Beauty and the... Book. Beautiful books and where to get them

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's the place where Book Bloggers from around the world share their bookish finds with one another in a virtual place called The Sunday Salon. Thank you to Deb at ReaderBuzz for keeping us all together on Sundays and hosting The Sunday Salon now! I also visited with Kim at The Caffeinated Reader, another Sunday gathering place for us bookish people called The Sunday Post and the ladies at Mailbox Monday.

It's starting to cool off in South Carolina. It makes me think of curling up with a good book on a comfy couch. Which makes me think of picking out a new book. Which made Me think how exactly do we go about picking out a new book? We are not suppose to judge of book by its' cover, but when we wander around the bookstore or library, looking for nothing in particular, aren't we looking at the artwork of the books? Either the cover or the spine, maybe a title, something that catches our attention, that makes us pick the book up and see what it's all about? 

Recently when I was wandering around online at Waterstones Bookstore, I came across their Special Edition Book section. Wow, some of these books were beautiful. Made me think (yes, lots of thinking going on this week), what else is out there? At which point I kind of got obsessed looking for special edition books. Here's what I found...

There are a few bookish places (stores/companies) that specialize in... well, beautiful books! Books that have special covers, special inside covers, special paper edges. There was a time where just having deckled edges made a book special, but now. OMG!

I bought Amelie Wen Zhao's book, Song of Silver, Flame like Night, second hand from a website called Pangobooks. It's a place to buy & sell your books. I had a good experience with buying this book, and because of that I might look here first for books I'm looking for. Unlike, say Ebay, Pangobooks is only about books. You can search by genre or a specific book. It's a fun bookish site for people who love reading and books. At the time I wasn't looking for a particular title, but I wanted to see if anyone had illumicrate books, and they did! 

Illumicrate is a book subscription service as well as a place to purchase some of those special editions without a subscription. They were actually the first book subscription service in the UK. Yes, they are in the UK, so shipping is a bit expensive, but if you want one of these beautiful books, you are going to pay it! (But grab what you want fast because these are limited editions and usually only offered for a specific timeframe).

So what are some of the things that make an illumicrate book special? First the dust jacket is usually a special cover made just for them and in cooperation with the author. The one I have here has a special silver foil for the title. Next the actual cover is usually beautifully made too. Mine has silver foil parts to it. Next is the endpapers, the paper that is glued onto the inside cover and is the first page, is has special artwork. And finally, if all that weren't enough, the page edges are sprayed, sometimes with a design, sometimes with just a color. This book, Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amelie Wen Zhao is one of the most beautiful page edges I've ever scene. OMG, the colors just pop.

       

 Interesting to also see the UK edition versus the United States edition side by side....

(usually I prefer UK covers, but the US cover is very pretty too)

Uk cover on left, U.S cover on right

Have you ever liked the UK cover of a book better than the US cover? 

Have you ever noticed the difference?

Here are a few places to get special edition books...

Fairyloot... Fairyloot is a fantasy subscription company, but they also have some special editions to purchase without having a subscription. 

Waterstones... Bookstore based in UK that is a "regular" bookstore that also has beautiful special editions specifically made for them. I have ordered from Waterstones when I wanted one of their special editions, a UK book cover (because frequently they are nicer looking) or sometimes when it actually is cheaper to get if from them than in the States. 

Goldsboro Books... Bookstore based in UK that specializes in signed first editions, and special editions.

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Here are some of my other special editions books...

Edward Gorey Edition of Dracula... Gorey illustrations thru-out, and a cool fuzzy cover.

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake... A great start to a fantasy series that is kind of a mashup of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. I am in the middle of this book and love it. Love the page edges and the inside front end papers depicting the characters of the story. 

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman... The latest book in the Thursday Night Murder Club series. This will be my first book in the series, even though it's actually the 4th book, but I think they are stand alones, meaning I don't have to have read the other books to enjoy reading this one. I love the actual cover with the pink foil fox! and the matching sprayed page edges and end papers.

Now if you don't want to purchase special editions for yourself, these would make great gifts for that special reader in your life. The second hand market for these books isn't much cheaper and sometimes a lot more than what a new copy from the actual source is. The price is sometimes based on the rarity of the special edition. Some of these are not available directly to the U.S. market, so second hand market is the only way to get them. 

I've always loved UK edition covers on books. It use to be, in my humble opinion, that they were always nicer. Nowadays though that's not always the case. And although I have a few very nice special editions, for "normal" reading I think I will stick with "normal" books, where I won't be obsessing over taking care of the book, and G-d forbid I wrinkle the dust cover. I do treat my books with respect, but I don't live in fear of touching them. 

What do you think about special editions books? Are they worth it? Would you buy any? 

Hope you found something interesting here today! And share some interesting bookish things here!

Happy reading... Suzanne

First Lines Friday... A Controversial Romance

 I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into Cafe Rev, but it sure as hell wasn’t a picture of myself behind the register under the cheery headline “Do Not Serve.” A yellow frown face magnet held the photo in place.

First of all, I’d never set foot in Knockemout, Virginia, let alone done anything to warrant a punishment as egregious as withholding caffeine. Secondly, just what dd a person have to do in their dusty little town to have a mugshot hanging in the local cafe?

Ha. Mug shot. Because I was in a cafe. Gosh, I was funny when I was too tired to blink.

                                ... Things we Never Got Over by Lucy Score

I got an email last friday from Fairyloot announcing that this book, Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score, was available to order. Now if you're not familiar with Fairyloot (and I am definitely going to have a post about them and a few other businesses like them), it's a company that has a book box subscription service for mostly fantasy books. But what makes them different from say The Book of the Month club are the covers that these books (and the sprayed edges)have. OMG, these covers are beautiful. And some of the designs that are sprayed on the paper edges are gorgeous. Okay, that's for another post, but we really need to talk about them soon (come back Sunday... hint, hint)!

What I wanted to say about this book was that after I saw that Fairyloot was going to have one of their exclusive editions made, I went to google it and read what the story was about and find out who the author was. Amazon had a 4.5 star rating, which usually says a lot, but I wanted to look at what the 1 star ratings were that I noticed was part of the rating scale. Well, those 1 star ratings really had intense feelings about this book. Basically, everyone, even the lower ratings, liked the main character Naomi, but the love interest created a big rift in how women felt about the book. And "bad boy" and "jerk" were the nicer comments. It seems that the love interest, according to the bad ratings, was domineering and controlling. A red flag for a real relationship. The high ratings loved the romance in the story. Calling the love interest a grumpy bad boy, but that Naomi stood up for herself and eventually love found a way. The beginning of the book, and this First Lines Friday post, I thought was really interesting. I liked Naomi's voice and I liked the writing, with that little bit of snarky humor. 

The question is, which reviews do you trust?

I think reviews are good to read for the most part, but really, we all have our own tastes and what someone else likes or doesn't like isn't necessarily how I'm going to feel about it. So, I read a bit of the story if I can, which tells me if I like the authors writing. And even before reading a sample, I read what the book is about. If it sounds like a story I might enjoy and if I'm able to read a sample of the authors writing and I like it, then I'll give any book a fair chance. There is one thing that is an absolutely no go for me is violence against animals. I can't watch a movie with it and I can't tolerate a book that has it. 

Do you have any absolutes in your reading?

Happy reading... Suzanne