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

[TowelMouse]

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.

Another nasty Agatha Christie cover for your to enjoy!

@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).

The Whicharts was fascinating. It was as if their lives were what the Fossils' could have been, if they hadn't had the sensible guardianship of Sylvia and Nana.

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

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/

Urgh, they are hideous!

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.

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

These are the worst Christie covers on my shelf!

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

@doorornottodoor

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

That's the one I didn't post a pic of earlier because it's too awful

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

Oops sorry @SquirryTheSquirrel no such qualms here

@doorornottodoor

Oops sorry *@SquirryTheSquirrel* no such qualms here

Ha ha! I do own a copy with that cover but I'm thinking of wrapping it in old wall-paper a la 1980s school textbooks.

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

@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!

@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.

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.

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 ..

I always thought this cover was a bit disturbing 🤔

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 😬

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?

@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.

@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, 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.

I’m reading this and thought of this thread.

Good grief, that's hideous Howeverdoyouneedme!

I think I would have to cover it up!