Do you have any favourite editions?

[jack]

The previous post stands not-withstanding my tendency to be attached to the first cover I see a book in. This applies most to classics which I learned to love in old penguin monocolour covers off my parents, and I expect to see no differently.

But others as well. Watership down is always associated with my parents' particular copy, where the seriousness of the brown rabbit surrounded by flowery grass is underscored by the wornness of the cover. Anything cute doesn't cut it for me.

You can generally go to something abstract -- preferably dark and snazzy and serious -- from a picture, but trying to put a picture of characters I've only ever pictures invariably falls flat for me.

I don't blame publishers for this -- I already love your book, please do attract new readers! I'm just explaining how I feel. For Ender's Game, maybe I do blame.

Comments

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do! When I first started reading Sharpe books, it wasn't long until I found copies of some of the novels in a particular format in the library (the ones with shiny bits you can run your fingers over). Eventually, when Tiger came out, I got a paperback version of my own, and I've always treasured it (also because it's signed by BC!). But now Sharpe books have a different kind of cover, and I don't like it *as much*, because it hasn't got as much shiny (though there is a bit of shiny). But on my Tiger the shiny bits are extensive.

My Life on Mars series 1 box set has exactly the same effect, so you can run your fingers over Gene Hunt, as it were :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yes. I was lucky, I got to know the Sean Bean Sharpe covers first, so I like them, and then we picked up a couple of the series in older editions, which were hard to object to as they looked all classic and had a sketch painting of an old-fashioned guy with a sword on. So now I'm ok with both :)

[frithonthehills.livejournal.com]

Oh, I entirely agree about the Sharpe books. I found a copy of Sharpe's Eagle with the original cover once, which just looked weird.

I really dislike the "wrong" covers for Pratchett and Harry Potter - the adult ones just don't feel like the right books. Similar for the Tom Holts, the Robert Rankins, the Star Treks, and any number of others.

Sometimes I'll put off buying books until I can find one that matches the others in the set - took me *ages* to buy a copy of Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson for exactly this reason.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I really liked some of the Harry Potter adult covers. I feel daft because everyone thinks they only exist to salve one's dignity or something (like that can't apply to me) but, but I just like them.

Whereas, for Terry Pratchett I think of the common (Kirby?) covers as *the* covers, as much part of a book as illustrations are[1]. And anything else isn't just odd, or not to my taste, but a startling revision...

[1] When I first started I didn't like them so much, but now I'm just so used to them, and can even find similar authors by looking for similar covers :)