Similar Covers: Reflections

I was a bit shocked to come across these two oh-so-similar covers with oh-so-similar titles while browsing the Fantastic Fiction website recently. Playing Dead by Julia Heaberlin and Playing with Matches by Carolyn Wall are not only both due out this year (in May and July, respectively), but they are also both being published by Random House!

To be fair, it seems like someone caught on to the duplication because Playing with Matches now has a new cover, according to Amazon (and the author’s site).

For another post about similar covers that resemble these two, see also Cover Curiosity: Seeing Double over at 100 Scope Notes.

Similar Covers: Vampire (+ Similar Titles)

Linda, who blogs at Better with Books, commented on my last “similar covers” post with a pair of lookalikes: iDrakkula by Bekka Black and Le vampire d'à côté (the French translation of The Undead Next Door) by Kerrelyn Sparks. I, of course, plugged both book covers into TinEye and found a third lookalike: Morto e spacciato (the Italian translation of Dead and Gone) by Charlaine Harris.

I can’t say that any of these covers appeal to me, but then I’m not into vampire novels...

Edited to add:

I found one more cover to go with this set, which I included above: La voz del diablo (the Spanish translation of Lasher) by Anne Rice.

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Looking up Dead and Gone on LibraryThing, I noticed that this is a popular title:

The books are (pub dates according to Wikipedia or Amazon):

• Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris (2009)
  
• Dead and Gone by Andrew Vachss (2000)
• Dead and Gone by Dorothy Simpson (2001)
  
• Dead and Gone by Harry Shannon (2007)
  
• Dead and Gone: An Examination of Two False Doctrines by James Samuel Pollock (2010)
  
• Dead and Gone: Classic Crimes of North Carolina by Manly Wade Wellman (1954)
  
• Dead and Gone by Mary Kittredge (1991)
  
• Dead and Gone by Norah McClintock (2004)
  
• The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer (2008)
  

Similar Titles: The Best Laid Plans

It’s been an age since I’ve posted a “similar titles” post (in fact this is only my third), but when I saw that Random House is about to publish a novel entitled The Best Laid Plans by Lynn Schnurnberger (in February 2011), I immediately thought of the movie by the same title (minus the the) directed by Mike Barker. (According to IMDb, David Blair is currently directing another movie entitled Best Laid Plans.) There’s also an improv web sitcom by the same name.

And then I had to wonder if the world really needed another book by that title...

What do you think?

*I don’t mean to pick on Ms. Schnurnberger—I have nothing against her or her book!

Similar Covers: Another Bathtub Cover(+ Similar Titles)

This next set of lookalikes was pointed out to me by Eva at One Swede Read. The books are: A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb and Isprinsessan by Camilla Läckberg (which was translated from Swedish into English as The Ice Princess). I can’t say I really like either of these covers; both are too dark in my opinion.

Edited to add:

I found a third cover to match these first two: La femme au portrait (the French translation of Dead Sleep) by Greg Iles.

When I looked up A Certain Slant of Light on LibraryThing, I also discovered that this is a relatively common title...

The books are:

• A Certain Slant of Light by Cynthia Thayer
• A Certain Slant of Light: Regionalism and the Form of Southern and Midwestern Fiction by David Marion Holman
• A Certain Slant of Light by Margaret Wander Bonanno
• A Certain Slant of Light by Chandler McGrew

There are several other books with this title, including A Certain Slant of Light: The First Hundred Years of New England Photography by William F. Robinson, but I couldn’t find covers for any of them. All these books take their title from a poem by Emily Dickinson, “There’s a Certain Slant of Light.”