Thursday, March 11, 2010

BTT: Illustrious

Booking Through Thursday
How do you feel about illustrations in your books? Graphs? Photos? Sketches?

It depends on what sort of book I'm reading. Generally, I don't like fiction novels with photos, graphs or any illustrations unless it's part of the story, because I like to imagine for myself how the characters look like based on how the author describes them. Some books, like young adult fiction, are perfectly fine for me to have illustrations. I like the idea of the Scholastic/US version of the Harry Potter series having illustrations only at the start of each chapter. I'm also picky on the artwork, so even if there are books I like that have illustrations, they have to be good to look at. Comics, of course, are a given.

Of course, for non-fiction books I prefer to have accompanying pictures. Biographies, travel books, books on events etc. would be so much better if there are pictures. Textbooks are a given. They need to have those!

7 comments:

  1. I focused on two illustration heavy genres: picture books and graphic novels. You can read my BTT here.

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  2. I generally prefer my fiction without illustrations too. Here's mine this week - http://justbookreading.com/2010/03/11/booking-through-thursday-%E2%80%93-illustrious/.

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  3. I agree that the illustrations in a book should always be good to look at. Otherwise, they're just too distracting. I've only read one Harry Potter book (the first one) and I really don't remember any illustrations. Maybe if it had had them, I'd have liked it better!
    Here's my answer.

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  4. @pussreboots - I quite agree that it depends on what you're reading. Illustrations are the lifeblood of the two genres you mentioned, coupled with a good story.

    @Amy - Score another for our team yay!

    @Jlshall - they're pretty small, just above the first paragraph. It's hard to see it especially if you're reading the paperback copies.

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  5. I do not care for illustrations too much in my books. Possibly in a memoir, if it requires such. However I do not read graphic novels or picture books, which would require illustrations. My BTT: http://www.rundpinne.com/2010/03/booking-through-thursday-illustrious.html

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  6. I think that for adult fiction, I rather they didn't have pics. Non-fiction needs them. Here's mine.

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  7. Yup, that's my take on it, too. I'm all about my own image of the words on the page. :O)

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