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Notable Book Covers of 2021

Earlier this year, a Canadian magazine asked me what the latest trends in book cover design were. I don’t think I had a very satisfactory answer. 2021 felt very much like a continuation of 2020, which itself felt like a year on hold.

The trends that came to mind were not exactly new. In no particular order: big faces (big sunglasses!); cropped faces; hands; mouths; postmodern typefaces;1 big skies; rainbows; gradients; the colour orange; psychedelia; collage; contemporary painting.

A lot was made of “blob” covers this year. I’m not sure that anything has really changed since Vulture published this article about “blocky” covers in 2019. They seemed like much the same thing.

Design is about the constraints and, as it turns out, the constraints around designing commercial literary fiction covers that have to work just as well online as in bookstores can lead to similar design solutions — large, legible type, and bright, abstract backgrounds. 2 The surprising thing is not that a few covers look the same when you squint; it’s that more of them don’t.  

There were a lot of good covers (that didn’t look alike) in 2021. LitHub posted 101 of them. Still, it didn’t exactly feel like a vintage year.

Do I say that every December? Possibly.

A few years ago I worried that covers were moving in a more conservative direction, particularly at the big publishers. I’m not sure this has come to pass, at least not in the US. There are plenty of covers from the big, prestigious American literary imprints in this year’s list, as there were last year, and every year before that. 

There are fewer covers from the UK in this year’s list than in previous years though, and I feel less confident about the situation there. From a distance, things seem a little sedate. I may be mistaken. It’s quite possible I haven’t see enough covers — or perhaps enough of the right ones — from British publishers to get a good sense of the overall picture.3

It would not be a surprise, however, if publishers were feeling a little risk-averse at the moment. We are two years into a global pandemic, experiencing a major supply chain issues, and living through a seemingly endless series of sociopolitical crises.

Nor would it be a surprise if designers were personally feeling the effects too — I’m not sure we are talking about this enough, and I’m not sure I know how to.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the blog in 2021. It means a lot. Here are this year’s book covers of note…

After the Sun by Jonas Eika; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer; art by Dorian Legret (Riverhead / August 2021)

Amoralman by Derek Delgaudio; design by John Gall (Knopf / March 2021)

Also designed by John Gall:

Animal by Lisa Taddeo; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / June 2021)

Greg Heinimann talked to Creative Review about his work in April.

Are You Enjoying? by Mira Sethi; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / April 2021)

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint; design by Joanne O’Neill (Flatiron Books / May 2021)

Also designed by Joanne O’Neill:

he Art of Wearing a Trench Coat by Sergi Pàmies; design by Arsh Raziuddin and Oliver Munday (Other Press / March 2021)

The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy; design by Laywan Kwan (Atria / May 2021)

Black Village by Lutz Bassmann; design by Anne Jordan (Open Letter / December 2021)

A Calling for Charlie Barnes by Joshua Ferris; design by Gregg Kulick (Little Brown and Company / September 2021)

Come On Up by Jordi Nopca; design by Roman Muradov (Bellevue Literary Press / February 2021)

Consent by Vanessa Springora; design by Stephen Brayda; art by Rozenn Le Gall (Harpervia / February 2021)

Stephen Brayda talked about his design for Consent with Spine Magazine.

Also designed by Stephen Brayda:

The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen; design by Na Kim (FSG / January 2021)

Na Kim talked to PRINT about her career and the designs for the Ditlevsen series in February. If, like me, you were wondering about typeface on the covers, it’s Prophet from Dinamo apparently.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner; design by Na Kim (Knopf / April 2021)

Also designed by Na Kim:

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson; design by Jaya Miceli; art by Jeremy Miranda (Scribner / August 2021)

Dead Souls by Sam Riviere; design by Jamie Keenan; paper engineering and photography by Gina Rudd (Weidenfeld & Nicholson / May 2021)

Also designed by Mr. Keenan:

The Delivery by Peter Mendelsund; design by Alex Merto (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / February 2021)

Also designed by Alex Merto:

Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters; design by Rachel Ake Keuch (One World / January 2021)

Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller; design by Anna Kochman; illustration by Mike McQuade (One World / January 2021)

Double Trio by Nathaniel Mackey; design by Rodrigo Corral and Boyang Xia (New Directions / April 2021)

Falling by T. J. Newman; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / July 2021)

Also designed by David Litman:

Fight Night by Mirian Toews; design by Patti Ratchford; illustration by Christina Zimpel (Bloomsbury / October 2021)

Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor; design by Luke Bird (Daunt Books / June 2021)

Also designed by Luke Bird:

Foucault in Warsaw by; design Daniel Benneworth-Gray (Open Letter / June 2021)

God of Mercy by Okezie Nwọka; design Sara Wood (Astra House / November 2021)

Sara Wood talked about her design for God of Mercy with Spine Magazine.

