Welcome to Shelf Candy Saturday!!
This weekly feature
showcases beautiful book covers,
and provides information,
if available, on their very talented creators!
For more information
about Shelf Candy Saturday,
just click HERE.
This is my choice for this week!
Toward the Gleam
Hardcover, 481 pages
Ignatius Press
March 1, 2011
Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Mythology,
Philosophy, Tolkien-based Fiction
Why do I love this cover?
The first thing that caught my eye, when I first came across this cover, was the similarity of the illustration in the top compartment to an illustration created by the incomparable and revered J.R.R. Tolkien. Since this great man is one of my favorite writers, since I passionately love his fictional world and characters, I knew I had to take a closer look!
The plot of this very intriguing novel does owe much to Tolkien's enchanting fantasy world. Thus, it was only natural that the cover for this book should have recognizable Tolkien elements in it.
The illustration I've already mentioned is lovely. The one in the lower compartment is more stark, more modern-looking. The spider in one corner, and the spider's web in the other, are a clear reference to Shelob, the frightening, giant spider which appeared in The Two Towers, the second novel in Tolkien's trilogy. It seems that the inclusion of these elements is also meant as a metaphor, referring to the machinations of the major villain in the plot. They might also refer to the ingeniously-crafted intellectual deceptions of the evil philosophies explored in the novel.
