May CoverCAT: More than one element on the cover

May CoverCAT: More than one element on the cover



Welcome to the merry month of May! For this month's CoverCAT, select a book that features more than one element on the cover. The elements could be pictures, photos, graphics, designs, or whatever you like. The choice is yours!

Remember to post the book cover of your choice for this challenge, and update the wiki.

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/CoverCAT_2025#2025_CoverCAT

I am planning to read Brush with Greatness: Van Gogh which has one of his paintings on the cover. The artist himself forms the main element, with plants and other landscape features forming the others.

I will be reading Timeless: Book 1 by Jacqueline Hopkins, which has the elements of lightning and a tornado on the cover.

I'm planning on Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic: An Anthology of Hysteria Fiction, which has a whole collage of items on the front. It's a horror collection that was put together a while back to benefit reproductive rights, and I've been meaning to read it.

I am planning on We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry which has multiple field hockey sticks on the cover and The Tuscan Contessa by Dinah Jeffries which has a couple of planes on the cover.

My book club is reading The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See in May. The cover has a photo of women standing on a rocky beach and drawings of underwater seaweed.

>4 whitewavedarling: This sounds fascinating! I may add it to my TBR after I hear what you think of it.

>7 Charon07:, Definitely! There are only a few authors in the TOC who I've read before (Christi Nogle and Hailey Piper), but I've really enjoyed their work and I've heard good things about the anthology, so I'm excited to finally get into it!

I’ve been pondering how to interpret this month’s theme. I finally decided to look at books that have two or more discrete objects on the cover. I still have several books to choose from:







And while this one doesn’t quite meet the criterion I set in my head, since the objects are all set in one scene, I think there’s a diverse enough array of things to count:

>10 Charon07: Interpretation of the challenge is up to the reader, so you are good to go with any of your selections.

I haven't been doing the CoverCAT, but I'll be doing this one to fill the "Read a CAT" BingoDog square. I'm reading Leonie Swann's Three Bags Full, which has several sheep on the cover.

I've completed We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry which has multiple field hockey sticks on the cover.

I read Paper Money by Ken Follett which has two hands on the cover

My cover of A view of the harbour has stylised waves, lighthouses and houses on the cover.

I read Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. My copy has a picture of two cups and two saucers.

I interpreted this prompt as meaning covers that contain more than one "layer," if that makes sense -- things that you'd put in different layers of an image editing program like Photoshop. So with that vibe in mind, I think Emily Henry's Great Big Beautiful Life counts. It has the bold white text, the Reese Witherspoon book club logo, the illustrated people in the foreground, and the stylized abstract shapes (I think they form a sun?) in the background:

I read Demon Daughter, a Penric and Desdemona story set in The world of the five gods.
The cover has two humans and two lit candles.

I read Star Trek: Lower Decks―Warp Your Own Way, which has a lot going on:

I read Quick Curtain by Alan Melville, which has a painted theatre scene on the cover. Audience members are in the foreground, the conductor is in the orchestra pit, and the stage has a play being acted.

I just finished Ruby & Roland by Faith Sullivan which has two people on the cover.

I finished 3 books with multiple birds on the covers:



The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden (1906--this facsimile published 1977); year-long nature diary and drawings
The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers by Zeke Hernandez (2024); nonfiction
Charlotte Fairlie by D. E. Stevenson (1954); fiction

A woman (Bella) in the foreground, and a werewolf, moon, and trees in the background

The June thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/370841

Finished Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic (an anthology of horror stories with proceeds going to the Chicago Abortion Fund). Full review written, but in short, I'd absolutely recommend it to horror readers!

>26 whitewavedarling: I’ve been taking a lot of BBs from you lately, and this is another one!

>27 Charon07:, I've been on a spree of reading some great books lol, so I guess it's a sorry-not-sorry moment :)

80. Timeless: Book 1 by Jacqueline Hopkins ★½

When Liza Starr Love, a historical romance author, travels back in time with her main character, Ross York, who is a Peterson Detective in her tenth historical romance novel, she must prevent him from altering the future and try to save the life of her infamous ancestor--Belle Starr. Liza is frantically working on her book deadline because without it, she has no way to keep her farm afloat after her husband died in a freak farming accident. She needs the money from the sale of her book, but a thunderstorm with a tornado prevents her from working on it when the power goes out. When she gets it back, her hero and his daughter from her books appear in her office. Ross, who lost his pregnant wife, is traveling on a wagon train to Santa Fe across the territory of Oklahoma, to take his daughter to live with his brother and his wife, he must also protect the gold he's carrying to pay the Peterson Detectives and keep it from falling into the wrong hands of the Younger Gang. But a severe thunderstorm one night finds him and his daughter in a strange home with strange surroundings in a future he doesn't understand.
Together, Ross and Liza must figure out how to get Ross and Sara back to the 1880s. For Ross to arrest her ancestor without hurting Liza, the woman he's fallen in love with. For Liza to figure out how to save her farm, let a man help her and fall in love all over again. And for them both to figure out how their love can transcend between the two worlds they travel between.

This is one of the worst time travel books I have read. From the numerous typos (that got worse as the book went along) to the whole concept of the book itself. The time travel was an error, yet they figured out immediately how to make it occur again. Also, the man from the 1880s accepts everything he saw in the 2020s with only a few questions, only to travel back in time to tell everyone, and they all accept it without qualms or questions. The book does not even make the romance believable enough to be enjoyable.

I chose to take the prompt of more than one element on the cover literally and chose this book for the elements of a tornado and lightning.

I have finished Parle-leur de batailles, de rois et d’éléphants which shows the skyline of Constantinople from the sea and a small boat.

I read the hilarious The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse. The cover features characters and pilfered antiques.

I've read The Byrd Machine in Virginia, a paperback by Michael Lee Pope which has multiple pictures on both the front and back covers.

The Three-Body Problem



The three orbs (stars) on the cover are the titular three bodies that cause a problem.

This one has been on my TBR for a while. I really enjoyed this hard sci-fi tale which starts during China's Cultural Revolution and slowly unravels a physics-related mystery. There was a little bit of the science that went over my head (I know nothing about protons) but I was able to basically nod and accept the explanations at face value even if I wasn't sure about the actual science behind it. The tale was gripping and suspenseful and the mystery of what exactly is going on is slowly unraveled throughout the whole tale, and I enjoyed the questions the story raised about society and humanity, without being too didactic.

I did have some gripes; full review on my thread.

I finished Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey, and I loved it—such a strange but engaging little story! The collection of diverse objects on the cover is significant to the story, including the numbering (in the lower right corner, which is probably hard to see of the thumbnail).

Simple but multiple!

I just finished Mister Slaughter by Robert R. McCammon which I am using for this month. There is the picture of the man in the center with the knife (I think) at the top and chains around the frame.

Der Kummer von Belgien has a young boy on the cover and a few medieval houses.

I completed my read of The Tuscan Contessa by Dinah Jefferies. The cover had two airplanes in the sky.

I completed Moloka'i by Alan Brennert.

I just finished The King's Messenger by Susanna Kearsley. The cover has several layers: the bird and branches in dark ink in the background, the layer of yellow curlicues over it, and the white text on top of that. Additionally, the edges of the pages are yellow, with a turquoise version of the curlicue motif.

I read Into the Valley of Death by H.R.F. Keating, which has a bench, a dead body, and trees on the cover.

I've completed two more books which I'm counting for this theme. The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez has the hand and two people inside the hand and all of the leaves around that image. And The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf has the plant in the middle and different types of animals around the plant.

Thank you to all who participated. It was interesting to see the variety of covers posted in the discussion.