I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / October 2021)

July by Kathleen Ossip; design by Alban Fischer (Sarabande Books / June 2021)

Like Me by Hayley Phelan; design Emma Dolan (Doubleday Canada / July 2021)

Living in Data by Jer Thorp; design by Rodrigo Corral; art by Andrew Kuo (MCD / May 2021)

The Making of Incarnation by Tom McCarthy; design by Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / November 2021)

Matrix by Lauren Groff; design by Grace Han (Riverhead / September 2021)

Mona by Pola Oloixarac; design by Thomas Colligan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / March 2021)

Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander; design by Jack Smyth (Picador / February 2021)

Jack Smyth talked to Totally Dublin about his work earlier this year.

Also designed by Jack Smyth:

Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden; design by Gill Heeley (Canongate / January 2021)

Nectarine by Chad Campbell; design by David Drummond (Signal Editions / May 2021)

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder; design by Emily Mahon (Doubleday / July 2021)

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood; design Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead Books / February 2021)

Also designed by Lauren Peters-Collaer:

O by Steven Carroll; design by Gray318 (HarperCollins Australia / February 2021)

Also designed by Gray318:

If you’re wondering about the Super-Seventies Sally Rooney typeface, it is Ronda designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnese (I only know because I asked).

Once More With Feeling by Sophie McCreesh; design by Jennifer Griffiths (Anchor Canada / August 2021)

On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason; design Zoe Norvell (Open Letter / March 2021)

Outlawed by Anna North; design by Rachel Willey (Bloomsbury / January 2021)

Paradise by Lizzie Johnson; design by Elena Giavaldi (Crown / August 2021)

La Part des Chiens by Marcus Malte; design by David Pearson (Editions Zulma / April 2021)

Also designed by David Pearson:

The Plague by Albert Camus; design by Sunra Thompson (Knopf / November 2021)

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz; design by Anne Twomey (Celadon Books / May 2021)

Rabbit Island by Elvira Navarro; design by Gabriele Wilson (Two Lines Press / February 2021)

Gabriele Wilson talked about her cover design for Rabbit Island with Spine Magazine.

Gabriele Wilson is doing some lovely work for Two Lines Press:

Red Island House by Andrea Lee; design by Tristan Offit (Scribner / March 2021)

The Removed by Brandon Hobson; design by Elizabeth Yaffe (Ecco / February 2021)

The Shimmering State by Meredith Westgate; design Chelsea McGuckin (Atria / August 2021)

A Shock by Keith Ridgway; design by Nathan Burton (Picador / June 2021)

Summerwater by Sarah Moss; design by June Park (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2021)

Virtue by Hermione Hoby; design by Ben Denzer (Riverhead / July 2021)

This Weightless World by Adam Soto; design by Tyler Comrie (Astra House / November 2021)

Also designed by Tyler Comrie:

Thank you to everyone who has supported the blog in 2021. It means a lot.

  1. I am not convinced that the term “postmodern” quite captures what I mean here (and/or worse, implies something different in the context of typography), but it’s the best I’ve got. I’m not talking about the kind of experimental typography you might associate with the likes of Wim Crouwel or Emigre, or the aesthetic of someone like David Carson. What I am trying to get at is idiosyncratic type that purposely exaggerates or plays with letterforms, and doesn’t conform to function-first modernism. To my mind, this would include some typefaces from the 1960s and 70s, as well as some more contemporary type. In a sense what I am describing is display faces — and I think the eclectic, innovative use of type in Victorian advertising might be an inspiration to designers here — but I don’t think it is just about size.
  2. an alternative solution is what Australian designer John Durham, AKA Design by Committee, memorably referred to as the “lost dog poster school of cover design”.
  3. I don’t want to jinx it, but are Canadian covers getting more adventurous?
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Notable Book Covers of 2019

2019 has felt interminable. It has also felt like there are never enough hours in the day to keep up. You can’t talk to me about TV shows or movies. I haven’t seen any.

