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

Oops sorry @SquirryTheSquirrel no such qualms here

Excellent! I used to own the third book. I thought it was completely bonkers at the time. The second one is even better though

Or this? Just walked past this on our high street in a charity shop window 😱. Awful.

These are the worst Christie covers on my shelf!

@EarringsandLipstick
We must be related! I remember the Agatha Christies at my Grandma's and they were terrifying!

I've got loads of Agatha Christie paperbacks, many that I read as a teenager in the 70s but I've never seen the series that OP has shown.
When were they published? Thanks.

Urgh, they are hideous!

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/

I've got an adult NS novel called 'Grass in Piccadilly' which is quite good.

Another nasty Agatha Christie cover for your to enjoy!

Ballet Shoes is my all time favourite book ever. I read my original copy so much it fell apart. And I can't find a copy with the same cover now, at least I don't think I can. I can't remember what the cover looked like
I do now own a beautiful hardback copy instead though.
I'd be interested, if wary, of reading those books mentioned @elkiedee .

There are some Kindle reissues of novels actually written by NS for adults, not children, as well as one in paperback (and a Kindle edition but more expensive I think) by Persephone. I've read Saplings and The Whicharts and would recommend them, with a caution that reading The Whicharts might affect your enjoyment of Ballet Shoes, as it's a rather jaded and cynical novel, but really interesting for readers like me for its perspective on some women's lives nearly 100 years ago (the 1920s or 1930s, I think).

[quote elkiedee]@CiaoforNiao I still buy kids' books for myself (I have given quite a few of them to DS1 when he actually read books, between about 7 and 12), mostly secondhand, and I do prefer copies that are the same as the ones I had, though for some books I just keep both. I've also given my sister some spare Noel Streatfeild duplicates. On Streatfeild there's an additional problem that even here a number of books have been given titles that suggest they are part of a non existent series - Party Frock is Party Shoes, Curtain Up is Theatre Shoes. I think some of the covers are quite nice but ooh those titles.[/quote]
Don't get me started on the renaming of NSs books! I thought I'd found a load on kindle that I'd never heard of. Only to realise they were the ones I own, just renamed as the "Shoes" series ffs. Still at least I didn't actually buy them!

Pre-Covid, my a substantial portion of my reading time was in a cafe a couple of days a week whilst DC were at after-school activities. I always used a fabric book cover that I picked up on holidays. Always wondered if people made assumptions about what I was reading. The fabric cover felt lovely. I'd have to take the fabric cover off if anyone asked me what I was reading, it was hard enough to keep track of the characters without being expected to remember the name of the book and the author too. Never used it at home, but I'd have a different book on the go for home.

OP, you are so right about covers. I'd had it at the back of my mind to look out for some Agatha Christie for teen DC - but I couldn't bring myself to buy those editions!

@CiaoforNiao I still buy kids' books for myself (I have given quite a few of them to DS1 when he actually read books, between about 7 and 12), mostly secondhand, and I do prefer copies that are the same as the ones I had, though for some books I just keep both. I've also given my sister some spare Noel Streatfeild duplicates. On Streatfeild there's an additional problem that even here a number of books have been given titles that suggest they are part of a non existent series - Party Frock is Party Shoes, Curtain Up is Theatre Shoes. I think some of the covers are quite nice but ooh those titles.

I love the Jaws cover!

I hate the book covers on my set of the Chronicles of Narnia. Think they are early 2000s and some designer had just discovered photoshop. I really want to replace them with a more whimsical set but it seems really wasteful.

The Fontana Agatha Christie covers are very surreal. Annoyingly some give some of the plots away. These ones from my childhood are particularly brilliantly macabre

No these are great! Classic (70s?) macabre surrealist vibe, suited to murder mystery novels! Very creative book design and meant to be innovative at the time.

Dang it... something weird happened. These are the books!

@Realyorkshiretea me too! It looks like a comedy inbreed or something.

These are my three most disturbing, but they don't meet the proper criterium of 'ugly'. The Poe bug-eyed blood skeleton comes closest, although the shark's Beaker mouth doesn't help it's image much.

That second cover 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I’m sat next to sleepy DD’s bed and trying not to wake her up by pissing myself laughing