Question of the Week: Favorite book cover
It’s time for Question of the Week, designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics.
This week’s question: what is your favorite book cover? Like in terms of the artwork, the design, etc. No wrong answers, obviously.
For myself, I think I would have to go with a hardback edition of THE SILMARILLION from the late 1990s. It was illustrated by Ted Nasmith, and the cover image shows Maglor throwing the final Silmaril into the sea in despair over his deeds. If you know the context of the scene, it’s an amazingly powerful cover.
For copyright reasons, here is a picture of the copy that I actually physically own and have been taking with me from different states and residences since 1999 or so. 🙂
-JM
For that, I go back to the guilty pleasures of my youth. A teenager, on a Burroughs kick at the time, digging through paperbacks in a second hand book store. Savage Pellucidar, cover by Frank Frazetta. The 1974 Ace reprint, which I still have stashed away.
https://www.frazettagirls.com/products/savage-pellucidar-print
Frazetta was an incredible artist, and I love his Sea Witch and Death Dealer, but we’re talking about book covers here. Savage Pellucidar was the one for me.
Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon. Then, that cover was a work of art with three detachable bands.
Hard to choose one. But I personally love those young-adult booktok books’ covers: Shadow & Bone, Six of Crows, The Cruel Prince. I don’t know, something about such covers immediately sparks interest in me.