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

It depends on the book. I think non-fiction lends itself better to illustrations and pictures than most fiction. For example, I love photos and illustrations in cookbooks so I can see what the end result should look like or an illustration of a technique. In biographies, I like to see photos of places, people, etc. to put names with faces since the people are real. I have this book called A Fish Caught In Time: The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg. It contains photos of the fish underwater and specimens caught by fisherman. It benefits greatly from the photos. How else could you picture the fish in such detail otherwise.

In fiction, I don’t mind illustrations but I prefer to picture the characters and places for myself. I think it’s part of the experience of reading for me. Recently I read Isis: A Tale of the Supernatural by Douglas Clegg and it did contain black and white sketches throughout the book that I found to be a nice touch. They didn’t give too much away and provided just enough drama in certain places to move the story forward. In fantasy, I think a map is useful but I tend only to glance at it to get my bearings and then move on.

Any thoughts on illustrations that you’d like to share?