Skip to content

Tag: suzanne dean

Book Covers of Note, February 2024

Hey. I hope you’re keeping safe and well wherever you are. I’m going to keep this very short as there’s lots going on, but there some great covers, and a couple of tenuous comparisons this month (hey, I can’t help how my brain works!) . Enjoy!

Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2024)

Na Kim also designed the cover of Sheila Heti’s novel Pure Colour.

American Mother by Column McCann with Diane Foley; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / February 2024)

Antiquity by Hanna Johansson; design by Nicole Caputo (Catapult / February 2024)

This reminded me of Akiko Stehrenberger‘s poster for the movie Funny Games. They don’t really look alike, and the tone is very different, but I think it was the close crop and the hair that brought it to mind.

The Blueprint by Rae Giana Rashad; design by Robin Bilardello (Harper / February 2024)

Corey Fah Does Social Mobility by Isabel Waidner; design by Kapo Ng (Graywolf / February 2024)

Dirtbag by Amber A’Lee Frost; design by Rob Grom (St. Martin’s Press / December 2023)

This brought to mind Peter Mendelsund’s cover for The Woman Destroyed by Simone Beauvoir, published by Pantheon, which in turn reminded me Gunter Rambow‘s Gitanes, Un Hommage à Max Ponty poster…

Fire So Wild by Sarah Ruiz-Grossman; design by Joanne O’Neill (Harper / Feburary 2024)

The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson; design by Dave Litman (Flatiron Books / February 2024)

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko; design by Jason Arias (Biblioasis / February 2024)

The image is taken from the 17th Century painting ‘The Torture of Prometheus’ by Giovacchino Assereto (thanks for letting me know, Jason!). The tight crop (which is great!), reminded me of Peter Hujar’s 1969 photograph ‘Orgasmic Man’, which was used on the cover of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara designed by Cardon Webb a few years ago. Art imitating art, kind of?

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra; design by Dave Litman (Pamela Dorman Books / February 2024)

I swear all Dave’s covers come in pairs….

Ours by Phillip B. Williams; design by Lynn Buckley; illustration by Damilola Opedun (Viking / February 2024)

Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright; design by John Gall (New Directions / February 2024)

John also designed the cover of the New Directions edition of Carpentaria by Alexis Wright, also published this month.

Sinking Bell by Bojan Louis; design by Tom Etherington (Cinder House / February 2024)

US edition of Sinking Bell, published by Graywolf in 2022), was designed by Adam Bohannon.

Splinters by Leslie Jamison; design by Gregg Kulick (Little, Brown & Co / February 2024)

The cover of the UK edition of Splinters, published this month by Granta, was designed by Jack Smyth. It’s interesting to see to a torn author photo in both…

Tartarus by Ty Chapman; design by Zoe Norvell (Button Poetry / February 2024)

I am really starting to wonder whether yellow type is a thing. Or am I just noticing it now because I’m looking for it?

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange; design by Linda Huang (Knopf / February 2024)

The cover of the UK edition of Wandering Stars, which is being published by Vintage next month, was designed by Suzanne Dean.

You Glow in the Dark by Liliana Colanzi; design by Jamie Keenan (New Directions / February 2024)

Comments closed

Book Covers of Note, September 2023

Hey. I hope you’re safe and well and caught up on your podcasts, shows, and TBR pile.

I thought this was going to be a short post this month, and then it turned into a long one — or longer than expected at least. I don’t have too much to add to the covers. I’m busy, you’re busy. It’s almost October, literally no one has time for this! But there are some lovely covers this month. There’s a bit autumnal orange and ennui, some nice type, and a couple of Canadian covers (for those keeping count), and a couple of appropriately off-beat ones from our friends at New Directions.*

American Gun by Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / September 2023)

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll; design by Kaitlin Kall (Simon & Schuster / September 2023)

The Circle by Katherena Vermette; design by Jennifer Griffiths; art by KC Adams (Hamish Hamilton Canada / September 2023)

Creep by Myriam Gurba; design by Clay Smith (Avid Reader Press / September 2023)

Disruptions by Steven Millhauser; design by Janet Hansen (Alfred A. Knopf / August 2023)

Fear by Robert Peckham; design by Tom Etherington (Profile / September 2023)

Goth by Lol Tolhurst; design by Timothy O’Donnell (Quercus Publishing / September 2023)

This whole thing is ridiculously in my wheelhouse. The cover photo is by the author (of course!), and there’s a fun note about trying to source the type in Timothy’s Instagram post about the design.

