Narnia Bloggin': the new Chronicles of Narnia covers I've seen in person

Previously: more cover art for The Chronicles of Narnia books

I've been to my local Barnes & Noble a couple of times this year (I try to stay away because it's such a temptation), and naturally I looked at the new individual covers of The Chronicles of Narnia when I was there. I was able to look at The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW), Prince Caspian (PC), The Horse and His Boy (HHB), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (VotDT), and The Magician's Nephew (MN). Sadly my B&N didn't have The Silver Chair (SC) or The Last Battle (LB), so I was unable to see those in person. 

The new book covers (art by Owen Richardson) look basically just like what you see online. I'm glad I took pictures of the back covers, as the seller websites I looked at don't seem to post them at all. Obviously you can see the full wraparound cover images here. 

LWW back cover

 

PC back cover

 

VotDT back cover

 

HHB back cover

 

 

MN back cover

Remember the planetary symbols that Richardson sneaked into the cover illustrations? The one for LWW is covered up due to how the back of the book is formatted. PC, VotDT, and MN's planetary symbols are on the front covers, so you can still see them if you know what to look for. HHB's is on the back cover, but it escapes being covered up by the other back cover elements. I spent way too long looking for the planetary symbol in LB's cover art before looking at NarniaWeb's answer key (at the link above) and realizing that Richardson just put the literal planet Saturn. 🙄 You can read what I think about the whole Planet Narnia thing here. 

Earlier this month I went back to B&N to look at the super expensive deluxe slipcase edition of the TCON omnibus, only to find they don't carry it in-store. I did find the deluxe edition (still hardcover, no fancy slipcover) and was able to hold it in my hot little hands. I like how it looks, especially the holographic-y cover and painted edges. I didn't think to take the slipcover off (I think it does come off), so I wasn't able to look at the pretty wardrobe design under the slipcover. 

hopefully the video comes out ok. I took it to show the cover's holographic effect

 

omnibus back cover

omnibus sprayed edges

The question is: do I buy the deluxe omnibus ($60-75) since it has the sprayed edges and the pretty wardrobe cover design under the slipcover, which is what I like the most, or do I buy the deluxe slipcase edition omnibus ($150) as it has the nice red velvet slipcover with gold illustrations of Lucy & Tumnus, Aslan's head, and Digory and Polly on pegasus!Fledge, plus the aforementioned painted edges? Do I really want to pay an extra $75 or whatever for a book I'll be hesitant to touch (the spine and slipcover are in red velvet and I cannot touch velvet due to sensory ick)? It's probably not worth it to drop $150 on something I can get most of for $75. If only my Barnes & Noble carried it in person... I would dearly like to look at and touch the deluxe slipcover version. To be quite honest, I don't need another omnibus; I already have 2 paperback ones. I know that if I don't buy one of these, I'll regret it like I regret not getting the Barnes & Noble leatherbound edition omnibus... Ah well, money is made to be spent.

Anyway, you can look at all the current Narnia versions out this year for the 75th anniversary of LWW here: www.narniaweb.com/2025/10/harper-collins-completes-full-catalogue-refresh-for-narnias-75th-anniversary

To read my other Narnia Bloggin' posts, click on the Narnia label at the bottom of this blog post. 

How I rate a book

If I don't finish a book, I generally don't rate it; it feels unfair to do so since I haven't read the whole thing. 

I have never rated a book 1 star, that I can remember. Presumably any book I'd rate one star would be too badly-written, and I would hate it too much, to finish reading. 

Two stars ★★ : I disliked or hated this book and it was badly written. The last time I rated a book 2 stars was in 2016, and from my note it doesn't sound like I disliked it that much, just that it was "silly" and had writing that wasn't very good.

Two and a half stars ★★½ : I disliked or hated this book and it was not very well written. The last time I rated a book 2.5 stars was also in 2016, and I was surprisingly more vocal (as it were) about my dislike for the book: I called it junk. (Interestingly enough, I rated it even though I DNF'd it; I guess I felt I had read enough to give it a rating.)

Three stars ★★★ : I didn't really like this book, or liked it well enough but found aspects of the plot or writing lacking.

Three and a half stars ★★★½ : I liked this book well enough; it was fine. This is probably the most common rating.

Four stars ★★★★ : I really liked this book! Maybe I even loved it.

Four and a half stars ★★★★½ : I loved this book! It's not quite worthy of five stars though.

Five stars (the rarest) ★★★★★ : I LOVED this book and it blew my freaking mind!!!

Things that cost book ratings a half star: 

• not being very well-written 
• having a stupid plot point, such as an issue that would have been cleared up in five minutes had the characters had an actual conversation about it
• something happens that makes me angry
• being too sad
• being too scary 
• being too confusing 
• the villain/s do(es)n't get a (good enough) comeuppance
• the problem/s was solved too neatly/easily
• having typos or errors
• being wrong about something factually
• being wrong about something in my opinion (may or may not be factual)
• flat, boring, and/or unlikable characters, especially two-dimensional female characters
• a character being too perfect, a Mary Sue or Gary Stu (what's the nonbinary version of this? Ary Slu?)
• a shoehorned/unnecessary romance 
• a flat and/or boring romance 
• the ending is not happy (enough)
• the ending is happy(ish) but not enough to make up for all the horrors the characters went through 
• the author made characters zany or snarky or sad or grumpy etc. instead of actually giving them a personality
• specific things or concepts that annoy me (sexism, ableism, meddling, etc.)
• being too violent (without cause or just to be edgy)
• being too gory or gross 
• the author didn't do (enough) research into something in the book that I know about
• overuse of verbs and phrases (we've all read a book where somebody smirked a million times)
• a character complains too much, especially if it's the exact same complaint over and over 
• falling into tropes and/or stereotypes
• the book was too short and should have been longer/explored things more in depth 

Depending on how serious the offenses (lol) are, several can add up to cost the rating a half star, or one or more stars. A lot of this depends on my mood and how annoyed it made me. Like a lot of readers, my star ratings are based on vibes.

Ideally I would be able to use a half star symbol, but when I try it's just a weird box. Bring back the half star, Blogger! >:(