When it comes to books, I’m fortunate enough to work in the industry. But what hope do casual readers have of finding the good stuff when the same few titles dominate the conversation and there is so much else competing for their attention?

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood and Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid were inescapable this year.

Daisy Jones and the Six had a glamorous, louche 1970s look. The US and UK editions, designed by Caroline Teagle Johnson and Lauren Wakefield respectively, took slightly different directions with the type, but the photograph (a stock image apparently) felt ideally suited to social media.

The Testaments was everywhere and, like the recent Vintage Classics reissue of The Handmaid’s Tale, the cover illustration was unmistakably by Noma Bar. We live in an age where every cult movie and TV show gets a ‘minimalist’ poster now, and I found that The Testaments looked too familiar for me to find it engaging. It didn’t help that the cover of the 2017 US reissue of the The Handmaid’s Tale by Swedish illustrator by Patrik Svenson had already featured a similar 3/4s silhouette. Nevertheless, it was perhaps a bolder cover choice than I’m giving it credit for. If nothing else, it showed that bright green on book covers — once cursed and reviled — is suddenly all the rage!

In terms of trends, 2019 felt more like a continuation of previous years rather than a break with the past. There was a kind of conservatism to a lot of the covers I saw. My sense was that highly polished designs that looked comfortingly familiar were being approved over riskier ones that stood out from the crowd. The most interesting covers often came from small publishers, especially New Directions who seem to be giving a bit more creative license to the designers they work with (some of whom have 9-5s at much bigger publishers!).

Big centred blocks of utilitarian white type over elaborate backgrounds continued to be a mainstay. It’s the book cover as poster, and it works at any size, so I don’t think it’s going away any time soon.

Handwriting and hand-lettering remained popular too, although my sense is that enthusiasm is starting to wane as publishers are opting for greater legibility and designers are turning back to vintage type styles to give a sense of authenticity and craft. (I’m willing to admit the evidence might not back me up on this, however!)

Fun, swishy 1970s-inspired serifs like Benguiat Caslon revival Cabernet are back. People keep trying to make ITC Avant Garde — another iconic 1970s typeface — happen again too. I don’t think it works for the most part, but I can see why designers think it’s cool in a coked-up New York way. Warren Chappell’s earnest calligraphic sans serif Lydian, originally released in 1938, continued its unlikely rise as a go-to literary typeface. It even got an explainer at Vox.

Black and white portrait photography has been the staple of biographies and classics for years, so it was interesting to see closely cropped black and white photographs used on the covers of a couple of new literary novels this year. This isn’t entirely new obviously. Black and white photography has long been used to signify that something is “art” (as opposed to, say, “pornography”). But I think the latest iteration of trend was started by Cardon Webb‘s 2015 cover for A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara which used a black and white photograph by the late Peter Hujar.

Coincidentally the cover of the US edition of Garth Greenwell’s new novel Cleanness, publishing early 2020, was designed by Thomas Colligan and uses contemporary black and white photograph by Jack Davison. (The UK edition, designed by Ami Smithson fits this trend a little less neatly, but features black and white photograph by Mark McKnight)

Something that I didn’t anticipate was the use of contemporary landscape and figure painting on the covers of some the big literary releases of the year. Like black and white photography, it felt almost pre-digital — a grasp at traditional values of craft. I don’t know if I would go as far as to say it is a rejection of post-modernism. But maybe it is? I don’t know. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Thank you to all the designers and art directors who’ve been in touch and helped me identify covers for my posts. I’m sorry if I haven’t replied to your message. It’s been a year.

The Affairs of the Falcóns by Melissa Rivero; design Allison Saltzman; lettering Boyoun Kim (Ecco / April 2019)

Also designed by Allison Saltzman:

All the Lives We Ever Lived by Katharine Smyth; design by Michael Morris (Crown / January 2019)

Aug 9 —  Fog by Kathryn Scanlan; design by Na Kim (Farrar Straus & Giroux MCD / June 2019)

Also designed by Na Kim:

Baron Wenkheim’s Homecoming by László Krasznahorkai ; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / September 2019)

Berta Isla by Javier Marías; design by Kelly Blair (Knopf / August 2019)

Also designed by Kelly Blair:

Big Bang by David Bowman; design by Jamie Keenan (Corsair / August 2019)

Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James; design Helen Yentus; art by Pablo Gerardo Camacho (Riverhead / February 2019)

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant by Joel Golby; design by Linda Huang (Anchor / March 2019)

