This month’s post includes a few covers that I missed earlier in the year along side the new and recent releases. I’m starting to think about my annual recap so please let me know if you think I’ve overlooked any other particularly notable covers that stood out for you and/or seemed emblematic of wider trends in 2022.
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Africa Risen by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Zelda Knight; design by Christine Foltzer; art by Manzi Jackson (Tordotcom / November 2022)
Alindarka’s Children by Alhierd Bacharevic; design by Pablo Delcan (New Directions / June 2022)
The Come Up by Jonathan Abrams; design by Chris Allen (Crown / October 2022)
Diary of a Misfit by Casey Parks; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / August 2022)
Ejaculate Responsibly by Gabrielle Blair; design Studio Eight and a Half (Workman / October 2022)
Feral City by Jeremiah Moss; design by Gregg Kulick (W.W. Norton / October 2022)
I’ve noted before that pink is a bit of a thing at the moment, but it’s kind of interesting that it’s being used on ‘grittier’ books…
Ghost Music by An Yu; design Suzanne Dean (Harvill Secker / November 2022)
Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty; design by Diane Chonette (Tin House / July 2022)
No Land in Sight by Charles Simic; design by John Gall (Knopf / August 2022)”
“Fuuuuuuuuuck….!” is the only way I can describe the mixture of awe and annoyance that I hadn’t thought of it I felt when I saw this cover. So simple and so clever.
O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker; design by Tristan Offit (Scribner / September 2022)
This has a very similar ‘obscured face collage’ feel to Tristan Offit’s cover for Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens, which I thought I had posted here earlier in the year but apparently did not (probably because I didn’t — and still don’t! — know who designed the cover of the UK edition (it was designed by Mel Four, photograph by Marta Bevacqua) and I wanted to post them together?).
Pacifique by Sarah L. Taggart; design by Natalie Olsen (Coach House Books / October 2022)
People Person by Candice Carty-Williams; design by Emma A. Van Deun (Scout Press / September 2022)
The Singularities by John Banville; design by John Gall (Knopf / October 2022)
I don’t know if this actually reminds me of another cover, or if it’s just very Gallsian.
But actual blobs (as opposed to ‘book blobs‘) are a thing…
Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu; design by Anna Jordan (Deep Vellum / October 2022)
Toad by Katherine Dunn; design by June Park; illustration by Lydia Ortiz (MCD / November 2022)
Waiting for Ted by Marieka Bigg; design by Luke Bird (Cinder House / October 2022)
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer; design by Matt Dorfman (New Directions / June 2022)
The Waste Land by Matthew Hollis; design by Jamie Keenan (Faber & Faber / October 2022)
Mr. Keenan also designed the cover for the Liveright edition of The Waste Land itself a few years ago.
(The US edition of Matthew Hollis’s book, forthcoming from W. W. Norton, also has an interesting cover. If anyone from Norton would like to send me a hi-res image with the design credit, I’ll be happy to add it in!)
Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada; design by Luke Bird (Granta / November 2022)
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