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Yesterday I...
1. Saw Inception with a friend of mine. Neither of us were impressed at all. At least I stayed awake! (She fell asleep.) I just don't get all the hype; this isn't stuff that's exactly complex, complicated, or new, and the whole thing was so painfully predictable. Plus it struck me as very much a "form over function" movie -- literally all about creating an idea (haha) that is supposed to look a certain way, often at the cost of the plot making sense and the characters being interesting.
I am of the opinion that there was a really cool idea for a movie at the core, but that movie should have been about Joseph Gordon-Levitt and mostly an intense character study, not worldbuilding and Leonardo DiCaprio. (Sorry, I don't remember their characters' names.)
NB, I did absolutely love JGL -- and Ellen Page and Ken Watanabe -- and would happily watch seven million movies in which they are action heroes and awesome.
2. Read Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
. This I definitely see the appeal of -- particularly for kids. Had I read this series when I was nine, I think I'd've been a lot more willing to overlook structural, plot, and story flaws in favor of how great all the imagery is, and how creepy the story is.
Since I am not nine, I have a hard time getting over the flaws. ( Cut for spoilers and a frank few sentences about what I did and did not like. )
...Okay, and now the book meme!
Day 19 - Favorite book cover (bonus points for posting an image!)
I want to pause here and differentiate "favorite book cover" from "favorite book cover artwork" -- and also from "most effective book cover/book cover artwork"! They are all different things -- bad design on a book cover can ruin really good art, and bad art can ruin a good design, and sometimes good design and good art do not make a book cover that is effective in getting people to buy the book. That's just how it happens. (Of course, there's the argument to be made that by definition "good design and good art" is art and design that make people want to pick up the book. That is totally fair, too, but not my perspective -- hence the separation between "good" and "effective.")
I Love You Like a Tomato by Marie Giordano
was the first book I acquired and edited myself -- a really amazing literary historical novel -- and it took us a long time to find the right cover. It turned out, too, that what looked good on the hardcover and trade paperback was not the cover we wanted for the mass market edition of the book. I loved the hardcover and trade editions (still have my copies!), but the mass edition's cover really shines:
(click to embiggen)
As far as artwork goes... I cannot tell you that The Wayfarer Redemption by Sara Douglass
is a really good book, the kickoff of a really good series, or that the cover has an amazing design -- all of those things would be lies! But the artwork is awesome, especially the image of the heroine, and I am pretty sure that it's the first time I ever was really struck by great book art. Low res internet images are not the way to see this artwork -- it's in high res that the details are really beautiful. But whatever, here's a low res internet picture anyway:
(click to embiggen)
Feel free to, as always, share your opinion in the comments, or link to your own blog post! Please do not embed images in the comments section, but regular links are fine.
( Other days of the book meme )
1. Saw Inception with a friend of mine. Neither of us were impressed at all. At least I stayed awake! (She fell asleep.) I just don't get all the hype; this isn't stuff that's exactly complex, complicated, or new, and the whole thing was so painfully predictable. Plus it struck me as very much a "form over function" movie -- literally all about creating an idea (haha) that is supposed to look a certain way, often at the cost of the plot making sense and the characters being interesting.
I am of the opinion that there was a really cool idea for a movie at the core, but that movie should have been about Joseph Gordon-Levitt and mostly an intense character study, not worldbuilding and Leonardo DiCaprio. (Sorry, I don't remember their characters' names.)
NB, I did absolutely love JGL -- and Ellen Page and Ken Watanabe -- and would happily watch seven million movies in which they are action heroes and awesome.
2. Read Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
. This I definitely see the appeal of -- particularly for kids. Had I read this series when I was nine, I think I'd've been a lot more willing to overlook structural, plot, and story flaws in favor of how great all the imagery is, and how creepy the story is.Since I am not nine, I have a hard time getting over the flaws. ( Cut for spoilers and a frank few sentences about what I did and did not like. )
...Okay, and now the book meme!
Day 19 - Favorite book cover (bonus points for posting an image!)
I want to pause here and differentiate "favorite book cover" from "favorite book cover artwork" -- and also from "most effective book cover/book cover artwork"! They are all different things -- bad design on a book cover can ruin really good art, and bad art can ruin a good design, and sometimes good design and good art do not make a book cover that is effective in getting people to buy the book. That's just how it happens. (Of course, there's the argument to be made that by definition "good design and good art" is art and design that make people want to pick up the book. That is totally fair, too, but not my perspective -- hence the separation between "good" and "effective.")
I Love You Like a Tomato by Marie Giordano
was the first book I acquired and edited myself -- a really amazing literary historical novel -- and it took us a long time to find the right cover. It turned out, too, that what looked good on the hardcover and trade paperback was not the cover we wanted for the mass market edition of the book. I loved the hardcover and trade editions (still have my copies!), but the mass edition's cover really shines:(click to embiggen)
As far as artwork goes... I cannot tell you that The Wayfarer Redemption by Sara Douglass
is a really good book, the kickoff of a really good series, or that the cover has an amazing design -- all of those things would be lies! But the artwork is awesome, especially the image of the heroine, and I am pretty sure that it's the first time I ever was really struck by great book art. Low res internet images are not the way to see this artwork -- it's in high res that the details are really beautiful. But whatever, here's a low res internet picture anyway:(click to embiggen)
Feel free to, as always, share your opinion in the comments, or link to your own blog post! Please do not embed images in the comments section, but regular links are fine.
( Other days of the book meme )
