“Top 5 Wednesday” is a weekly meme currently hosted on Goodreads by Sam of Thoughts on Tomes in which you list your top 5 for the week’s chosen topic. This week’s topic is “favourite covers” but it felt a little too general, and then I saw that Acqua from Acquadimore Books did a post on the types of covers she doesn’t like. So I thought I’d talk about the five kinds of things I love seeing on covers.
Airships
My obsession with airships started when I was in my early teens with the Final Fantasy games, which then branched off into my obsession with steampunk in general. So nothing gets me going like seeing one (or multiple ones *swoon*) plastered over the cover of a book. If I could be reborn in a steampunk world, I’d want to pursue a career as an airship engineer (no, not the captain; I wouldn’t trust myself to lead us anywhere other than the fiery arms of death).
Corvids Birds in Flight
Fantasy is as obsessed with crows and ravens as it is with using “Blood” and “Assassin” in its titles, so it’s only natural that we’d see them in so many covers. I see that as a good thing because I love those beady little critters. They’re ridiculously clever and they teach you to treat all living things with respect because, otherwise, they’ll dive-bomb you (and your dog) to hell and back.
You may notice that The Ninth Rain bucks the trend by showing not a corvid, but–*gasp*–an eagle on the cover. The nerve! Clearly the black sheep of the family.
Black, Red, and White
Say what you will about Twilight series, but the covers are a brilliant display of simplicity and colour contrast and I used to salivate over that apple. There’s no sexier colour combination to me than these three.
White Space
Who says white is boring? Sometimes a white background is louder and more impactful than a busy, colourful one, as it allows allows the objects on the cover to “pop”. It’s again, super sexy–but in the opposite spectrum.
Celestial
There’s a reason why humans have stared up at the night sky for so many millennia dreaming of things greater than ourselves. I love star-gazing–it fills me with calm and wonder and just a bit of loneliness (but the good kind)–so it’s no surprise that I’m drawn to covers with celestial themes.
These types of covers never fail to be awe-inspiring, whether you imagine yourself as a spaceship captain chasing starlight or just a person on Earth gazing up into the possibilities of what might be, could be, will be. The three above covers are my favourite examples this year.
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Seeing all those red, black and white covers together makes me realize how wonderful they look! And normally I would care about lots of white on covers, but I do like you examples😃
They’re so gorgeous, aren’t they? <3 I was reorganizing my shelves last week and came across the Twilight books and got reminded of how wonderful the covers are. And haha I like clean, minimalist things. 😀
What a fantastic post. As you know I love covers and I could stare at all of these for hours – black holes spring to mind.
Lynn 😀
I agree with all of your choices, this post was a gem to stare at. <3
Making the post was definitely a treat for my eyes! 😀
Ahhh, I made a reference to Acqua’s same post. Ha! – I love all these choices. Such a fun read! ❤️
Haha great minds think alike? 😀 I’ve seen so many great covers this year and I couldn’t possibly just choose 5!
This is so creative! I also love all of these cover types. Especially the Stars, I don’t know why but they always lure me in!
They’re just so colourful and magical, right? 😀
IKR!! I love them all so much
I love all of these too – especially the celestial ones, Fire Dance looks so pretty and unlike every other cover I know. The Last Song Before Night one was also beautiful, but this one is even better (…and I need to read them)
And airships! I like them too, because steampunk. I didn’t know any of the books you used as examples but airships are part of the reason I love the cover of The Black God’s Drums so much.
I could look at the Fire Dance cover all day and not even notice the time passing by. It just sucks you right in. Like a black hole. And I should really read The Black God’s Drums sometime! I don’t think I’ve read a single steampunk book so far this year, which is crazy, so that’s something I need to remedy. 🙂
I love this! So many pretty covers to stare at 😍 My favorite types of covers are celestial, florals and really beautifully illustrated ones, like the ones we see a lot of in middle grade. I find airships so aesthetic, but sadly I’m not that into steampunk. So it’s cover lust only!
Fun post here!!
Thank you, Paul!
