This Top 5 Saturday prompt is from Devouring Books, original post here.
This week’s topic is books with maps. I LOVE when books have maps! It’s just a must for fantasy novels with many geographical locations. While I don’t always pay much attention to the layout of a world (other things often just seem more important..) it’s always wonderful to have maps included anyway and they’re often visually stunning.
The Grishaverse (Shadow and Bone / Grisha Trilogy, Six of Crows Duology, King of Scars)
The pics above are ones I took in showing off the hardcover editions of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. Also cross-posted to my Instagram, please feel free to follow me if you haven’t yet. ♥ I love the maps in Bardugo books, they’re so pretty and what really makes them special is that the main characters traverse practically every inch of those locations pictured, such as Ketterdam and the prison. And for the world map at large, there are so many main characters who live in different regions of the world and eventually meet or conversely, are completely unbeknownst to each other due to those geographical differences. Long story short I love when maps in books are relevant and you can be in the middle of a book and really feel the relevancy of their inclusion. (Not very interested in geography info dumps though, just some mentionings are fine. ^^’)
A Song Of Ice And Fire (A Game of Thrones #1)
This map is from the illustrated version of this volume which, speak of the devil, I’ve recently reviewed here. :’D I LOVE THE COLORS. Maps are better than no maps, and full color maps are the best of all. Adds an extra layer of realisticness to the terrain and the little decorative bits indicating mountainous regions are a nice touch.
The Folk Of The Air (The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King)
Even though I’m mentioning these third of all, I actually love these maps the most for their cute whimsy and the many tiny illustrations of fae and magical creatures. This is the type of map I’d look at longer for having many unexpected little details to its artistic approach. Also while colorful maps trump B&W maps, cute maps win over them all in my book lol.
I was also going to include Ursula K Le Guin’s Earthsea Complete Collection (Illustrated version) as having a stellar map, but I liked keeping this post pic-heavy and have yet to take pictures of its visual splendor. It also deserves a spot on this list though.
In closing, I’d like to embed a tweet I found that is totally relevant to this discussion. It may not display in reader mode, so the link is here if you’re interested in viewing it.
😮 This would be SO AWESOME, I wish all these fantasy books had maps set up like this. Especially ones with frequent travel in their plotline.
Thank you for checking out this week’s Top 5 Saturday, a fun and unusual little topic! I hope this post isn’t too pic-heavy but I love pic-heavy posts so I figure some out there may similarly appreciate them. Hope everyone is having a fun weekend ~ Kitty.
Kitty Marie's Reading Corner 
I’m a pic heavy kinda gal 😍 despite my love of reading, if blog posts don’t have at least some images or graphics I tend to zone out a bit… this was perfect! I love the map for a Cruel Prince. The whimsy! 💙 great choices! Jen
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whimsy is the perf word, insta-love all fantasy-themed maps that try for that. Much agreed on pics and pic-heavy posts. Thanks again. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love this post! I adore books with maps and to have one that opened out like that ould be amazing!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! Maps are a must for fantasy books IMO, hope to see fold out ones become a standard someday.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I LOVE THIS POST
I just got caraval from the library and shrieked when I saw the maps
honestly I love looking at different places and especially fantasy worlds so seeing maps always makes me so happy. wonderful wonderful post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ooo now I need to check out Caraval’s maps. :3 Thank you!!
LikeLike
OMG yes!!! See if all books with maps had them so we could pull them out like that then I would totally be on board with maps… I find I don’t tend to pay much if any attention to them currently ooops!! Great post Kitty <33333
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks a bunch! Yeah I don’t pay that much attention to maps either, generally speaking. Would spend a lot more time w/them if they folded out like that though. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fun post! Reading a lot of fantasy, I feel like maps are almost expected and sometimes I get disappointed when they’re not in there, LOL.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Much agreed! Every fantasy book should have one, I feel.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jumps up and down!!!
YAY SOMEONE ELSE WENT GRISHA VERSE ON THIS B*
ok now that I have taken a breath! We both did GV and Folk of the Air and YAY!
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is little stopping me from going Grisha on every post tbh I should do it :DD ❤ I loved your maps post too. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!!!! I do so much with SOC/CK I figure people are ready to throw them at me lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
The map in Game of Thrones was so vital to the reading experience!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love the maps in GoT! Thanks for your thoughts. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for joining!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think the maps in books add so much to the story and it helps to picture where everything is. Great post!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! Much agreed, especially in fantasy where the characters typically travel long distances.
LikeLiked by 1 person