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Book Covers of Note, February 2020

Meh. February. At least it’s almost over (and the book covers are good).

The Bear by Andrew Krivak; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / February 2020)

(I read an ARC of The Bear last year (full disclosure: the folks that pay me distribute Bellevue Literary Press in Canada), and haven’t really stopped talking about it since, so I may as well mention here too. It’s very sincere, and reminiscent of the kind of Cold War science fiction in which war and environmental catastrophe have led to the end of civilization. It is not dystopian though. It reads rather like beautiful melancholy fable. I liked it a lot.)

Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham; design Nicole Caputo (Catapult / February 2020

Losing Eden by Lucy Jones; design by Tom Etherington (Allen Lane / February 2020)

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata; design by John Gall (Hanover Square Press / February 2020)

One for the meta-covers list (and does the use of Lydian on the cover of a book on the cover of book count as ironic?)

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave; design by Lucy Kim (Little Brown & Co / February 2020)

The cover of the UK edition published by Picador was designed by Katie Tooke I believe (and if anyone can tell me who the did the illustration — based on traditional Norwegian folk art rosemaling — I would be grateful!)

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong; design by Na Kim (One World / February 2020)

The cover of UK edition, which Profile Books is publishing next month, was designed by Steve Panton:

Pallbearing Stories by Michael Melgaard; design by Alysia Shewchuk (House of Anansi / February 2020)

Rendang by Will Harris; design by David Pearson (Granta / February 2020)

A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes; design by Gill Heeley (Canongate / February 2020)

The cover of the US edition, published last year by Akashic Books, was designed by Christian Fuenfhausen

This Brilliant Darkness by Jeff Sharlet; design by Sarahmay Wilkinson (W.W. Norton / February 2020)

Too Much by Rachel Vorona Cote; design by Jennifer Carrow (Grand Central / February 2020)

Verge by Lidia Yuknavitch; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / February 2020)

Whistleblower by Susan Fowler; design by Catherine Casalino (Viking / February 2020)

Nice type.

Weather by Jenny Offill; design by John Gall (Knopf / February 2020)

There haven’t been very many John Gall covers on the blog recently, so it’s a delight to post two in the same month. And this really is a most Gallian of John Gall covers.

The cover of the UK edition of Weather, published by Granta, was designed by Gray318

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Book Covers of Note April 2018

Here are April’s cover selections. Lots of very big type this month! 


Black Swans by Eve Babitz; design by Kelly Winton (Counterpoint / April 2017)

This goes rather nicely with last year’s cover for Babitz’s novel Sex and Rage also designed by Kelly:


Brass by Xhenet Aliu; design by design Keith Hayes; photography by Nadine Rovner (Random House / January 2018)

Photographic covers have fallen out of favour for literary fiction of late, but I think this works beautifully.

I also like how it echoes Nathan Putens‘ earlier cover design for Aliu’s short stories Domesticated Wild Things, which makes use of a photograph by Helen Levitt.

The other interesting thing about the photograph selection is how much it reminds me of Keith Hayes own photography. You can follow him on Instagram.


Circe by Madeline Miller; design by Will Staehle (Little Brown & Co / April 2018)

The cover of Miller’s previous book The Song of Achilles was designed by Allison Saltzman:

The very pretty cover of the UK edition of Circe was designed by David Mann at Bloomsbury:


Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda; design by Chris Bentham (Viking / April 2018)


Dictator Literature by Daniel Kalder; design by James Paul Jones (Oneworld / April 2018)


The Earth Does Not Get Fat by Julia Prendergast; design by Alissa Dinallo (UWA Publishing / April 2018)


The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer; design by Ben Denzer (Riverheard Books / April 2018)

I like how the design for The Female Persuasion has bands of colour similar to those on Lynn Buckley’s cover design for The Interestings, but uses them in a completely different way

 


Hello It Doesn’t Matter by Derrick C. Brown; design by Zoe Norvell (Write Bloody / April 2018)


My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci; design by Anna Morrison (Pushkin Press / April 2018)

Oliver Munday‘s cover for My Cat Yugoslavia (published by Pantheon) featured in my May 2017 post:


Patient X by David Peace; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / April 2018)

And on the subject of David Peace, Steve Panton has designed new covers for the Red Riding Quartet (1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983) published by Serpent’s Tail this month:


A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa; design by Rachel Adam Rogers (AmazonCrossing / January 2018)


Sit How You Want by Robin Richardson; design by David Drummond (Signal Editions / April 2018)


Space Odyssey by Michael Benson; design by Rodrigo Corral (Simon & Schuster / April 2018)

Funnily enough, I was just discussing the prevalence of big and centred white sans serif type on contemporary book covers on Twitter. While it’s common (see the covers of The Female Persuasion and Hello, It Doesn’t Matter above!), it’s also effective when it’s done well. That said I did think that David Pearson — a designer well known for his typographic covers — made a good general point about big type:

In any case, if you are interested in seeing more examples of the ‘big white type’ phenomenon, I started a pinboard a while back. 


Waiting for Tomorrow by Nathacha Appanah; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / April 2018)


West by Carys Davies; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Scribner / April 2018)


The Wolf by Leo Carew; design by Patrick Insole (Wildfire / April 2018)

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