Love how you went for fave types! The ones with the birds and the celestial stuff are gorgeous! <3 I like covers like that too.
Haha there was no way I could pick just 5 covers. And if I ever come across a cover that has both birds AND stars, I’ll probably black out from excitement 😛
I love Deathless and Vicious covers, all their editions are so pretty!
Agreed!! I’ve been eyeing the new UK collector’s edition for Vicious. I love that it’s got the red, black, white (well, cream–but close enough!) scheme
Love this topic! I really do love the white space covers. 🙂
Great post because I agree with so many of them. The white space are some of my favorite!
They’re just so clean and nice and make me happy!
omg I agree with so many of these! Airships are so good and always suck me in! Airborn is one of my favourites ever, mainly because of the airship theme! And I love the birds theme as well! This was such an interesting take on the theme this week, I love it!
Thank you! I couldn’t decide on 5, so this was my excuse to cram more covers into one post. 😀 And I hardly ever see Airborn talked about in the blogverse, so great to see another fan!!
I know!!! I’ve been yelling about it for the past few months because I reread it and remembered how good it is, and wanted everyone else to read it!
Good twist on the theme, I likes it!
I also like ravens/ crows, celestial themes & white space. I think you’re right… white space makes images pop and black allows for good colour contrast.
Now I want to find a book called The Bloodraven Assassin because that would tick all naming requirements 😛
There’s a book called “Bloodraven” out there so I wouldn’t be surprised if “Bloodraven Assassin” was a real thing! 😀 And I was told by an old art teacher that the “white background” is something all artists have to overcome, but like…*flails arms* there are all these amazing covers with blank backgrounds. Minimalism is an actual THING, Mrs. Aspinall!
I love a white background! The only issue I have is I eat when I read so they never stay white for long!
I love Celestial covers. They’re so peaceful even when the stories inside are not.
Haha yeah, out of my three examples, one is a post-apocalypse story and the other one’s chock full of tortured characters. I love the stories, but they’re definitely not as soothing as the covers might suggest. 😀
If ye love ravens and such then ye may like the non-fiction book called the ravenmaster. It is about the ravens at the Tower of London. I haven’t read it yet but it sounds fun so I thought I would give ye a heads up. Nice cover choices by the way. I be partial to ships of any kind. Arrr!
x The Captain
Ohh that does look interesting! And strange. And charming. 😀 I had no idea there were still ravenmasters around. Thank you for the recommendation!
I love all these types of covers! I love all covers! I have a book I need to read with an airship on the cover! Flight of Dreams about the Hindenburg! You’ve just nudged me to read it! Wonderfully creative post, Kathy! ♥️
YAY!! I’ve most definitely seen the cover around and it’s in my “interested” list! I’ll wait to see what you think about it before picking it up though! 😛
I am quite fond the black white red theme for book covers too! I also generally prefer people/characters on covers versus a symbol or just text.
I’m not too fond of text-only covers either! Blake Couch’s Dark Matter is one that immediately comes to mind (might be why I still haven’t read it).
White space covers are definitely something that attracts me. Something clean and simple also does the trick for me. Great list!
Thank you! And yes, they’re so lovely to look at. 🙂
White space and celestial are some of my favourites as well! All the UK covers for Sandersons books are beautiful <3
They absolutely are! I just wish some of his older books were out in hardcover. The UK paperbacks have such rigid spines that I tend to crack them. 😛
Same here! I barely open them as I read haha.
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Ohh Celestal and white backgrounds is one of mines too !!
mhh- I don’t have too many I can think of right off the bat, but I do love thoses covers where you have small doodles or writings all around, i’m thinking of “A totally awkward love story” by Tom Ellen & Lucy Ivision. The pink one with handwritten words all around the front cover among little hearts and various boy and girl “images” (?).
I love your take of this top 5’s topic xx
Oh my gosh, YES, I’m fond of doodled covers too! The Wicker King is one that I really quite love (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91A%2B3zpOjHL.jpg).
And the cover for “A totally awkward love story” is the cutest thing I’ve seen in a while! 😀