SBPT: Kim @ Dreaming In Libraries

It's that time of the week again! Todays epic blogger is Kim from Dreaming in Libraries. She's a German blogger who I have to say I'm a little in love with, she's made this tour for me and a friend for life (she has no choice in this).
Being from Germany we thought up a cool post idea where she compares German and UK book covers. I've never understood why the publishers change the covers but it would seem that the German ones do appeal more to Kim and the UK ones more to me. So enjoy the post and let us know what you think of the covers.

Kim is a book-obsessed girl from Germany studying Physics of Earth. When not struggling with mathematic formulas, she’s busy fangirling over her latest favorite book. She loves to do everything concerning books: reading, blogging, writing, making bookish pendants,… Kim started her book blog “Dreaming in Libraries” in 2014 and thereby discovered a new hobby. You can find her blog at dreaminginlibraries.blogspot.com and she’s more than happy to talk to you on Twitter (@DreamingLibrary)!

English Covers vs. German covers

with Kim

Hey Everyone!

I’m Kim blogging over at Dreaming in Libraries!

So for this guest post Mily asked me to do something very fun: comparing English covers to German covers. If you’ve ever wondered whether English books translated into German would end up with the same covers, the answer would be: most unlikely! German publishing houses almost always don’t only change the title of the book; they create a complete new cover, too.

I’ve thought of ten covers from my book shelves to show you the differences between their original covers and the German ones.

Here we go alphabetically:

    

After by Anna Todd

I think I prefer the German version of “After”, especially if you have a look at the following books in that series. You probably won’t see it in the picture very well, but the black font is shiny and haptic as is the flowery thing. The rest of the book cover is matt.

    

Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky

These covers really don’t look similar AT ALL! If it weren’t for the name of the author on it, you couldn’t tell it was ONE book. I do like both covers very much. Since I own the German version, I’d probably tend to like that one more, but the English cover is pretty cool, too.

    

Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling

Both covers are very different and yet so similar… I can’t tell you why, but I’m not the hugest fan of either of those covers. I think it’s because of the drawing, though. Both covers contain a drawing of Harry Potter and I don’t like either of them.

   

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Again, I can’t really tell you which one I like better. Both covers are quite different. Yet I’d probably again prefer the German cover, because it fits the story a bit better. 

    

Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid

I love both covers of this book very much! Both of them are unique in their own ways and I think they are gorgeous. At last covers without people on it ;-)!

    

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

As for this series I definitely prefer the German covers! They are shiny and I just like the design in general.  I think the model looks a bit freaky on the English cover.

    

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

I love the German covers – as a whole, the trilogy looks gorgeous on my book shelf. I don’t really know why the English cover doesn’t speak to me, but I probably wouldn't have picked up the book, if I had only seen the English copy in my bookstore.

    

Thoughtless by S.C. Stephens

So, the content of those two covers is pretty similar and yet they are completely different. To be honest, I don’t like the English cover at all and I’m very happy that I have the beautiful German covers on my shelf :-)!

  

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

There are two different German covers for one of my favorite series ever. Unfortunately the hardcover version isn’t beautiful at all! Maybe the publishing house realized that too, because in fall they’re publishing all books of that series as a much prettier paperback version again and they won’t continue with the original hardcovers. Also, I’m glad they stuck to the English cover this time, because I like that one really much.

    

Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini

Another series by Josephine Angelini and again, I prefer the German cover! I think that one is just stunning and it fits the story so well! Nonetheless the English cover looks amazing, as well, so I’d totally buy that copy, too.

What do you think about those different covers?

In case you wondered: books translated from German into English have different covers, too. I chose two series for you to compare:

Tintenherz (or Inkheart) by Cornelia Funke

and

Rubinrot (or Ruby Red) by Kerstin Gier

I hope you enjoyed this post!

Yours, Kim

Summer Blogger Promo Tour: Ink On The Shelf

This is it! The last promo post of the tour! Next week I'll have my wrap up post were we look back at all the epic bloggers we've gotten to know over the summer on The YA's Nightstnad but for today it's time to meet the final blogger Jen from Ink of The Shelf. Like Stefani last week there is no one better at describing themselves than Jen, so here's what she has to say about herself:

You can also find Jen on TWITTER!!

So the post!
A couple of weeks ago I did a book tag all about chocolate! It was so much fun so I thought I'd get Jen to do the same for this post. Basically she has to match up a book recommendation with a kind of chocolate. From Dark to White to Wafer to a whole damn box. 

Enjoy lovelies!! 

~ The Chocolate Book Tag ~

Dark Chocolate: A book that covers a dark topic. (abuse, domestic violence, rape, loneliness, bullying, death etc)

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. A very sad, poetic and well written book which targets the issue of rape amongst teens.

White Chocolate: Your favourite light-hearted/humorous read.

Anything by Janet Evanovich, but in particular the Stephanie Plum series. Usually makes me smile, laugh, and feel like eating everything in sight. 

Milk Chocolate: A book that has a lot of hype that you’re dying to read.

Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins. It's finally out, ahhhh! If the bookstore is sold out, I probably won't be responsible for my own behaviour.

Chocolate with a Caramel Centre: Name a book that made you feel all gooey in the middle while you were reading it.

While this is an instalove story, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith, is funny, well written and just believable.

Wafer Free Kit Kat: Name a book that surprised you lately.

Hexed by Michelle Krys. It didn't live up to the hype and my own personal expectations (excitement). Barely average.

Snickers: A book that you are going nuts about.

