Opinion

Favorite Book Covers (Or: How I Do Judge a Book by its Cover)

Book Covers have always interested me. How do they chose the design? Did the person that designed the book cover actually have to read the book?

Let me tell you something about me: I judge books by their covers. All. The. Time. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that a book HAS to have a pretty cover for me to buy it or read it. It means the cover has to match the description and the theme of the book. If I get the same vibe from the book and the cover, it means the cover designer did an A+ job on it.

So here are some of my all time favorite covers (again, not necessarily pretty covers, but just covers I felt were right.)

#1 A Darker Shade of Magic

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A Darker Shade of Magic has an awesome cover. In fact, the entire trilogy has awesome covers. Not just because I think both the UK and the US edition are extremely beautiful, but also because I feel like they capture the feeling of the book so well, and like they match every story and every character they’re based on perfectly.

#2 Furthermore

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Where do I even begin with this cover??? It is perfect! It doesn’t just match the book, with all the quirkiness of it, it is also so so so beautiful. There are so many details in this cover, it basically tells the story all by itself!

#3 Space Case

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I don’t know even how to begin to describe what I like about this cover. The story itself is about a murederer astronaut (well, sort of), so of course the cover is matching. But what I like about this one is how simple the design is, yet how much it catches the eye instantly.

#4 And my favorite book cover of all time (drum roll please)…… 100 Sideways Miles!

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This book has the best cover. It tells the story without throwing too much details on the reader, it captures the eye, but only those who actually read the book will understand how complex this cover is. For me, I feel like this cover gives us details about both the story and the main character’s “vibe”. I just love this cover so much!

 

What is your favorite book cover?

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Opinion

TRAVELING TO MARS With Buzz Aldrin and Mark Watney (Or how these books can make reality)

Anybody who’s been reading my blog for long enough knows that The Martian by Andy Weir is my absolute favorite book of all times. But what you don’t know is why I love this book so much.

You probably assume it’s because of the funny jokes and great plot (well, you’re half right). The reason I am so in love with this book is that I grew up as a space Junky.

It all started with the book Man On The Moon. It’s a biography about all space missions until 1970. Ever since then I have been obsessed with moon missions. But my new obsession is the mission to Mars.

So what it the connection to books here?

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I believe that the travel to Mars will begin with fiction. Buzz Aldrin said in his book Mission To Mars that we can’t begin our travel to Mars until space becomes available for the rest of humanity- those of us who are not astronouts, who don’t work at NASA. And I think that the first way to make space available to all kinds of people is through books. Through fiction.

The Martian does that. It brings people to space without moving from their house. It brings ideas and makes people more passionate about space travel. It makes people more anxious to get there, to see it happening, and through that it puts more pressure -good pressure- on NASA and other space agencies to get us to Mars. I think The Martian will soon have a great effect on our travel to Mars. I think this book was the first push to make space more reachable and familiar to everybody, and to get us to Mars.

I think we can say that Mark Watney was the first person to land foot on Mars.

 

Opinion

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is Isreali Holocaust Remembrance Day. As a Jewish teen in 2017 Israel, I’m not sure how I feel about this day.

So I’m gonna tell you about today through the eyes of a Book Thief.

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I grew up in a country where the Holocaust is something that’s happened to us. It’s happened to your grandpa, to your best friend’s grandma, it happened to someone you know. But I never felt connected to the Holocaust until I started reading books.

I learned that books don’t have to be written directly about the Holocaust to teach us  how it affected the world. And I learned that books don’t have to be written from a Jewish point of view to show us how people felt at the time.

One of my favorite books is called Blood Brothers. It’s about a group of poor and homeless teens just before the Nazi rise in Germany. This book is not written directly about the Holocaust, but about how the conditions in Germany after WWI, and between the wars, have affected and brought to the rise of Nazi Germany. It teaches us how dangerous being desperate can be.

Another great book about the Holocaust is The Book Thief. This book is the story of friendship between a Jewish guy and a non-Jewish girl. I feel very connected to this one because, as I said before, I find it hard to connect to the Holocaust until I look at it through the eyes of someone who’s been through it, like Liesel did.

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(pictured: Blood Brothers by Ernest Haffner)

These books are how I connect to Holocaust Remembrance Day. They are how I can see and feel what the rest of my people are feeling. And I am thankful for them.

 

 

Opinion

DNFing Books

Nobody likes DNFing books, everybody does that. I, lately, have DNFd countless books. Most of the books I DNF, I usually give away.

So here are the books I recently DNFd.

#1 Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness

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To be honest, I DNFd this book soooooooo long ago, but I only recently came to that realization. I loved the first two books in this series so much I read them back to back, but to this third one I just couldn’t get into. I don’t even remember what happened in it anymore. I just remember trying and trying and trying to read it and just never finishing it.

#2 Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

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I have no idea what this book is about. I got it when I was in London because the blurb made it sound super intresting. I’ll be honest, this book was written good, if weird. But the story- the story was just too weird for me. I didn’t understand anything that was happening in it. At some point I sat down with the book and opened it and after a couple of pages I just said “That’s it. I don’t understand anything.

#3 Blood Promise by Richelle Mead

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I am so upset about this one, because I absolutely adored the first three books in the series. But this one was just… not good. It was quite clear from the way things ended in the third book that with this one we were coming to a dead end, but I did not expect that dead end to be spread on to 400 pages. I just got bored so quickly, and found some part so disturbing, that I couldn’t read on.

#4 Demon Road by Derek Landy

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This one was nice in the beggining. I even liked it very much. But it was very problometic now that I look back at it. It was clear that the female main character was written by a man- and was written badly. She was so much what men EXPECT women to be, I felt like Derek Landy was sitting there and telling me I am not enough of a women myself. I was very disappointed.

#5 Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

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This one is another case of “I DNFd it ages ago but didn’t understand until now”. Maybe I was just too young, maybe I wasn’t in the mood, but something in this book missed me. It took me almost a month to get through the first 200 pages, and at some point I just put it down, and never picked it up again.

 

Whatt books have you DNFd lately?

 

I’ll be giving away\donating all of these books, so if anyone wants any, you are welcome to contact me. There are more books I’ll be giving away, and if you want to see them comment down below and I’ll do an unhaul post!

 

Opinion

ANNOTATING BOOKS- Opinion

I love annotating my books. I like writing in them, I like marking my favorite lines, I like drawing in them. But I have this friend who keeps cringing whenever she sees my annotated books. And I was wondering, why?

I used to keep my books in perfect condition- no broken spine for me. But as I grew as a reader, I started thinking. Why does it bother me so much how my books look? And then I started writing in them.

To me, annotations in books are a way of showing that the book is loved. It’s writing your opinion on a certain scene that occured in the book. It’s making funny jokes along the lines of the books. It’s making the book something you loved and read.

I feel like my annotations are my way of taking care of my books. Instead of making sure they stay in perfect condition, with no tears, no dog ears, no broken spine, I write and dog ear and break the spine and make sure everyone sees how much I loved the book.

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(BTW- I in no way am saying that people who like their books in perfect condition are wrong to like them like that! Books are like coffee, everyone loves them a bit differently.)
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