The cover of the UK edition, published by HarperCollins imprint Mudlark in February, was designed by Bill Bragg and is also very good:

The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman; design by Sarahmay Wilkinson (W. W. Norton / August 2019)

Also designed by Sarahmay Wilkinson:

Categorically Famous by Guy Davidson; design by Michel Vrana (Stanford University Press / June 2019)

Also designed by Michel Vrana:

The Colonel’s Wife by Rosa Liksom; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / December 2019)

Also designed by Kimberly Glyder:

Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer; design Rodrigo Corral (MCD / December 2019)

Also designed by Rodrigo Corral:

Doxology by Nell Zink; design Jack Smyth (Fourth Estate / August 2019)

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; design by Alex Merto (Riverhead / August 2019)

Driving in Cars with Homeless Men by Kate Wisel; design Catherine Casalino (University of Pittsburgh Press / October 2019)

Also designed by Catherine Casalino:

The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg; design by Pablo Delcan (New Directions / July 2019)

Also designed by Pablo Delcan:

The Dutch House by Ann Patchet; design by Robin Bilardello; painting by Noah Saterstrom (HarperCollins / September 2019)

Even That Wildest Hope by Seyward Goodhand; design by Megan Fildes (Invisible Books / September 2019)

The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada; design by Janet Hansen; photography by Arthur Woodcroft (New Directions / October 2019)

Also designed by Janet Hansen:

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold; design by Jo Thomson (Transworld / February 2019)

Follow Me To Ground by Sue Rainsford; design and illustration Beci Kelly (Transworld / August 2019)

Follow This Thread by Henry Eliot; design by Elena Giavaldi (Three Rivers Press / March 2019) 

Holy Lands by Amanda Sthers; design by Tree Abraham (Bloomsbury / January 2019)

Also designed by Tree Abraham:

Humiliation by Paulina Flores; design by Nicole Caputo (Catapult / November 2019)

Also designed by Nicole Caputo:

Indelible in the Hippocampus by Shelly Oria; design by Sunra Thompson (MacSweeney’s / September 2019)

Lanny by Max Porter; design by Jonny Pelham (Faber & Faber / March 2019)

Learning from the Germans by Susan Neiman; design by Tom Etherington (Allen Lane / August 2019)

Tom Etherington is also the designer of Penguin magazine The Happy Reader:

Life Support by Julia Copus; design by Helen Crawford-White (Head of Zeus / April 2019)

The Light That Failed by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes; design by Richard Green (Allen Lane / October 2019)

Malina by Ingeborg Bachman; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / June 2019)

Mind Fixers by Anne Harrington; design by Matt Dorfman (W.W. Norton / April 2019)

Mothers by Chris Power; design by Grace Han (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2019)

Also designed by Grace Han:

Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin; design by Stephen Brayda (Riverhead / January 2019)

Muscle by Alan Trotter; design by Gray318 (Faber & Faber / February 2019)

Also designed by Gray318:

Never a Lovely So Real by Colin Asher; design by Jonathan Bush (W. W. Norton / April 2019)

Not Working by Josh Cohen; design by Matthew Young (Granta / January 2019)

Also designed by Matthew Young:

One Day by Gene Weingarten; design by David Litman (Blue Rider / October 2019)

Also designed by David Litman:

Our Women on the Ground edited by Zahra Hankir; design by Rosie Palmer; hand lettering by Lily Jones (Harvill Secker / August 2019)

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson; design by Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / September 2019)

Also designed by Jaya Miceli:

Safe Houses I Have Known by Steve Healey; design by Alban Fischer (Coffee House Press / September 2019)

Also designed by Alban Fischer:

Say Say Say by Lila Savage; design by Jennifer Carrow (Knopf / July 2019)

Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke; design by Anne Jordan & Mitch Goldstein (Open Letter Books / December 2019)

Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / August 2019)

Oliver Munday wrote about designing the cover for New Directions at Literary Hub earlier this year.