The Unforgetting of Mara Dyer. This whole series is unbelievable.

Hot Chocolate with Cream and Marshmallows: What book would you turn to for a comfort read?

Besides the Stephanie Plum novels this would have to be the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. I've read them enough that they are like visiting an old friend.

Box of Chocolates: What series have you read that you feel has a wide variety and a little something for everyone?

Possibly Harry Potter, since I know a range of people with different ages and reading habits who have seemed to enjoy it. What a nice box of chocolates it is, maybe even a box of Bertie Bots, minus the bad flavours.

Summer Blogger Promo Tour: The YA Club

Today we have LS from The YA Club. Today's post is a little later than usual as I was away this weekend but don't worry it's still the same as usual.

The YA Club is a blog run by 8 different lovely bloggers! Here's how they explain their blog on their site:

More than thirty years ago, Brian Johnson wrote an epic letter to Mr. Vernon in John Hughes’s now-classic film The Breakfast Club telling him who he and his classmates thought they were. Five students, all from different school cliques, served detention one Saturday in March, initially seeing one another—as Shermer High School’s dean did—as their labels, and not as their identities.The Breakfast Club resonated with so many teens in the 1980s and over the years since then because of the way it ripped apart those classifications. But decades later, those labels still exist, even though the lines are a little more blurred. Contemporary YA books reflect that (or should). As Brian wrote in his letter that afternoon, “each one of us is a brain and an athlete and a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal.”That’s who we are.We are the YA Club.

For this post I had the pleasure of finding out L.S's top 10 books of all time! To find out more about L.S check out some of her sites:

TWITTER || FACEBOOK || WEBSITE

LS's Top 10 Books EVER

1. Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas

For Steve York, life was good. He had a 4.0 GPA, friends he could trust, and a girl he loved. Now he spends his days smoked out, not so much living as simply existing.

But his herbal endeavors -- and personal demons -- have lead to a severe lack of motivation. Steve's flunking out, but if he writes a one-hundred-page paper, he can graduate.

Steve realizes he must write what he knows. And through telling the story of how he got to where he is, he discovers exactly where he wants to be....

2. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
Don't let the ease of reading fool you - Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters."
Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy - and humor.

3. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he's committed to flying, he's trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he's sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

4. The Alienist by Caleb Carr

The year is 1896, the place, New York City. On a cold March night New York Times reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned to the East River by his friend and former Harvard classmate Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a psychologist, or "alienist." On the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge, they view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy, a prostitute from one of Manhattan's infamous brothels.
The newly appointed police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, in a highly unorthodox move, enlists the two men in the murder investigation, counting on the reserved Kreizler's intellect and Moore's knowledge of New York's vast criminal underworld. They are joined by Sara Howard, a brave and determined woman who works as a secretary in the police department. Laboring in secret (for alienists, and the emerging discipline of psychology, are viewed by the public with skepticism at best), the unlikely team embarks on what is a revolutionary effort in criminology-- amassing a psychological profile of the man they're looking for based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who has killed before, and will kill again before the hunt is over.
Fast-paced and gripping, infused with a historian's exactitude, The Alienist conjures up the Gilded Age and its untarnished underside: verminous tenements and opulent mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. Here is a New York during an age when questioning society's belief that all killers are born, not made, could have unexpected and mortal consequences.

5. The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce

Fans of Tamora Pierce's stellar saga about Alanna of Trebond can now get all four books one boxed set!

Packaged together for the first time, the Song of the Lioness quartet is the adventurous story of one girl's journey to overcome the obstacles facing her, become a valiant knight, and save Tortall from conquest. Alanna douses her female identity to begin her training in Alanna: The First Adventure,and when she gains squire status in In the Hand of the Goddess, her growing abilities make her a few friends -- and many enemies. Books 3 and 4 complete Alanna's adventure and secure her legend, with the new knight errant taking on desert tribesmen in The Woman Who Rides like a Manand seeking out the powerful Dominion Jewel in Lioness Rampant.

A must-read for Pierce's loyal followers and a perfect starting point for readers not yet familiar with her work, this boxed set is fantasy writing at its best. Pierce's gifted writing -- and her knack for creating heroines unafraid to challenge the status quo -- shines brightly in this Lioness set, taking it to the highest ranks, just like Alanna herself. Shana Taylor

6. The Curse Workers trilogy by Holly Black

Cassel comes from a shady, magical family of con artists and grifters. He doesn't fit in at home or at school, so he's used to feeling like an outsider. He's also used to feeling guilty; he killed his best friend, Lila, years ago.
But when Cassel begins to have strange dreams about a white cat, and people around him are losing their memories, he starts to wonder what really happened to Lila. In his search for answers, he discovers a wicked plot for power that seems certain to succeed. But Cassel has other ideas and a plan to con the conmen.

7. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

Inside little blue envelope 1 are $1,000 and instructions to buy a plane ticket.
In envelope 2 are directions to a specific London flat.
The note in envelope 3 tells Ginny: Find a starving artist.
Because of envelope 4, Ginny and a playwright/thief/ bloke–about–town called Keith go to Scotland together, with somewhat disastrous–though utterly romantic–results. But will she ever see him again?
Everything about Ginny will change this summer, and it's all because of the 13 little blue envelopes.

8. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. This extraordinary first novel has captured the imaginations of teenagers and adults across the country.

9. Elanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.
Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.
Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.
Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

10. Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. 
She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street. Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test.
With characters as captivating as those in her internationally bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys skillfully creates a rich story of secrets, lies, and the haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny.