The Friday Face-Off is hosted by Books by Proxy, where each week bloggers can showcase books with covers centered around a weekly theme.
“That great condenser of moral chaos, The City.”
[A cover which features a city.]
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve participated in this, but because book covers with cities on them are some of my favorites, I had to jump in this week. Although as I was looking for some ideas, I realized that I haven’t read that many books with cities on the cover. So I have a feeling my pick this week might be a popular one. I’ve chosen City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett:
U.S. edition: 2014 Broadway Books – UK edition: 2014 Jo Fletcher Books
Latvian edition: 2016 Prometejs – Czech edition: 2016 Host
German edition: 2017 Bastei Lübbe – Russian edition: 2017 ACT
I really love how different all of these covers are, but I think my favorite is still the U.S. cover:
Usually I’m not happy with US versions but in this case, I have to agree it’s the best. I can’t seem to figure out the spirals in the Latvian edition – are they supposed to be stairs?
Barb (boxermommyreads) recently posted…Weekly Reads (09/08/17)
Yes, they are stairs. That cover isn’t my favorite, but I like that they tried to capture the “stairs going to nowhere” idea of the story.
I’ve done the Cover Characteristic with Sugar and Snark before, but I love that there is another one of these types of posts going around. I’ll have to go check it out and get to participate with it. I always love looking through all my books to remember the covers.
I love doing anything with book covers, and now that you mention Cover Characteristic I’ll have to check it out, thanks!
What an excellent choice for this topic – I realise I’ve said this everywhere I’ve visited this week. But frankly, I think we F-Facers deserve a real pat on the back as there has been a marvellous spread of books featuring cities and the covers have all been sooo pretty. While I do love your choice – my favourite is the Jo Fletcher cover – that detailing in the sky with the beautiful white buildings on the cityscape is just magical… Have you read the book? I don’t know this one.
sjhigbee recently posted…While the Morning Stars Sing
Ooh some good ones! I like the U.S. cover best but the U.K. one I like too, in a different way. Almost has a futuristic look to the city. I kinda like the Czech edition too.
Greg recently posted…Bookcover Spotlight #118
Wow, I’m only familiar with the US and UK covers, but those other ones are seriously neat! I kinda like the Czech edition, even though it totally doesn’t fit the tone of the book!
Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum recently posted…Mogsy’s Bookshelf Roundup: Stacking the Shelves & Recently Read
Oh, definitely the US cover of City of Stairs — it looks utterly COOL and epic! Second choice would be the Czech cover — there’s something quirky about it I would want to know more about.
Excellent choice. I had no idea there were so many covers. I like your choice and I also like the Latvian one.
Lynn 😀
Always fascinating to see the range of styles in the covers. I’d only seen the US version, and it’s my favorite of this batch.
I think the US cover fits the story best, but from a personal POV I prefer the UK cover. There’s something about the contrast of the white and purple that really works for me!
Danya @ Fine Print recently posted…Review: Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine
The UK cover is definitely striking. I love when a book gets both really good US and UK covers:-)