He also designed a lot my favourite covers this year…

Turbulence by David Szalay; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Scribner / July 2019)

The Unwanted by Michael Dobbs; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / April 2019)

Also designed by Tyler Comrie:

The Volunteer by Salvatore Scibona; design by Rachel Willey (Penguin / March 2019)

Also designed by Rachel Willey:

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates; design Greg Mollica; art Calida Garcia Rawles (One World / September 2019)

The White Death by Gabriel Urza; design by Joan Wong (Nouvella / June 2019)

A Year Without a Name by Cyrus Grace Dunham; design by Lucy Kim (Little Brown & Co. / October 2019)

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Book Covers of Note October 2018

Here are the book covers that caught my eye this month… 


Beirut Hellfire Society by Rawi Hage; design by Lisa Jager (Knopf Canada / August 2018)


The Boatbuilder by Daniel Gumbiner; design by Sunra Thompson (McSweeney’s / May 2018)

This goes rather nicely with Sunra’s cover for the hardcover of All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews…


The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke; design by Elizabeth H. Clark; illustration by Will Staehle (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / October 2018)


The Death Scene Artist by Andrew Wilmot; design by Michel Vrana (Wolsak & Wynn / October 2018)

I guess skulls aren’t going out of fashion any time soon! 


‘Exterminate the Brutes’ by Sven Lindqvist; design by Luke Bird (Granta / October 2018)

One for the maps list


The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis; design by Pete Garceau (W. W. Norton / October 2018)

I feel like I should at least try to collect some of the best political covers from the past year or so together into a post at some point. On the other hand, I really don’t want to…  


Gin: Distilled by Gin Foundry; design by James Paul Jones (Ebury Press / October 2018)


The Infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran; design by Alex Merto (Atria Books / September 2018)


Nervous States by William Davies; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / September 2018)


No Country Woman by Zoya Patel; design by Astred Hicks (Hachette Australia / August 2018)


Océans by James Hyndman; design by David Drummond (Les Éditions XYZ / September 2018)


Rabbit & Robot by Andrew Smith; Design by Lucy Ruth Cummins; art by Mike Perry (Simon & Schuster / September 2018)


Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / October 2018)


Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand; design by Aurora Parlagreco; illustration by Ruben Ireland (Katherine Tegen Books / October 2018)


Something Great and Beautiful by Enrico Pellegrini; design by Gray318 (Other Press / September 2018)

I’m not entirely sure why, but cover of Something Great and Beautiful brought to mind the 2014 cover of the UK edition of The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison, designed by Tom Darracott for Granta. They’re really not that similar, and yet… 


Son of Amity by Peter Nathaniel Malae; design by David Drummond (Oregon State University Press / October 2018)


Statistics Without Tears by Derek Rowntree; design by Matthew Young (Penguin / June 2018)


There Will Be No Miracles Here by Casey Gerald; design by Grace Han (Riverhead Books / October 2018)

Are black and white stripes / op art having a moment in New York?  

Both these covers reminded me of Riverhead art director Helen Yentus’s black and white cover for The Stranger by Albert Camus: 


Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights by Jay Rayner; design by Dan Mogford (Faber & Faber / October 2018)

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2018 AU Presses Book, Jacket, & Journal Show

And the Sparrow Fell by Robert J. Mrazek (Cornell University Press); Design by Kimberly Gyder

The Association of University Presses recently announced the selections for their 2018 Book, Jacket, & Journal Show.

The show is the oldest continuous book design competition in the US, and I was lucky enough to join McSweeney’s designer Sunra Thompson in deciding this year’s cover selections. The book selections were made by designer Linda Secondari and writer Robert Bringhurst.  You can see all the selected entries — books and covers — in this AUPresses slideshow:

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Book Covers of Note April 2017

This edition of ‘book covers of note’ is brought to you entirely by Gray318 who designed the covers of all the books published this month. OK, that’s an exaggeration, but Jon did design FOUR of the covers on my list — all different, all brilliant. How no one has published a monograph of his work yet is beyond me. Anyway… This month’s post also includes covers by David Pearson, Erik Carter, Scott Richardson, Kimberly Glyder, Katie Tooke, Rachel Vale and more… 


Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou; design by Gray318 (Serpent’s Tail / April 2017)


England Your England by George Orwell; design by David Pearson (Penguin Modern Classics / March 2017)


The Fortunate Brother by Donna Morrissey; design by Pete Adlington (Canongate / April 2017)


Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / April 2017)

And, just FYI, after 6 years at Faber & Faber, Luke has decided to set up his own studio should you wish to hire him (and on the basis of this cover alone, why wouldn’t you?).


The Good People by Hannah Kent; design by Rachel Vale (Picador / February 2017)


The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood; art direction by Christopher Moisan; illustration by Patrik Svensson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / April 2017)

This is just the latest in a number of striking covers for The Handmaid’s Tale  rare bookseller and author Rebecca Romney recently compiled a list


The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; design by Jenna Stempel; illustration Debra Cartwright (Balzer + Bray / February 2017)

The cover of the UK edition of The Hate U Give, published by Walker this month, was designed by Maria Soler.

It’s interesting that both designs have acrostic titles. I wonder if this was in the brief?  


Home and Away by Karl Ove Knausgaard and Fredrik Ekelund; design by Alex Merto (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2017)

The cover of the British edition, published by Harvill Secker in November 2016, was designed by Matt Broughton. 


Let Go My Hand by Edward Docx; design by Katie Tooke (Picador / April 2017)


Literature Class by Julio Cortázar; design by Rodrigo Corral and Zak Tebbal (New Directions / March 2017)


Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel; design by Erik Carter (New Directions /March 2017)


The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge; design by Will Staehle (Penguin / March 2017)


Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell; design by C. S. Richardson (Penguin Canada / March 2017)

In the US, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have also published a new edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The cover — which owes a wee debt to Peter Mendelsund’s eye motif covers for the Schocken editions of Kafka (in my very humble opinion) — was designed by Mark Robinson.

You can see a few other recent covers for Nineteen Eighty Four here


Out of Line by Barbara Lynch; design by Delcan & Company; photography by George Baier IV (Atria / April 2017)


The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies; design by Zoe Norvell (Biblioasis / April 2017)


Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski; design by Mark Swan (Orenda / March 2017)


Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patty Yumi Cottrell; design by Sunra Thompson (McSweeney’s / March 2017)

The jacket has a really nice metallic finish in real life. The bright green cover under the jacket is also really nice. 


Sound System by Dave Randall; design by Jamie Keenan (Pluto Press / April 2017)


Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar; design by Allison Warner (Little Brown & Co. / March 2017)


Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic; design by Gray318 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / April 2017)


To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell; design by Gray318; robot/photograph by Marco Fernandes (Granta / April 2017)


The Teeth of the Comb & Other Stories by Osama Alomar; design by Erik Carter (New Directions / April 2017)


Us&Them by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani; design by Anne Jordan and Mitch Goldstein (Stanford University Press / April 2017)


Voices from the Jungle: Stories from the Calais Refugee Camp; design by Gray318 (Pluto Press / April 2017)


Wait Till You See Me Dance by Deb Olin Unferth; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / March 2017)


White Tears by Hari Kunzru; design by Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / March 2017)

The cover of the UK edition, published this month by Hamish Hamilton, was designed by Richard Bravery.

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Book Covers of Note July 2015

It’s finally summer, and because July is traditionally something of a quiet month in publishing, I’m taking the opportunity to catch up on a few covers that I missed earlier in the year…

Act of God design Janet Hansen
Act of God by Jill Ciment; design by Janet Hansen (Pantheon / March 2015 )

All My Puny Sorrows design Sunra Thompson
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews; design and illustration by Sunra Thompson (McSweeney’s / June 2015)

Print
Armada by Ernest Cline; design by Will Staehle (Crown / July 2015)

Asylum design Spencer Kimble
Asylum by Simon Doonan; design by Spencer Kimble (Blue Rider Press / February 2015 )

Book of Numbers design Suzanne Dean cover illustration Carnovsky
Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen; design by design Suzanne Dean; illustration Carnovsky (Harvill Secker / June 2015)

Book of Numbers design Oliver Munday
Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen; design by Oliver Munday (Random House / June 2015)

Chasing Rumer illustration by Andrew Holder
Chasing Rumor by Cameron Chambers; design by Haruna Madono; illustration by Andrew Holder (Patagonia / June 2015)

Earth design by Alex Merto
Earth by Hubert Krivine; design by Alex Merto (Verso Books / April 2015)

Economics After Capitalism design David Gee
Economics After Capitalism by Derek Wall; design by David A. Gee (Pluto Press / July 2015)

egg design by Clare Skeats
Egg by Blanche Vaughan; design by Clare Skeats (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson / March 2015)

Here You Are design by Alban Fischer
Here You Are by Jared Joseph & Sara Peck; design by Alban Fischer (Horse Less Press / March 2015)

Krautrock design by Adly Elewa
Krautrock by David Stubbs; design by Adly Elewa (Melville House / July 2015)

Lord Fear design by Kelly Blair
Lord Fear by Lucas Mann; design by Kelly Blair (Pantheon / May 2015)

Modern Romance design by Jay Shaw photograph by ruvan wijesooriya
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari; design by Jay Shaw; photograph by Ruvan Wijesooriya (Penguin / June 2015)

Pretty Is design by Lucy Kim
Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell; design by Lucy Kim (Henry Holt / July 2015)

Seed Collectors design by Gray318
The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas; design by Gray318 (Canongate / July 2015)

Stammered Songbook design Clare Skeats
Stammered Songbook by Erwin Mortier; design by Clare Skeats (Pushkin Press / March 2015)

thrown design gray318
Thrown by Kerry Howley; design by Gray318 (Hamish Hamilton / May 2015)

Trust Me design Jamie Keenan
Trust Me, PR is Dead by Robert Phillips; design by Jamie Keenan (Unbound / June 2015)

Unibrow design Zoe Norvell
Unabrow by Una Lamarche; design by Zoe Norvell (Plume / March 2015)

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Whisky Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer; design by Richard Bravery (Penguin / June 2015)

World on a Plate design Nick Misani
World on a Plate by Mina Holland; design by Nick Misani (Penguin / May 2015)

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Book Covers of Note May 2015

This month’s post is very heavy on illustrated and hand-lettered covers for some reason, but it’s all the prettier for it…

all-this-has-nothing-to-do-with-me-design-Justine-Anweiler-illustration-Daphne-van-den-Heuvel
All This Has Nothing To Do With Me by Monica Sabolo; design by Justine Anweiler; illustration by Daphne van den Heuvel (Picador / April 2015)

ANWWIC
At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón; design by Jonathan Pelham (Fourth Estate / May 2015)

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B & Me by J. C. Hallman; design by Christopher Lin (Simon & Schuster / March 2015)

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The Bees by Laline Paull; design by Sara Wood (Ecco / May 2015)

The jacket for the US hardcover of The Bees, designed by Steve Attardo, was a book cover of note in May 2014.

black snow cover design keith hayes
Black Snow by Paul Lynch; design by Keith Hayes (Little, Brown & Co. / May 2015)

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Boo by Neil Smith; design by Isabel Urbina Peña (Vintage / May 2015)

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Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert design by Maria Elias; illustration by Christopher Silas Neal (Disney-Hyperion / May 2015)

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Eden West by Pete Hautman; design by Matt Roeser (Candlewick / April 2015)

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Empire of the Senses by Alexis Landau; design by Janet Hansen (Pantheon / March 2015)

herzog design by Lynn Buckley
Herzog by Saul Bellow; design by Lynn Buckley (Penguin / May 2015)

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How to Clone a Mammoth by Beth Shapiro; design by Jason Alejandro (Princeton University Press / April 2015)

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KL by Nikolaus Wachsmann; design by Alex Merto (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / April 2015)

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Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North; design by Spencer Kimble (Blue Rider Press / May 2015)

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Lifted by the Great Nothing by Karim Dimechkie; design by Katya Mezhibovskaya; illustration by Christopher Silas Neal (Bloomsbury / May 2015)

Further proof, were it needed, that Christopher would do a great covers for Harper Lee.

Mislaid design by Allison Saltzman
Mislaid by Nell Zink; design by Allison Saltzman (Ecco / May 2015)

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My Documents by Alejandro Zambra; design & illustration Sunra Thompson (McSweeney’s / April 2015)

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Nightmares and Geezenstacks by Fredric Brown; design by M. S. Corley (Valancourt Books / April 2015)

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Odysseus Abroad by Amit Chaudhuri; design by Oliver Munday (Knopf / April 2015)

ohey design by Alban Fischer
Ohey! by Darby Larson; design by Alban Fischer (CCM / May 2015)

schlump-design-suzanne-dean-illustration-clare-curtis
Schlump by Hans Herbert Grim; design by Suzanne Dean; illustration by Clare Curtis (Vintage / May 2015)

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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty; design by Peter Adlington (Canongate / April 2015)

The US edition, designed by David High, was a book cover of note in September 2014.

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The Upright Thinkers by Leonard Mlodinow; cover art by Tom Gauld (Allen Lane / May 2015)

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Visiting Hours by Amy Butcher; design by Spencer Kimble (Blue Rider Press / April 2015)

wake-up-sir-illustration-jamie-keenan
Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames; design by Jamie Keenan (Pushkin Press / May 2015)

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