AIBU to think that these are the ugliest book covers ever?

TowelMouse · 2021-09-08T18:10:15+00:00

Can you beat them? Also, what do you hate about book covers and what physical book features do you hate? I can't bear deckled edges. They give me the shivers.

Stokey · 12/03/2022 10:58

I love the Pan Fontana Agatha Christie covers though they are definitely spookier than the books. This is one of my favourites

AIBU to think that these are the ugliest book covers ever?

DaisyDozyDee · 12/03/2022 07:07

@PenCreed

I opened this thread thinking "it can't be worse than the 70s Christie covers". And there they are, in all their weirdness.

I did exactly the same.

VoleClock · 12/03/2022 07:03

A long time ago I had a Penguin copy of Keep the Aspidistra Flying. For years I thought snake plants were aspidistras thanks to the unhelpful picture on the cover.

VeryLongBeeeeep · 04/03/2022 13:28

@CiaoForNiao

I'm a bit weird with book covers. If I'm trying to buy a copy of something I've read before then it has to have the cover of the version I read. I bought a 2nd hand copy of a book I'd loved as a child recently online. The cover was "wrong" so it went to the charity shop. And of course a series has to match. I'm trying to complete my Enid Blyton collection and it's proving quite difficult to find some books in the right 'cover format' especially as the ones I collected in the 90s were printed in the 70s/80s and bought at car boot sales.

Yes! I do this too. When I went through a phase of rediscovering books I'd loved as a child, my copy of Six Ponies by Josephine Pullein-Thompson had to be the same as the one I used to get from the local library, the Armada paperback with a photo of two riders on the cover, even though I knew by then it was vastly abridged (I have an unabridged copy on my Kindle). And Kiss Kiss and Switch Bitch by Roald Dahl had to have the brightly coloured repeated graphics beneath the title for the same reason.

5foot5 · 04/03/2022 09:32

It exasperates me when it is clear that the person who designed the book cover has clearly not read the book, or at least a detailed synopsis, because the characters are just "wrong". It's as if they think "Oh bit if romance in it, blah blah" so they depict some happy young couple, neither of whom bear any resemblance to the people featured in the book

IsFuzzyBeagMise · 27/02/2022 18:57

[quote StColumbofNavron]I wanted to share Crime and Punishment and The Woman in White but there are actually 50 covers here lithub.com/50-very-bad-book-covers-for-literary-classics/[/quote]
Very very funny. Thanks for posting that StColombofNavron :)

Choccyp1g · 27/02/2022 18:15

I couldn't tell you what it looks like, but the last Hilary Mantel book, "The Mirror and the Light" has a strange suedey feel to it.

When I put it away with the other two books in the series, I also noticed that the three covers are in completely different styles.

MistyFuckingQuigley · 27/02/2022 18:04

[quote StColumbofNavron]I wanted to share Crime and Punishment and The Woman in White but there are actually 50 covers here lithub.com/50-very-bad-book-covers-for-literary-classics/[/quote]
Omg these are hilarious

newbiename · 27/02/2022 16:53

@IDontDrinkTea

Given a choice, I’ll always buy an illustrated cover over a cover that shows the tv/film adaptation actors.

Yes. Came on to say that.

IsFuzzyBeagMise · 27/02/2022 16:20

The doll I remember that book cover. I must have borrowed it from the library. It's a good one.

Howeverdoyouneedme · 27/02/2022 15:10

Just found these too.

StellaAndCrow · 27/02/2022 13:24

Crikey that's disturbing - I've read the book and watched the film, and don't remember anybody's eye falling out!

IsFuzzyBeagMise · 26/02/2022 21:23

Good grief, that's hideous Howeverdoyouneedme!

I think I would have to cover it up!

Howeverdoyouneedme · 25/02/2022 22:12

I’m reading this and thought of this thread.

elkiedee · 26/09/2021 20:57

@WorriedWishingWell, I can't remember whether The Betrayal was part of the set - I think it wasn't, because I think Betrayal was quite new out in hardback at that time, but The Siege in which the main characters first appear was. But the cover design has the same issues with that italic font on the title, and might well have been done to coordinate with the reissues of her earlier novels. The cover is totally wrong and would create totally misleading expectations, and put off some readers and attract others for totally wrong reasons. It's very in keeping with repackaging of an author of quite serious literary novels as a writer of commercial women's fiction. Dismissive and insulting to the writer and readers.

TheMarzipanDildo · 26/09/2021 20:44

@TowelMouse

EarringsandLipstick My sympathies to you. I'd still be in therapy if I had to try to go to sleep with those covers staring at me.

The Female Eunuch cover gives me the creeps too and the Lord of The Flies cover is nightmarish but I can at least understand the logic there. I don't see much in the Christie covers.

I don’t see the logic in the Christie covers either. They don’t capture the nature of the books at all, most of which are the fun kind of murder mystery rather than grisly horrors.

WorriedWishingWell · 26/09/2021 20:34

@elkiedee

And yes, i so agree with all the moans about non matching covers. And I will happily read kids' books but would always choose the covers aimed at kids.

My dad pointed out something else that bugs me a bit on a set of books I'd bought from TheBookPeople a few years, a very good value collection of 10 novels by Helen Dunmore. Only the publisher had put all the titles on the front covers and spines in the kind of fonts that they might use on chicklit, historical sagas etc. My father's a huge book snob and would find these fonts really offputting, but part of his comment is, I think, fairly clear - that he did know that Helen Dunmore was a fairly serious literary novelist and he thought this presentation of her work was a bit insulting. It's a bit sad if books by women are presented in a style that they think will make them seem - what? - more accessible, less threatening? to women. So many things publishers do that come across as treating us as stupid!

@elkiedee Was this part of that series? I remember at the time the cover felt wrong.

TheYearOfSmallThings · 25/09/2021 20:31

We had that edition of Elephants Can Remember, and I wonder if the grotesque cover is one reason I've never liked that book much?

NeverTrustASmilingCat · 25/09/2021 20:28

I suppose it's been used to bash someone over the head (if I've read it I can't remember), but I always thought it looked like it's poked someone's ear and made them bleed when I was young 😬

NeverTrustASmilingCat · 25/09/2021 20:25

I always thought this cover was a bit disturbing 🤔

ADreadedSunnyDay · 22/09/2021 11:33

I had that Agatha Christie third girl book as a younger teen. The cover was never on show.

I'm afraid I am unduly influenced by covers - hate film/tv tie ins, hate the ones with gushing praise from other authors and no description of what the book's about, hate poor illustration or cheap photography, anything that indicates its the thriller of the year etc ..

toffee1000 · 16/09/2021 18:48

Renaming the Noel Streatfeild books was a decision by an American publisher, apparently.

Also agree about covers changing style part way through the series, although this has only happened for me with the Cormoran Strike series.

Winniewonka · 12/09/2021 21:33

@PeskyRooks - thanks for that info. I would never have thought 1950s either! I agree that they definitely look 1970s but most of mine from that era resemble the Evil under the Sun illustration as shown on Page 2.

PeskyRooks · 12/09/2021 10:50

@Winniewonka the one I posted was from the same series as the OP posted, it's from 1951! I was surprised I thought it looked 70s if anything!

WhileMyMeringueGentlyWeeps · 11/09/2021 21:40

Urgh modern versions of the Little House on the Prairie books. I adored the illustrations by Garth Williams in the versions I read.