February 16, 2014

Judging Books by Their Covers: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

I adored Life After Life, but somehow didn't notice until I was already done with it that the cover had one rose stem with two flowers on it. (Ahem. Apparently attention to detail is not my strong suit lately.) So out of curiosity I looked up some other covers, and then realized that I hadn't done a Judging Books By Their Covers post since last November! Thus, here you go, time to get judgmental about Kate Atkinson this time!

Here's the publisher's synopsis of Life After Life: 
What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can -- will she?
And here are the three most common covers I could find.



The left one is the British hardback, which I think is easily the best representation of what the book is about. The middle one is the American, which at least gives a sense of things growing and living in unusual ways, but otherwise has nothing to do with the book. And the right one, the British paperback, gives you a sense of snow and foxes, which is apropos for Ursula's birth, but doesn't give a reincarnationish vibe at all.

Which cover do YOU like the best?