The Friday Face-Off: Current Read #33

                         

 Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme at Books by Proxy. Join us every Friday as we pit cover against cover, and publisher against publisher, to find the best artwork in our literary universe.  You can find a list of upcoming topics at Lynn's Books.

This week's topic is:

Current Read #33

I haven't done a Friday Face-Off in a while, so I thought it might be a great time to jump back in, and this week I've picked a book I've been very excited about: The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami! This book was finally released in English this week and I have been eagerly anticipating this book for years. I was extremely fortunate to receive an ARC of this one so I've been slowly working my way through it for a while and I'm having the best time being immersed back into Murakami's writing. Because this book was released in Japan in 2023 and has already been translated and released in other languages as well, there are already plenty of editions out there, so let's have a look at some of them!

2024 US | 2023 Japan | 2024 Dutch

2024 Chinese | 2024 UK | 2024 Persian

2023 Korean | 2024 Bengali | 2024 Spanish

2024 German | 2024 Finnish | 2024 Italian

My favorite(s):

These are all such cool covers! I am particularly drawn to the US, Japan, and Chinese editions this time around. The Chinese edition is actually really grabbing me, I'm really liking the style of it. The Korean edition is also really striking. Which cover(s) do you like the most!?

The Friday Face-Off: Current Read #32

                        

 Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme at Books by Proxy. Join us every Friday as we pit cover against cover, and publisher against publisher, to find the best artwork in our literary universe.  You can find a list of upcoming topics at Lynn's Books.

This week's topic is:

Current Read #32

October is the month where I try to fit as many horror books into my reading as I can (although I tend to read horror any time of year, so I'm not sure how different things are, haha), and this week one of the books I've been reading is The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim! This book is super eyeball-themed, as you will tell by all of these covers, so if you don't like eyes, then you may want to skip this week's FFO. If not, let's take a look at the three different cover variations for this one!

2024 US Hardcover

2024 UK Hardcover

2024 Exclusive Evernight Hardcover

My favorite(s):

Honestly, these are all pretty great for the topic of eyeballs, haha. I'm currently reading the Evernight exclusive edition and I love that it looks like the artist was given the direction of "eyeballs... eyeballs everywhere" and they really took that to heart (you can see the full illustrations on the edges, endpapers, and naked hardcover here if you're curious). But I also think both the original US and UK editions fit the story perfectly and you can't go wrong with either of them. Which edition (if any) do you like best? Maybe it's a weird one to have a favorite on, haha, but let me know if you have a preference for any of these!

The Friday Face-Off: Current Read #31

                       

 Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme at Books by Proxy. Join us every Friday as we pit cover against cover, and publisher against publisher, to find the best artwork in our literary universe.  You can find a list of upcoming topics at Lynn's Books.

This week's topic is:

Current Read #31

I haven't done a Friday Face-Off in a while and I'm reading something that I correctly anticipated may have a nice variety of editions out there, so I figured it'd be a great time to revisit this weekly blog meme. This week, one of the books I'm reading is Stephen King's On Writing (and even though this book isn't horror, it feels like a good pick for Friday the 13th). I've heard for years how insightful this book has been for writers, so I decided to finally give it a go–and guess what? Everyone was right! I've been really enjoying this and appreciate all of King's thoughts and advice. I'll admit that I was a little uncertain at first because the first portion of this book feels more like a memoir before getting into discussing the craft itself, but then it all came together. But I digress–let's take a look at some of the different covers that exist for this book!

2000 US Paperback | 2000 US Hardcover | 2008 Polish

2007 Romanian | 2004 Spanish | 2011 German 

2017 Ukrainian | 2019 Arabic | 2023 Lithuanian

2018 Serbian | 2022 Romanian | 2019 Thai

2016 Romanian | 2017 Persian | 2020 Turkish

My favorite(s):

There were so many edition of this book so I couldn't include them all, but I tried to give a nice variety. I also felt compelled to include the three Romanian editions I saw because they were all unique and really stood out to me. My impression is that Romanians really love Stephen King since they have so many editions. The Turkish cover is a little funny to me because it looks like some sort of political poster or USA-style poster of Stephen King's face. The Spanish one does crack me up a bit because King's got a very fashion model pose going on, and I think the Thai edition is really fun and simple as well. My favorite is probably the 2000 US paperback because it's the edition I'm currently reading and I like the simplicity of it (and I love dogs, so...), but I like a lot of these. Which edition(s) do you like the best?

The Friday Face-Off: Current Read #29

                      

 Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme at Books by Proxy. Join us every Friday as we pit cover against cover, and publisher against publisher, to find the best artwork in our literary universe.  You can find a list of upcoming topics at Lynn's Books.

This week's topic is:

Current Read #29

I've just recently read Agustina Bazterrica's Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird, a collection of short horror fiction stories that I'd been highly anticipating from the author of Tender is the Flesh, which I absolutely devoured when I read it (although perhaps "devoured" is a bit too on the nose for that one...). Unfortunately, I actually didn't end up really caring for this collection of stories and was a little disappointed given how much I liked Tender is the Flesh. Despite that, I did happen to notice that it had quite a number of international editions which of course makes it an excellent pick for this week's Friday Face-Off. As such, let's have a look at some of the different covers!

  

2023 US Paperback | 2020 Spanish | 2023 UK

 

2020 Portuguese | 2024 Czech

My choice(s):

Honestly, I think I like all of these! I'm really drawn to the Czech edition for the color and bird imagery, but I really love the creativity in all of these covers. Which one(s) do you like the best?

The Friday Face-Off: Current Read #27

                    

 Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme at Books by Proxy. Join us every Friday as we pit cover against cover, and publisher against publisher, to find the best artwork in our literary universe.  You can find a list of upcoming topics at Lynn's Books.

This week's topic is:

Current Read #27

The only book I'm reading right now that has more than one cover edition to check out is Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick, so that is what I'm featuring for this week's Friday Face-Off! Nothing to Envy is a nonfiction book that follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years and really dives into what life was like during this period in North Korea, as well as what we know of the present state (or present at the time this book was written, which was 2009–to me knowledge, there is not an updated version). This book has been translated into so many different languages so there are a lot of different covers to check out–and I didn't even manage to include them all in this post! Let's have a look at some of them. 

2009 US Hardcover | 2011 Chinese | 2023 Arabic

2010 UK Paperback | 2011 Spanish | 2023 Slovak

2015 Persian | 2014 Czech | 2013 German

2011 Icelandic | 2011 Swedish | 2014 Romanian

2017 Polish | 2011 Thai | 2013 Portuguese

My choice(s):

I'm not really sure that I have a "favorite" cover for this book, but I do think the US hardcover really seems to cover the bleakness of the country and the mange challenges the people in these books face. These covers all interpret and convey the messages of what they think of North Korea differently, and I like seeing how different they all are. Which one(s) do you like the most or find the most interesting?