‘You would like to go to the ball, is that not so?’
1 December 2017
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Book Covers, Books by Proxy, Friday Face off

Here we are again with the Friday Face Off meme created by Books by Proxy . This is a great opportunity to feature some of your favourite book covers. The rules are fairly simple each week, following a predetermined theme (list below) choose a book, compare a couple of the different covers available for that particular book and choose your favourite. Future week’s themes are listed below. This week’s theme:
The pen is mightier than the sword – a cover featuring a fancy font
This week I’ve chosen : Charm (Tales from the Kingdoms #2) by Sarah Pinborough. There are three books in this series and they’re just an unexpected delight, a mash up of more than one fairy tale and three independent stories from the same world. Be warned though, these books are adult retellings:
Most of these have a lovely font and I’m torn for a winner with the bottom two covers – I think overall I’d go with:

I love this cover – it has a sense of mischief and fun and the Tiffany Aching books are certainly a whole lot of fun.
Which is your favourite?
Next week – a cover featuring the night
Future themes:
8th December 2017 – ‘Do not go gentle’ – a cover featuring the night…
15th December 2017 – Hubble bubble toil and trouble – a cover featuring a portion/perfume bottle
22nd December – ‘Oh, we loves games! Doesn’t we, precious?’ – a cover featuring a Puzzle or Game
29th December – If music be the food of love, play on – a cover featuring a Musical Instrument
5th January – ‘The seaweed is always greener, in somebody else’s lake.’ – Under the Sea
12th January – ‘More than one meaning have I’ – a cover featuring a Knot/knots
19th January – You know your A, B, Cs – a cover made up only of letters/words
26th January – “The grass is always greener on the other side of personal extinction” – a cover featuring grass
2nd February – Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – a Psychedelic cover
9th February – ‘My what big teeth you have’ – a cover featuring a cloaked figure
16th February – ‘Groovy baby’ – a cover that is: Retro
23rd February – “There are too many steps in this castle, and it seems to me they add a few every night, just to vex me” – a cover featuring a staircase
2nd March – ‘The only true wisdom is to know that you know nothing’ – a cover featuring something from Greek mythology
9th March – ‘…but Icarus flew too close’ – a cover featuring the Sun
16th March – ‘I got no strings to hold me down’ – a cover featuring a doll or puppet
23rd March – “When she was a child, the witch locked her away in a tower that had neither doors nor stairs.” – a cover featuring a Tower
30th March – ‘A little soil to make it grow’ – a cover featuring seeds/spores
6th April – “After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” – a cover featuring a family
13th April – ‘lawns and rocks and heather and different sorts of trees, lay spread out below them, the river winding through it’ – a cover featuring a panorama
20th April – Where there’s fire there’s… – a cover featuring smoke
27th April – ‘Those darling byegone times… with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their delightful places of torture’ – a cover that is positively mediaeval
4th May- ‘A Hand without a hand? A bad jape, sister.’ – a cover featuring a hand/hands
11th May – ‘Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth’ – a cover featuring a dinosaur/s
18th May – ‘Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;’ – a cover featuring a gravestone
25th May – Trip trap, trip trap, trip trap – a cover featuring footsteps
1st June – clinging and invasive – a cover featuring creeping vines
8th June – Raining Cats and Dogs – a cover featuring a stormy sky
Mine eyes deceive me!
No, you can’t always judge a book by it’s cover but nonetheless I do like covers and I like to give them something of a spotlight. On the first Friday of the new month I’m going to look at the covers for the books I’ve just read and see which was my favourite for the month.
The covers for my January reads were:
There are some fantastic covers from last months reads! For impact Medusa’s Web immediately stands out – it’s just dark and scary. I think the Guns of Ivrea and Goldenfire are really lovely, they’re so colourful and just completely grab your attention. Monstrous Little Voices – I love that cover, the font and the characters really appeal to me and it’s a fantastic read too! I think my favourite has to be Medusa’s Web – that is a book that I would definitely pick up and want to own!
Those were my January covers – if you have any particularly gorgeous covers you want to share then let me know.
Reviews for the above books below:
- Under a Colder Sun by Greg James SPFBO
- Monstrous Little Voices by Jonathan Barnes, Emma Newman, Kate Heartfield, Fox Meadows, Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Goldenfire (Darkhaven No.2) by A F E Smith
- Medusa’s Web by Tim Powers
- Scourge of the Betrayer by Jeff Salyards
- City of Blades by Robert J Bennett
- War of the Worlds by H G Wells
- Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
- The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo
- Changers: Book One: Drew by T Cooper and Allison Glock Cooper
- Shattered Sands by W G Saraband – review to follow (SPFBO)
- Guns of Ivrea by Clifford Beal
Vintage Sci Fi: A buffet of covers
31 January 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Book Covers, Little Red Reviewer, Roundup, Vintage Sci Fi
The final day of Vintage Sci-fi over at Little Red Reviewer. You may have noticed that I set myself a small challenge to post covers – for books I’ve read – that fall into the vintage category. For the final day of the challenge I’m showcasing a smorgasbord of some of the book covers I’ve highlighted:
Vintage Sci Fi: Book No.30
30 January 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Book Covers, Jules Verne, Little Red Reviewer, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Vintage Sci Fi
No.30 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
As part of Vintage Sci Fi month being hosted by Little Red Reviewer I’ve given myself a small challenge to post a vintage book each day – one that I’ve read – and to highlight some of the covers. Today’s choice, like yesterday’s, is a bit sneaky – I’m reading both these two books but haven’t finished or reviewed them yet – but they definitely need highlighting because they are great classics. Today: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. First published in 1870 this is considered one of Verne’s most popular works. My dad gave me this book and I’m kind of disappointed that I’ve not been able to finish it yet but I’ve been overtaken by life and other deadlines!
1873 Sampson Low:

1917 Geosset and Dunlop:

1958 The Children’s Press:

1966 Pocket Books:

1976 Bantam:

1987 Galley Press: (I just love this one for some reason)

1997 Acclaim books:

2007 Dodo Press:

2014 Rock Paper Co:

Vintage Sci Fi: Book No.29
29 January 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Book Covers, Little Red Reviewer, Vintage Sci Fi
No.29 Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein
As part of Vintage Sci Fi month being hosted by Little Red Reviewer I’ve given myself a small challenge to post a vintage book each day – one that I’ve read – and to highlight some of the covers. Today’s choice and tomorrow’s choice are a little bit sneaky – and I will explain. These are two books that I’m currently reading but haven’t yet finished or reviewed but I think they’re great examples and so they’re going on the list: Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein. I really like the first edition for this one.
First edition: 1959

1986 by Berkeley:

2010 by Ace Books:





