Similar Covers: Lone Tree

Well, it seems like I’m not quite back on the blogging horse yet, as a whole week has slipped by since my last post. (Sigh.) Still, when I read Karen’s latest Copycat Cover post over at Euro Crime, I couldn’t resist taking her up on her challenge... (In fact, she just commented that the tree appearing in the two covers she posted must have graced more covers than the ones she’d found.)

Here, then, are a few covers that match her two:

The books (and CD) are:

• Un écart de jeunesse (the French translation of No One Knows) by Nancy Price
• Four Dreamers and Emily by Stevie Davies
• The Moor Is Dark Beneath the Moon by David Watmough
• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
• Ausgesetzt: Im Land der Seehundjäger (Suspended: In the Land of the Seal Hunters*) by Margareta Lindberg
• Dead Souls by Ian Rankin
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• Landscapes of the Mind: The Music of John McCabe by George Odam
  
• Mozart: The Wind Concertos by Christopher Hogwood (CD)

Be sure to pop over to Karen’s Copycat Cover post to check out the two covers that inspired this post!

*Title translation courtesy of Google Translate.

Similar Covers: Woman Dressed in Traditional Chinese Clothing

At the end of last year, I found the following email in my inbox:

“As you are an ‘[o]bsessed hunter of lookalike covers…’

Talk about a strange, unsettling déjà vu moment... on the left is the image for Amy Tan’s new short story, being touted as her first fiction in six years, about an aging courtesan and her protege in 1912 Shanghai. On the right [now in the middle] is the cover for a stunning, wrenching collection of brutal stories coming out of one of China’s most atrocious labor camps under Mao. WAAAHHH???!!!”

The email was signed Terry, Book Dragon.

So I present you with the evidence she sent me:

As you can see, I found a third (and earlier) cover that uses the same image. The earliest cover is actually my favourite of the three—although I like the cropping on the middle cover best, I dislike the fact that they added lipstick to the photo. (You can see the original photo here.)

Rules for Virgins by Amy Tan was published by Byliner as a Kindle Single in 2011; Woman from Shanghai by Xianhui Yang (translated by Wen Huang) was published by Knopf Doubleday in August 2009 (read Terry’s review at Book Dragon) and Women’s Movements in Twentieth-Century Taiwan by Doris T. Chang was published by University of Illinois Press in April 2009.

I’ve changed my mind about moving my “similar covers” posts to Thursdays—I will post about my first week of the meditation challenge tomorrow instead!

Mailbox Monday (February 6): The Birthday Edition

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books they received during the previous week. Warning: MM can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and huge wish lists! Mailbox Monday, which was started by Marcia (who now blogs at A girl and her books) is on blog tour—this month, it’s hosted by Kim at Metroreader.

Twas my birthday last week and I received a few books as gifts, got a few books in the mail and bought a few myself (all nonfiction as it turns out).

My sis-in law gave me two books for my birthday: Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally Really Grow Up by James Hollis and Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up by Harriet Lerner. (I’m a big fan of Lerner’s books and this is her latest, so I’m really looking forward to this one!)

I received an unsolicited copy of Speak to the Earth: Pages from a Farm Wife’s Journal by Rachel Peden (from Indiana University Press) and won a copy of Writing Yoga: A Guide to Keeping a Practice Journal by Bruce Black (from Rodmell Press).

And finally I bought myself two more books: Pay Attention, for Goodness’ Sake: Practicing the Perfections of the Heart—The Buddhist Path of Kindness by Sylvia Boorstein and Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within by Janet Conner.

What did you find in your mailbox this past week? For other Mailbox Monday posts, head over to Metroreader.

Beginning Again, with Kitty Pics & a Meditation Challenge

It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve blogged with any regularity that I’m not sure how to get back on this horse gracefully. Do I just launch myself into the next thing without explaining my absence? (Yup, pretty much.) Do I tell you all how much I’ve missed you guys? (I have!) Can I skip this awkward part and just get back to doing my thing online and hope you won’t hold my absence against me? (Please?)

How about a kitty pic? Here’s Cairo sleeping on Mr. B’s lap, surrounded by the latest additions to my stuffie menagerie (clockwise from the top): bookworm, sleeping sickness, mad cow and toxic mold (which is my favourite). Head over to ThinkGeek to check out their entire giant microbes collection.

Cairo sleeping with giant microbes (click to enlarge)

In other news, February is no-TV month in my household (for the second year in a row), which seemed like a great time to also do the 28-Day Meditation Challenge, based on the book Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation – A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg (which, as you may remember, I bought at Kripalu). When I got back from my Kripalu retreat, I fully intended to start meditating every day, but that didn’t happen. However, as Sharon Salzberg says, “with every breath, we can begin again,” which is exactly what I’m choosing to do this month—with both blogging and meditating.

I’ll keep you posted on how I’m doing with the meditation challenge in weekly updates on Wednesdays, which means that, as of next week, my “similar covers” posts will go live on Thursdays instead.

So now that I’m back, let me know what I’ve missed! Oh and Happy Imbolc!