Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge discussion

Use this space to discuss books you're reading or that might fit the 10th Read Harder task. Sign up for our new Read Harder newsletter to get recommendations for each task delivered straight to your inbox! https://bookriot.com/newsletter/read-...

Obviously I'll focus mostly on the aesthetics of the cover, but can the title count as a part of the cover? It's really difficult for me not to be influenced at least a little by the title of a book when I see it

I'm really excited for this one. I plan on just walking into my local indie in early January and picking up a queer graphic novel I've never seen. Love a queer GN. Update later, when I pick it!

I saw this in an indie bookstore and it seemed like an interesting read: Playing Indian

I work at the library and while checking books in this one caught my eye, so for now it's what I'm planning on:

I'm planning on skimming through the shelves at the local library to see what covers jump out at me. I'll also be skimming suggestions in general for good covers. I haven't picked a book based solely on the cover in a while but I remember doing it with (which I personally really liked), so I offer it up as a suggestion.

I'm pretty homebound, so I plan to skim through a couple of lists of recommended books and see which covers jump out at me.

I'll use the NPR Books We Love site: https://apps.npr.org/best-books/#view...

And the "Around the Year in 52 Books" Best Books of the Month 2022 Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

I could use some help from y'all for this one. I'm totally blind, so I can't choose a book based on the cover. When posting your selections, I would really appreciate it if you could write a text description of the cover. Maybe one of those will catch my attention. Thanks.

I love book cover art…it’s going to be hard to choose only one.

Justin wrote: "I could use some help from y'all for this one. I'm totally blind, so I can't choose a book based on the cover. When posting your selections, I would really appreciate it if you could write a text description..."

Here are five cover descriptions. I picked some short books, some long.

The Book of Swords - A sword with an elaborate, detailed hilt emerges from the smoke. Light reflects off the silver hilt and the amber jewel in the center.

Hum - A robot stands in front of a hilly landscape. Birds swarm in the background against a cloudy sky. Brass horns protrude from the robot's chest and its head is made of a birdcage. Inside the birdcage is the upturned corpse of a bird. The robot holds a blue egg in its hand.

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever - In outer space, a planet is lit from behind. In front of it, ghostly figures emerge (or disintegrate) in billowing smoke.

A Wizard of Earthsea - Arches and abandoned buildings made of stone sit on an island with steep hills. A statue of a dragon sits in the foreground.

Lailah wrote: "I'm pretty homebound, so I plan to skim through a couple of lists of recommended books and see which covers jump out at me.

I'll use the NPR Books We Love site: https://apps.npr.org/best-books/#v..."

I am pretty homebound, too, and I'm also terrible about getting things back to the library. I had intended to wander around the library, looking for something, but when I was browsing amazon, yesterday afternoon, I saw a book called Thistlefoot: Thistlefoot So, I might choose that one.

Yes Marie, like that. Excellent descriptions. Those are all intriguing candidates for me. Please keep them coming everyone.

Permafrost by Eva Baltasar



I was intrigued by the color and simple illustration of a woman in silhouette against a teal background - sounds like a possible read of mine, so I picked it from the library.

Shelving some books and came across this one World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments

Karen wrote: "Shelving some books and came across this one World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments"

Oh I LOVED that book.

Justin wrote: "I could use some help from y'all for this one. I'm totally blind, so I can't choose a book based on the cover. When posting your selections, I would really appreciate it if you could write a text d..."

Justin, here's a description of the books I'm considering:

How High We Go in the Dark - It has a blue with white clouds background. In the center is a round sun, turning into the different phases of the moon spreading into the top left and bottom right corners. This book has been recommended by several people, but I don't know anything about it.

Sand - The entire cover is a picture of a half face in yellow/orange tones with a bright blue eye. My first impression is that it's a woman's face, but I could be wrong. Across the cheek and headed up towards the eye are two small silhouetted figures leaving footprints on the face. The books says "How deep must you go to uncover the truth?" on the cover above the title. I loved Hugh Howie's Silo series, so I'm interested even though I know nothing about it.

The Other Side of the Sky - The top of the book has a blue night sky and stars, the middle has a pinkish sky with a floating city, and the bottom half has a man and a woman sitting on top of a large peak with a valley in the distance in front of them. They have a cat sitting next to them. He appears to be in a uniform of some kind, and she's wearing a hooded tunic and holding a weapon/staff that looks like it might have a crystal in it. This book appears on my TBR a couple of years ago and I can't remember why.

Ace of Spades - This bookcover is designed like a playing card with a red center, and theater faces on the corners. The top shows a young black woman with her hair tied up in a bun, and the bottom has an upside down young black man. They are facing in opposite directions like a face card in a deck. The cover says "How do you stop an unknown enemy" on the edges. I have seen this book on the shelf of my library and it catches my eye every single time I pass by. This seems like the perfect prompt to pick it up.

Hope that helps!

This is going to be so hard for me, I research every book I read. Eek!

Sue wrote: "This is going to be so hard for me, I research every book I read. Eek!"

I'm having the same problem! I work at a library, so I spend a lot of time reading about books especially ones in my favorite genres. I think I'll probably just go to my local bookstore and pick something completely randomly.

