Best Book Covers of 2010

So after a couple days' delay (things are still crazy around here) I'm back with another top 10 from 2010. Today we're looking at the best book covers from 2010. Now, I haven't read all of these, but the covers to these books are super cool anyway.Those of you who are longtime readers are familiar with how much I gush about covers during my Waiting on Wednesday posts. So I guess I'm somewhat of a cover enthusiast. I love to gush about good covers, and rant about bad ones.

So let me tell you, this was hard. I mean, really, really, really hard for me to choose only 10. I got it narrowed down to 20 fairly easily, and 15 eventually, but narrowing it down to only 10 was killer. But after looking at the 10 I finally chose, I saw that they narrowed down into semi-categories. And I thought it would be fun to present them that way. Perhaps in a few days I'll post the runner ups, because there were a lot of great book covers last year.

So here are my Top 10 Covers of 2010. I made sure I uploaded large files, so all of these can be clicked on and be viewed large size in all their splendid glory.

Enjoy!

Category 1: Period Dresses

Oh, the dresses. I can't help it, I think my obsession with these types of covers comes from living two semesters with a roommate who was majoring in fashion design with a theatrical costume emphasis. And it's probably party of my inner girly-girl escaping as well.

I've noticed that I tend to favor photographic covers (although they are sometimes heavily photoshopped) like The Bad Queen: Rules and Instructions for Marie-Antoinette and The Agency 2: The Body at the Tower show. But I also really love the painting style for The Thirteenth Princess. Something about it just glows. By the way, The Thirteenth Princess was one of the covers featured for the 2010 12 Days of Christmas giveaways this year, and it was probably the second least correctly guess cover of the bunch.

Which reminds me, I still need to post the answers for those. One more thing on the to-do list...


Category 2: Pretty Colors

I can't help it. I love color. And the colors in these covers are awesome. I love how the blue of Forgive My Fins instantly makes me think of mermaids (which the book is about, obviously). Either that or a girl who's frostbitten, but there you go.

I really like the effect of Jekel Loves Hyde as well. The sickly green glow of that boiling beaker nicely contrasts with the purple of Jill's shirt. This is one of the books on this list that I have read, and I think this cover perfectly captures the tone of the book.

And last we come to that beautiful shade of green on the Matched cover. I've heard this one is even more pretty in person because it has a pearly sheen to it. I haven't seen it in real life yet (though I do have a copy on it's way in the mail to me, yay!) but even the virtual version is pretty. I like the imagery too, the idea of being trapped in a bubble, which sounds like it really accurately reflects the book. And it's a pretty dress. (I know, I know, I'm gushing about dresses again...)


Category 3: What's with the cat eyes?

Okay, so this might be a stretch to lump these two together. But still, it works! There's something about changing the shape of the pupils in both of these covers that give both of them a subtle hint of the supernatural (without them being scary). Needless to say, Mistwood draws me in right away with the misty woods and castle. And I really like the font used for the title too. And as much as I like this cover, the sequel's is even prettier. Really looking forward to that one too.

Firelight could also go in the pretty colors category. I love the warm feel of the reds in this cover. The moment I saw this cover I knew I had to have the book. It's sitting in my To Be Read pile right now, and I hope it lives up to the expectation I've gotten from the cover. In addition to the subtle change of the eye, I love how you can just barely see the sheen of scales around her eye. Very cool. Or hot... oh, you know what I mean!


Category 4: Ally Carter!


Yeah, I know this is kind of an odd category. But in grouping my covers I noticed I had two left, and both of them were for Ally Carter books. I guess she had a good year for covers in 2010.

First is the new Gallagher Girl cover, Only the Good Spy Young. Can I just say that I've loved these covers for the whole series, but this one by far has to be my favorite. The plaid theme is super cool on the spine, and the title treatments are always fun. But this one is PINK! My favorite color. So of course, no future GG books will ever be as much favorite as this one is.

And last by certainly not least, is Heist Society. I already wanted to read this book as soon as read the description. But when I saw the cover, I knew I had to have it NOW. I love the juxtaposition of Kat's sunglasses and the painting reflected in them. I've seen another cover for this book (I think it's the UK or Australian cover, maybe?) where Kat (who's blond instead of brunette) is in front of a painting in a ski cap with a bunch of red lasers around her. And while that might say "thief" more than this cover does, I love this cover so much more. The other version just doesn't feel like Kat to me. She has so much pizazz, and I think this cover shows that way better.


So that's my Top Ten Covers for 2010. What were your favorites?

Recreate a Cover Contest

Cindy from Princess Bookie is having a Contest Craze again, which includes once again a Recreate a Cover contest. Now normally I don't do things like this, because I have absolutely no talent. However, while looking at the other entries I got a really good idea for a cover, and so I bit the bullet, opened up Photoshop and started playing around. I have never, ever used Photoshop (or a similar program) before so this was completely new territory for me.

SEVEN HOURS LATER I have a result. Before I show it to you, head over to Princess Bookie if you want to do your own entry. But hurry, since it's filling up fast! Only the first 50 will count, and I managed to squeak in by number 46.

The rules stated that it has to be a redesign of a 2010 release, and I chose the upcoming addition to the Once Upon a Time Series out in June called The World Above by Cameron Dokey. Here's the original cover on the left:

The series got a make over last year with these new photographic covers. They're slowly redoing the old ones, but the four newest books in the series have this new style instead of the beautiful old Kinuko Craft covers each book used to have.

Although I like the new covers, I really miss the Kinuko Craft ones. So I had the brilliant idea to recreate one of the 2010 releases for the series with a Kinuko Craft cover. Here's an example of one of the older covers (on the right) so you get an idea of the model I was attempting to immitate.


