: Book cover whining
Aug. 18th, 2013 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olorielYou know, the book covers for the most recent Temeraire novels might actually make me cave in and get myself an e-reader at last.
See, the thing is, I like series. And I sort of do judge books by their covers. That is, I'll infinitely prefer books that have covers that please my tastes. If I have a choice between different editions of books, as I almost always have considering the differences between American and British editions, I'll choose the one with the least appalling cover. Yes, that's the sad truth: I don't give a damn about the variety of English - I want the book to look attractive, both while I'm hiding behind it and when it sits on my shelf. (Attractive to me! I know this all amounts to de gustibus.) So if I can choose between this book and this one, oh dear, am I ever going to take the latter. So it's a book by a British author and I take the Americanised version? HELL YES. I'll even take the German translation if all English editions look horrible.
Anyway. You know what pisses me off even more than ridiculous book covers that really have no place being that ridiculous?
Series book covers that don't match.
I mean, seriously, what kind of idiot publishes a series of novels without consistent covers on the first editions? You can always re-release them with different covers, that's fine, but switching in mid-series? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY BOOKSHELF?!
In the case of Temeraire, they first had very stylish, recogniseable book covers and then, just after Tongues of Serpents... stopped producing those. Instead, they went for generic dragon fantasy cheesy computer-generated images. OK, some people like those, perhaps. But still, why switch in mid-series?
I quite honestly don't want to mix and match on my shelf. I haven't yet bought Crucible of Gold because I'm waiting for a better cover to come along! And now Blood of Tyrants is in sight and they have... YET a different cover design. I could despair. I want to read these books! But I don't want to have to put them on my shelf with the rest of the series if they look all pointlessly different!
(And no, library books are not an option, because getting English-language books from the local library isn't as easy as you may think, unless it's Harry Potter or an older "staple".)
I could despair! Or go for e-books, I guess. :P
(Yes yes, I know, my first-world problems. Let me show you them.)
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Date: 2013-08-18 01:36 pm (UTC)Though, when I was younger, I used to be really good at judging books by their covers. There were some I picked up, knew I wouldn't like them, and put them back. The few times I ignored that feeling, I ended up regretting it. Unfortunately, that ability seems to have disappeared: the past two times I've gone to the library, I've picked out nothing but busts fiction-wise. (Technically, I have two books left to read from my latest haul, but they're nonfiction.)
no subject
Date: 2013-08-19 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-19 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-19 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-22 01:25 pm (UTC)I wish I could NOT care!
I used to have that with blurbs. If I didn't like the way the blurb was written, most of the time I wouldn't like the story. (I still tend to navigate by that rule where fanfic is concerned.) Of course, with the trend to put excerpts or reviews on back covers instead of blurbs, that often isn't helpful anymore...
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Date: 2013-08-22 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-22 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-22 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-22 04:07 pm (UTC)Excerpts give me at least niggling hint of what the book's about (though they still annoy me). If it's solely reviews, the book goes back on the shelf. I don't care what people thought about it; I want to know what it's about!
no subject
Date: 2013-08-22 04:29 pm (UTC)