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Meme

Weekly Geeks – Judge a book by it’s cover!

This weeks Weekly Geeks task is to Judge a Book By Its Cover!

The Task:

Pick a book–any book, really–and search out multiple book cover images for that book. They could span a decade or two (or more)…Or they could span several countries. Which cover is your favorite? Which one is your least favorite? Which one best ‘captures’ what the book is about?

I’ve chosen the book I’m currently reading: The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. So far, I’ve only read about a quarter of the book, so I may not be able to give an accurate reflection of the whole book, but will judge the cover based on my first impressions.

I found 104 different covers on Library Thing here. So I had a large number to chose from!

I picked out some of the more interesting ones below:

1966 Paperback
1966 paperback

This is one of the oldest paperback covers I could find. It looks very dated to me, and I don’t think I would ever pick this up on impulse in a book shop. It makes it look like it’s for children, and not the mystery book it is.

 

 

 

1992 paperback
1992 paperback

I haven’t read the whole book, but this seems like an inappropriate cover. This looks like the cover for a romance novel. The Moonstone is billed as the first detective novel, and I think it needs a darker, more atmospheric cover. I would pick this book up, if I was in the mood for a romantic piece of historical fiction, but think I would have been surprised by the book’s contents.

 

 

1998 paperback
1998 paperback

This cover makes the book look like historical fiction, again with a romantic theme. I don’t particularly like the picture, and wouldn’t pick it up on impulse, although it does have a Victorian feeling about it.

 

 

 

2008 paperback
2008 paperback

This book looks dark and atmospheric, but for some reason the purple makes me think that this book is aimed at teenagers – I have no idea why I think that! Maybe it’s the typeface of the title too? Does anyone else think that? I haven’t finished the book, but I thought that The Moonstone was  based upon the theft of a stone. This cover implies that it is more of a murder mystery. I don’t think I’d pick this copy up either. The cover makes it look like a basic book, without enough depth for me.  

 

2008 paperback
2008 paperback

Again, this book looks like a teenage fiction book. I prefer the moonstone being on the front, but in the first chapter the stone is described as tear-drop shaped, so unless it gets cut down later in the book, then I think this is a poorly designed cover.

  

 

2003 Paperback
2003 paperback

 This is the only cover that I think I would pick up, on impulse, in a book shop. Dark, atmospheric and full of mystery, this book looks like my sort of thing. It also seems to most accurately reflect the book’s content.

 

 

 

This has been a really interesting exercise for me. I know that I am strongly influenced by a book’s cover. I have bought several books just because their striking cover has drawn me to them – black page edges are a particular weak spot for me! The majority of books that I buy are bought on other people’s recommendations, so I often do not see the cover before it arrives through my letter box. This means that their design does not matter as much as it would have done a few years ago, when the majority of my purchases were made on impulse in a shop. I rarely receive a book with a cover that does not appeal to me, so book designers are obviously very good at knowing their audience.

The massive variety of covers for the same book has opened my eyes to the fact that in future I should be less influenced by the picture on the cover.

 
Finally, this is the cover I’m reading, so I thought I should include it! It is very boring, and gives you no idea as to the content of the book – perhaps all books should have plain covers, so we’re not influenced by the designs on the cover?

 

Which of these covers do you like best? If you’ve read The Moonstone, which one do you think most accurately reflects the plot?

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Other Uncategorized

Snow!

It’s been snowing here, so we’ve been having fun building snowmen!

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Chunkster Richard and Judy Book Club

The 19th Wife – David Ebershoff

The 19th Wife is based around a polygamous Mormon sect. The book is split into two distinctive parts. The first begins in 1875 and follows Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, the second Prophet of the Mormon Church. Unsatisfied with his treatment of her, she separates from him, and then leads a crusade to end polygamy in America.

The second is basically a murder mystery. Twenty-year-old Jordan discovers that his father has been murdered, and his mother is accused of shooting him. Jordan was expelled from the  Mormon sect at the age of fourteen, when he was discovered holding hands with one of his step-sisters. He returns to Utah to visit his mother in jail, and begins to uncover many secrets within his polygamous family.

