Top Ten Tuesdays is hosted by The Broke And The Bookish. It's a hard one this week. As you have already noticed, I have borrowed their thematic image this week because if I didn't I would have spoiled my top 10 or fell into the easiness of gruesome content. I have thumbnailed the cover for post formatting purpose but click on it to enlarge. And they are in no particular order. Just the ten ugliest covers I can think of. One last thing before we start, no matter how ugly English books might be, French books are and will always be worse:
Philip K. Dick - The Man In The High Castle: This cover doesn't have anything to do with the novel. What the hell is that male Venus statue is about? And those horrid colors? And those cartoonish traits? All Philip K. Dick novels covers are ugly, but this one needs redesigning BAD.
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby: That's a trippy nightmare if I have every seen one. What the fuck is that supposed to be? Daisy Buchanan? Did the cover designer even read the story? The worse part in that, is that my edition has a wicked cover and I can find it on the internet to save my life.
Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon: I like that book, despite that it thoroughly kicked my ass. But what is this goddamn cover? The title is to big, it has to be dashed into two rows (which is a big aesthetic no-no). The orange triangle hurts my eyes (I hate orange) and there are distracting things scrawled all over. It tidied up since, but it's still ugly.
Henry Rollins - Art To Choke Hearts & Pissing In The Gene Pool: I love Rollins and usually, his covers are decent, but this is just a big bleurgh in technicolor. That might be an obscure painter I have never heart about, but I find it very ugly. I'm not sure why this was chosen.
Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club: There could have been so many great things to do with that cover, a fist just doesn't cut it out. Plus, I've got news for your Mr. Cover Designer: BLACK with a RED overlay looks PINK. Not very manly for a mangst novel. Too bad because all of his other novels have decent cover designs.
Dan Brown - Angels And Demons: This is extremely corny. The black and white man running in a slightly colored background, spotted by a halo of divine light. Plus, the fucking title is in the way. It takes like half of the cover. It looks like it belongs on a Blake And Mortimer comic book, more than on a novel.
Aeschylus - The Oresteia: Ugh. Creepy. But not good creepy. More like why-are-you-sniffing-my-bed-sheets? kind of creepy. I know it's a rather important part of the stage play, but think about it like this. Do you feel like picking this book from the shelves? I don't.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: Also creepy, considering everybody knows what this book is about. Lolita would have benefited a more dignified cover, considering it's actually not a book doing the apology of pedophilia. It fell victim of its reputation.
William Gibson - Neuromancer: Those cyberpunk writers could write, but they sadly couldn't sell enough novels to hire a decent cover designer. What is what? It's a big, bi-colored pile of nothing. It's unappealing to the eye and it makes the novel look cheap.
Jacqueline Howett - The Greek Seaman: I know, I know, I shouldn't put it there after all the controversy it's been through. It's beating a dead horse. But come on. Who right in their mind looks at this cover (and title) and think it's a good idea. Self-published covers are reputably bad, but this is an achievement in sea sickness inducing covers. I couldn't keep it under silence.