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to see the result...


Ta-Da!

My Redesigned Cover

So obviously it's not as good as the real Kinuko Craft covers. Not even close, actually. But considering this was my very first attempt at doing anything at all in Photoshop, I'm pretty proud of myself. There's a lot more detail for the actual covers, but considering I'm a beginner and I don't have endless hours to waste doing things like this, I really like the result. The hardest part was adding the texture, which took me a #@*%!#$%$*! long time to figure out.

I'm not very happy with the middle either (where the title is) but I kind of ran out of time to play with it and had to use what I could. Oh well.

It took me ages to find the right artwork to use. As far as I can tell, The World Above is a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, and I wanted to mimic the peasant-type look of the dress in the actual cover. But most of Kinuko Craft's paintings are about royalty and were wayyyyy too pretty to work for this. But I finally found this painting of Joan of Arc to use and I think it turned out okay.

So what do you think? Did I do okay for a first attempt?

Cover Evolution

So one of the things I love about talking about books is also talking about book covers. I know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but pretty much I always have.

Today will be the first of a few posts I have planned talking about book covers. Specifically about how they change/relate to each other. I know this is almost over-done on a few blogs, but I really enjoy this type of thing, so you'll have to bear with me.

So onto today's discussion

Thanks to The Story Siren's latest release post, I came across the fact that Hyperion is re-releasing the first three Daughters of the Moon by Lynne Ewing books in an omnibus. I really like it when my favorite books get reissued so that new readers can find them. And then I saw the cover of this new edition:

Excuse me? These books are full of action, mythology, magic, and pure evil, but does that cover look like it to you? I think if I saw that on the shelf I would just walk right by.

Now compare that with the original covers for those three books:

I love these covers. Granted, the covers for this series did get a lot better than these starting with Book 7, but I'll still take them over that bland black cover. So why (why!) did they go with that cover? Even what they did for the last book in the series (recycling the last 6 books covers into one giant college) would be better:

I don't know, maybe I'm just a color person. But although some might like the new cover for it's simplicity, I don't think it conveys to urban/fantasy feel that the old covers do. But maybe that's just me.

So, what do you think?

By the way, if you enjoyed this post, let me know. I have a lot of these in my head, but they won't get posted if no one wants to read them. I can just discuss to myself in that case. :)

And now, even though I have tons of other books to read, I think I want to go re-read these. They were some of my all-time favorites in high school, and I could use a comfort read right now...

Narnia covered

I recently read an interesting post over at Becky's Book Reviews that showed the latest covers for the Narnia books. And here they are:



Apparently these have sparked quite the debate since they were released. If you're interested in why, you should click over to Becky's post, since she describes it way better than I do. Personally, I think they are okay, but by far my favorite covers were these ones released in 2002. I don't know why they appeal to me so much. Perhaps it's the use of color, or the photoshoping of images, or maybe it's the lion at the end of every cover. For whatever reason, these are the ones I want to have when I have my own copies of the books:


I wish I knew who did them, but I can't seem to find the artist anywhere, so if you do, please email me! Unfortunately, these may be out of print soon (the complete set is already according to amazon.com), so if you like these as much I as I do, I'd click over to amazon using the links below (or you can click on the covers) and order them while you still can. However, if you like the newer ones, then you won't have long to wait. And if anyone has copies of these they would be willing to part with, please email me and let me know. I would be interested in a full set, but even if you only have some we may be able to work something out...

In other news, they are currently filming Price Caspian. I am waaaaay excited, since I absolutely loved the first Narnia movie! :-)

Here's links to buy if you want them (or click on the covers above):
The Magician's Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia)

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia)

The Horse and His BoyPrince Caspian (Narnia)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Narnia)
The Silver Chair (Narnia)
The Last Battle

*Edited to add* I managed to find the new poster for the Prince Caspian movie. Doesn't that look cool? It gives me shivers just thinking about it. I still need to buy the soundtrack from the first movie, and then I'm going to go have a Narnia party. If you'd like more information on the movies, you can visit the offical Disney site.

And, according to http://www.imdb.com/, Voyage of the Dawn Treader is slated for production as well. Wouldn't it be cool if they do all seven movies?

Where have all the heads gone?

I was catching up on all of my book blogs the other day, and I happened to come across this interesting post on Bookburger:

An URGENT PLEA to Harper Collins: I love your list of upcoming releases from Harper Teen…but please, please, you MUST restrain the MAD CROPPER who's treating your cover models so brutally!…Revoke his Photoshop license NOW, before he crops again! Seriously, I totally agree with the smart reader quoted in a previous B-burger post who complained about the trend toward perfect and perfectly anonymous headless bods, which have been proliferating on covers across the YA world since the huge success of the Gossip Girls series…So lissenup, publishing people. Decapitation is so 2006...Let's make '07 the year we stop the crop.

I must say, I have to agree with them! Just look at these samples I happened to dig up after only 10 minutes of searching:

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
Cupcake by Rachel Cohn
I Was a Teenage Popsicle by Bev Katz Rosembaum
The Storyteller's Daughter: A Retelling of "The Arabian Nights" by Cameron Dokey
The Night Dance by Suzanne Weyn

How to Ruin a Summer Vacation by Simone Elkeles

Wuthering High: A Bard Academy Novel by Cara Lockwood

Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce

Loving Will Shakespeare by Carolyn Meyer

So here’s all I have to say: Where are all the heads? What do you think Glade Readers? Send me YOUR examples of cropped book covers, and we’ll add them to the post. It’s time to stop the crop!

You can read the original Bookburger post here.