Other than the theme of polygamy there was nothing to link the two stories; as the book is a whopping 606 pages long, I think that it could have benefited from being split in two separate books. The writing styles were very different, and I think they will appeal to different people. I much preferred the modern, murder mystery, as it had more pace and intrigue. The character of Jordan was well drawn, and I had lots of empathy for him. The ending was reasonably satisfying, and this section works well as a thriller with a twist.

I found the historical section to be quite dry, and by the end of the book I had lost interest in it. The large number of footnotes, and other historical references were distracting, and it was difficult to know which sections were factually accurate, and which were fiction. The characters became lost in the data, and it became more like a text book than a novel.

Overall, there was a lot of interesting information about life within a polygamous family, but it lacked that special spark.

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Other Quiz

Can you judge a book by it’s cover? #3

Star ratings taken from Amazon UK.

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Meme Uncategorized

How to search for books on the Internet.

 Having read the title of the post, you may think I’m completely mad! You may think that there is nothing you don’t know about searching for books, and in some cases you may be right! I thought I knew it all too, but I’ve learnt a lot in the last few years, so I thought I’d share some of my knowledge with you.
 
My job is selling books online, and I have recently started to change my business model. Instead of searching for books at charity sales and other local events, I now source books from the comfort of my own home. I buy books on the Internet, then sell them for a profit on Amazon in the UK. I am able to do this because I know a lot about books, and how to find them!

If you’re after a best-selling paperback, then you probably won’t do much better than Amazon, but if you’re after a rare or out of print book, then there are lots of other places to look.

 

My favourite is: http://www.bookfinder.com as this searches all the major book-selling sites worldwide. It splits out new and used copies of each book, and includes postal costs to your country, so that you can instantly tell which copy will be cheapest.

Addall, Abe and Alibris are also good sites to check, but if you can’t find what you’re looking for there then the best thing to do is put the title of the book into Google. Make sure that you put “quotation marks” around the title, so that it only comes up with exact matches for your book, and not everything else to do with the individual words in it. Searches like this will often throw up independent book shops, some only written in a foreign language. Most people give up the moment they see a web page written in Spanish/Portuguese/German etc. and it is for this reason that there are many bargains on these sites. With the help of translation sites like Babel Fish, any web page can be translated into your own language, and so there is no need to be afraid of them. I have bought many great books from sites that I have never heard of, or couldn’t understand!

 

The other thing to bear in mind is where the book you are looking for was published, as it will generally be cheaper/more easily available in it’s country of origin. For example, I was looking for The Scream by Rohinton Mistry a few months ago. At the time, it wasn’t available at all in the UK, so I started my search with Canadian sites, as this is where the author is from.

 

I you’d like any more information, or help finding a book – just ask! I love the challenge of trying to find a rare book!

Happy searching!

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Other

Blog Improvement Project – Week 3: Blog Post Bingo

This is the third week of the Blog Improvement Project. Our task for this week is to add ten different types of post to our blog.

Blog Post Bingo!

  • Take a look at the 10 types of blog post below.  Over the next two weeks, try to write as many of these different kinds of posts as you can.
  1. A Link Post – share a series of links your readers might find interesting
  2. A Short Post – less than 200 words
  3. A List Post – simple as it sounds, a list of some sort
  4. An Opinion Post – take an event, news, or another blog post and share your opinion on it
  5. A Poll or Question Post – post a poll or ask your readers a specific question for feedback
  6. A How-To Post – You’re an expert in something; big or small, share how to do it
  7. A Long Post – more than 700 words
  8. A Review Post – self-explanatory, I think :)
  9. A Definition Post – show your expertise about a topic related to your blog
  10. FREE SPACE – a type of post of your choice (that is not the same as one of the previous posts)

This is a really interesting challenge for me, as I do seem to be stuck in a rut – just posting book reviews. I look forward to creating a more interesting, varied blog!