The Washington Post has an article on cool book covers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

For this one I'm going with :

Rehearsals for Living

I was looking up books for another challenge and came across this one that fit that prompt. It fits here too since I based it solely on the initials I needed. I don't know anything about this one.

This prompt is fun! I'm enjoying seeing what everyone's posting. I am choosing The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu for this prompt. The book is all black, with just a warrior's helmet on it, lying on it's side, with a flower growing through a hole in the side of the helmet. The font used for the title and author name is a thin, san serif font that is very restrained. I got this book from one of the neighborhood Little Free Libraries, and I just liked the cover--I don't know what it's really about, though I guess it involves some sort of war?

Just saw this and I'n going with it, My Heart Is a Chainsaw

I'm considering Harley Quinn: The Eat, Bang, Kill Tour as all I know about it (it's Harley Quinn and heavily features her romance with Poison Ivy) comes from the cover

When I get to this prompt, I'm going to look at the NPR Book Concierge and just pick something that grabs my eye.

I think mine is going to be

Probably going to the local library to find this one! Or scroll through Kindle Unlimited and see what looks interesting.

This book came up on a book recommendation page I visit sometimes. It sounded interesting.

Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter

I went through the audiobooks available through my library on the Libby app and chose The Dutch House for this task. The young girl in the red coat, sad blue eyes that match the color of the birds in the wallpaper behind her. It drew me in.

I can't stop looking at this book's cover. I can't wait to read it!

Spotted a copy of Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride and knew it looked like something I wanted to read, even without knowing what it was about.,

I guess I'll read Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow for this because it caught my interest only based on The Great Wave off Kanagawa being on the cover.

I read . 5 stars. I love this cover. I love the looks on their faces. I love the colors & shades of browns on the cover. I love that there is a bicycle on the cover that my eye wasn't drawn to at first. I also loved the book but the book is about grief so it isn't easy.

This is so hard for me! I'm wary of going into a book without at least an inkling of what's going on because I don't want to be blindsided by something super sad or macabre. However, looking at covers was a lot of fun! I saw quite a few books that looked like children's books that looked good!

I'm going to go with one of these (as long as I can avoid reading the descriptions before I get the book):

Maybe cheating a little. This black and while cover shows two black men in military (navy?) uniforms. The man in the foreground is sticking his tongue out and the man in the background is side eyeing him.

The cover is primarily white. In the middle, there is a a molding orange.
I accidentally read the description but still a fun cover.

The cover has overlapping yellow lines that look a little cylindrical. There's pink poking through in the background.

This is a yellow cover with the words FRANKLY IN LOVE. FRANKLY IN LOVE looks like it's been cut out and made with stacks of different hues of blue paper.


This is a mustard yellow cover with books of different colors scattered across. The books look as though they've been thrown into the air.

Briana wrote: "This is so hard for me! I'm wary of going into a book without at least an inkling of what's going on because I don't want to be blindsided by something super sad or macabre. However, looking at cov..."

The Great Believers is one of my favorite books ever, but if you are avoiding sad things you should not read it. It is very very very sad.

Bonnie G. wrote: "Briana wrote: "This is so hard for me! I'm wary of going into a book without at least an inkling of what's going on because I don't want to be blindsided by something super sad or macabre. However,..."

I do appreciate the warning. Now I'm conflicted because you also made it sound like I really good, so I HAVE to read it haha. I might take the leap!

I adored the book. I would say more but if I do you will not be able to use it for this prompt so I will leave it there.

Ron wrote: "This book came up on a book recommendation page I visit sometimes. It sounded interesting.

Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter"

I saw this recommended too! I added it to my TBR.

I was excited by this prompt too!
I usually pick books without even considering the cover. I was at my library at the beginning of March and they had a display for Women's History Month and I picked up You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

Description of the cover: Red background, A woman on the left side with gold braids and a colorful outfit. The title is written in white script, "You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty." and a hibiscus flower in the right corner.

What a great book! I recommend it.

I just finished my cover-based pick for this prompt and I loved it! I read Splinters of Scarlet. I am shocked at how much I loved this story, having chosen it without reading the description. I think I might not even have picked it up if I had read the description, which makes finding it even more providential.


Cover description: An unfinished, textured embroidered red rose with embroidered lines going out in sort of fractal-ish directions, the red thread of the lines gradually shading to light blue and then dark blue.

For this, I looked through books at a thrift store, and found Hole in My Life, by Jack Gantos. The cover is a dark yellow color with a picture of the author- a headshot of him behind bars, with shoulder-length, dark, thick/curly hair and a long mustache, unsmiling with his eyes barely open. It has a silver Printz award seal on it. The "o" in Hole is red, as is the author's name. The rest of the title is in black, large, & all caps.

This is a tricky challenge for me, as I usually research books. The cover is somewhat striking, but I think I actually chose it because I recognized the author's name from an anthology of short stories I read. I'm not sure that even really counts, now that I'm writing about it! At any rate, I ended up really enjoying the book so am glad I picked it up. :)

Lighter than my Shadow by Katie Green. A student returned it to my library to send back to its original library. The cover was interesting so I opened it up and discovered it is a graphic novel. I like it a lot.

I read The Notebook by Agota Kristof.
My particular copy has a text only cover.
Stunning story told in short, crisp chapters.