Books with Red Covers
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but we all judge books by their covers. It can’t be helped! An attractive cover will urge us to take a look at a book, and there are some gorgeous book covers out there. Which is why I’ve made a book list of books with amazing red covers.
- The Book of Lost Things by John Connoly
High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness. Angry and alone, he takes refuge in his imagination and soon finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a world that is a strange reflection of his own — populated by heroes and monsters and ruled by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book, The Book of Lost Things.
I recommend this book because of how wholesome the story is. It is a vivid journey through the loss of innocence into adulthood and beyond.
Buy this book and support local bookstores in doing so!
2. Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager — obsessed with music, food, and girls — but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.
I recommend this book because it is based on a true story. This book talks about courage and resilience. Plus, it is going to be adapted for television and it will star Tom Holland.
Buy this book and support local bookstores in doing so!
3. The Mercies by Kirin Millwood Hargrave
Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves.
Three years later, a stranger arrives on their shore. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband’s authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa sees something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God, and flooded with a mighty evil. As Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom’s iron rule threatening Vardø’s very existence.
I recommend this book because it is inspired by real events. The Mercies is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the edge of civilization.
Buy this book and support local bookstores in doing so!
4. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus P nd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.
I recommend this book because everyone loves books about books! But this one is special, it’s a very clever thriller. Magpie Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction in which the reader becomes the detective.
Buy this book and support local bookstores in doing so!
5. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely a Generic Asian man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy — the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told, time and time again. Except for one person, his mother. Who says to him: Be more.
I recommend this book because it is playful but heartfelt, and a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes. It’s such a fun book to read.
Buy this book and support local bookstores in doing so!
If any of these books caught your attention, or you’re looking for more, check out our Bookshop. We’ve made a list with various titles for you to shop and in doing so, you help local bookstores!
