Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week is a covers freebie. Despite the old yarn about not judging books by them, I think we’ve all fallen prey to a pretty or interesting cover. Sometimes those books turn out to be great! Other times, less so. Here are ten books where the cover grabbed me but the insides didn’t.
The Overstory: This book started out incredible and then kind of fell apart for me. But the cover remains gorgeous.
On Trails: Such a striking, simple cover for a book about the making and use of trails. This book club selection ended up being a dud for me (but I don’t care for outdoors-y books).
Patron Saints of Nothing: I love the way this cover evokes prayer candles, and I thought the book was going to touch more on religious faith. Though it was clunky writing, not a lack of Catholicism, that tanked the book for me.
The Catcher in the Rye: This cover is just so visually appealing, I wish I liked the book more. Or at all. Alas.
The Buried Giant: The weakest Ishiguro I’ve read, but every version of the cover I’ve seen does something interesting with trees.
A Million Little Pieces: Even though I know this book is made of lies, I can’t get over how much I love the image of this cover.
The Fountainhead: The Art Deco-ness of this cover is amazing. The book itself is…better than Atlas Shrugged, at least?
Friday Night Lights: The show is much more compelling than the book, but the image of the players strolling onto the field holding hands is perfect.
Shantaram: There’s an actual golden sheen to this cover that totally drew me in and then the book is both gigantic and quite bad.
A Great And Terrible Beauty: I was really ready for this to be a kind of dishy romance because of this cover and it was very much not (nor was it good).