Friday Face-Off: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Friday Face-Off is one of my favorite bookish memes. It focuses on book covers, more specifically different versions of a book cover, to judge which one is best. It was created by Books by Proxy and is now continued by Lynn’s Book Blog. So shout out to Lynn for continuing it! For a while now I wanted to jump back in but kept forgetting to. But this time, Friday will not pass by without me publishing a Friday Face-Off post!

This week’s theme:

“I wandered lonely as a cloud”

A cover that is predominantly yellow

My thoughts immediately went to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when I saw this topic because the 20th anniversary editions were released in the house colors and although I consider myself a Ravenclaw, my favorite of the bunch was the yellow covers for Hufflepuff because the publisher used a brilliant yellow for those books. But I talk (and think) about the Harry Potter books too much, so I instead decided to feature Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings, which appears in such a yellow.

Although James is one of my favorite authors, I’ve yet to read this book (or any of his others except the one I read) and haven’t even cracked open his debut fantasy novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which I was beyond excited to see published earlier this year, smh. A Brief History of Seven Killings is a historical fiction novel about the attempted assassination of the popular Jamaican singer Bob Marley in the late 1970s. Let’s first look at the cover I have verses the one I want.

FACE OFF!

U.K. paperback

I own the U.S. hardcover, which I got only because I was a) overexcited about its publication and b) Marlon James was at the venue where I purchased it so I got it autographed. Apart from the bright yellow that links back to the yellow in the Jamaican flag, this cover is bland. I appreciate the inclusion of the national bird (the hummingbird) in the middle, but still the cover is bland and unappealing (apart from the bright yellow).

However, the U.K. paperback cover has more going for it. Not only does it include the black, green, and gold (yellow) of the Jamaican flag, the cover is presented as a vinyl to hint at what the story is about. There are even three bullet holes on the vinyl to further tease a potential reader’s curiosity. So of these two, here’s my

WINNER!

I came across these covers for the translated editions of the book:

Spanish edition

Greek edition

Romanian edition

Ukrainian edition

Russian edition

Russian edition as well

Of the translated versions, I lean toward the Greek edition because I like the photo used although I’m not sure if it matches the story (since I haven’t yet read it). I also like the typography and text placement with the bands of color. I think it all works well.

I also like the Russian covers because of the guitar and sound system on it. I prefer the tan one because you see more details there. The cover in the reggae colors hides the blood splatter and such, but the diagram/map (part of the assassinators’ planning, I guess) stands out there.

The Romanian version is good too, but the colors used on the illustration of Bob Marley’s face is the only thing that appeals to me there.

I don’t like the Ukrainian cover much although it makes me think crime noir, and the Spanish cover is okay.

Of these, my favorite is

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Which of these is your favorite?

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