Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and The Bookish, and feature lists related to all things bookish–characters, authors, titles, and favorites. They’re an excellent way to find new interesting books on a variety of topics, and to find bloggers that love the books you do.
Check out their blog for their top ten and lists of other bloggers who participate!
May 6: Top Ten Book Covers I’d Frame As Pieces of Art
1. City and the City; China Miéville. A simple, but thought-provoking design.
2. Firebird; Mercedes Lackey. There’s something sad about the expression on her face, but she’s still beautiful and strange.
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; J.K. Rowling. All of these new covers are gorgeous, but I think this one is one of my favorites–ghostly, represents the conflict well.
4. Moth and Spark; Anne Leonard. A little dark, but interestingly symbolic. And fire is fun.
5. Penguin Classic Threads. These covers are embroidered. How cool is that?
6. Penguin Drop Caps. Any of these books are simple and bright–and they’d be especially nifty spelling out a word on your wall.
7. Tapestry of Fortunes; Elizabeth Berg. A flower, tea cup, and a butterfly–a serene, gorgeous work of art.
8. Troika; Adam Pelzman. Swirls, a subdued shiny silver on white pattern, and pops of red. Lovely.
9. The Vanishing of Katharina Linden; Helen Grant. I love the outline of this, and all the curlicues in the text.
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; Haruki Murakami. A beautifully painted bird, in sunrise colors.
caitlinsternwrites 
Ooh! I like your selection! I definitely want Jillian Tamaki’s embroidered classics too!
Penguin has some skills it making books that demand to be touched and admired–I like plenty of their classic hardcovers, too, but I decided three Penguin designs was too much for one list!
I love those from Penguin! They would look so great framed or set up as art. I can’t believe some of them are actually embroidered. That’s amazing.
Yep, if you look them up there are pictures of the inside cover, with all the threads every which way. So much work, I’m sure, but worth it!
I bet it takes so much time, but definitely worth it to be able to make something so pretty. I’ll have to look up some pictures.
I have City and the City and unfortunately my cover is nothing like the one you show – which I love! Great choices.
Lynn 😀
Too bad when you see a book in a store, you don’t have the option of choosing the cover. I have plenty of books that I’ve discover some alternate version I’d much rather have.
Love these, Caitlin. I’m a sucker for cover art, and have bought several books just to display examples of it on my shelves. Some very cool ones here. The first one puzzled me when I saw it in your email. I had to see the larger version to be able to tell there were contrasting cityscapes on each side. Very nice. Firebird is gorgeous, and the Harry Potter cover, magical. Embroidered covers? How splendid! And the Drop Caps ones would be really cool. I’m thinking of all sorts of messages I could display.Troika not only has lovely, silvery swirls, it has a face hidden in them. That really speaks to me. But the Helen Grant cat is my favorite. I love how it all fits within the silhouette, and like you, think the swirly-curly things are wonderful.
I’ve GOT to start doing this. I might have driven myself into apoplexy trying to pick just ten covers today, though. 😀 Nice job!
Some of the TTT are hard to find 10, others hard to narrow it down to 10. But all of them are fun. Come join us!
Oh I really love that Firebird cover. Gorgeous!
That particular version is sitting on my shelves–it’s a good book as well as a pretty one.