Grand Tour by Elisa Gonzalez; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

I’m not sure it was the intention, but I like the trippy film title / goth art project quality of this.

How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto; design by Lucy Kim (Little Brown & Co / September 2023)

The Lights by Ben Lerner; design by David Pearson (Granta / September 2023)

Hopefully you’ve all had chance to listen to David on the Cover Meeting podcast by now. It’s really good!

The cover of the US edition published by FSG was designed by Thom Colligan. It’s interesting that they’re similar and yet different. I wonder if it was brief or just a creative coincidence?

The Love of Singular Men by Victor Heringer; design by Pablo Delcan (New Directions / September 2023)

Love the red type on green.

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova; design by Alex Merto (Zando / March 2023)

This gives me decidedly 1990’s New York publishing vibes.

Starter Villain by John Scalzi; cover art by Tristan Elwell (Tor / September 2023)

This just makes me think of a corporate Behemoth.

Time Without Keys by Ida Vitale; design by Tyler Comrie (New Directions / September 2023)

We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama; design by Mia Kwon; illustration by Grace J Kim (Bloomsbury / September 2023)

This is the paperback cover. Mia also designed the jacket of the hardcover published last year.

Wound by Oksana Vasyakina; design by Nicole Caputo; art by Jenny Barron (Catapult / September 2023)

The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright; design by Kate Sinclair; art by Darek Grabus (McClelland & Stewart / September 2023)

I’m sure I’m not the only one to get Edward Hopper vibes from this cover.

The cover of the UK edition was designed by Suzanne Dean with a cover illustration by Anna Morrison.

*A bit of admin from last month: I finally managed to spend some time browsing a bookstore and I was able to ascertain that the cover of the US edition of Bridge by Lauren Beukes was designed by Kirin Diemont. Apologies to Kirin for not crediting her at the time in last month’s post. It’s updated now)

Comments closed

Notable Book Covers of 2022

2022. Twenty twenty-two. Two thousand and twenty-two… “Where did it go?” Or, sobbing, “ are we done yet?” It feels like both. It’s been a year that’s simultaneously dragged on interminably and disappeared in a cognitive blur.

I’m glad other people have already written about it.

At Creative Review, writer and editor Mark Sinclair picked his favourite covers of 2022 and reflected on industry trends in the UK, including the Design Publishing & Inclusivity mentorship program for under-represented creatives launched this year by Ebyan Egal, Donna Payne, and Steve Panton.

Literary Hub posted the best covers of the year as chosen by 31 designers. With a comprehensive 103 covers on the list, it tacitly poses the annual question “what do I have left to add to this conversation?” LitHub have been posting these lists for seven years apparently. I am an ancient desiccated husk.

Fast Company and the Washington Post asked slightly smaller groups of designers to write about their favourites covers.

Jason Kottke, back from sabbatical, posted his selections for 2022. I gather that Spine’s list is imminent.

Designer and art director Matt Dorfman chose the best book covers of 2022 for the New York Times, and empathized with the plight of the designers:

Most often, any personal stylistic expressions in their work are swallowed up in service to the multiple masters — editors, marketing directors, sales teams — who sign off on a book’s cover. There is also the matter of adhering to any one publisher’s dos and don’ts, which can inform mandates about typography, color palettes and production flourishes like embossing or metallic inks. For people employed in a theoretically creative pursuit, designers’ talents are often defined by how effortlessly they can make themselves disappear to serve the book.

Matt Dorfman, New York Times

No one captured the prevailing mood better than this Tom Gauld cartoon. A reminder, if one were needed, that nobody knows anything.

Earlier in the year, Australian reporter Rafqa Touma called out the trend of ‘well dressed and distressed’ young women on covers. As designer Mietta Yans notes, the covers often reflect their books’ stylish and sad protagonists, so I’m not sure this one is on the art departments.

Last year we had book blobs; this year we got more “ominous blobs” just to add to everyone’s existential dread.

Some of the trends I’ve talked about before spilled over into 2022. Collage, painting (contemporary, and historical — often tightly cropped), big skies, landscapes and seascapes, black and white photography (not just for LGBTQ+ trauma!), retro-ness, idiosyncratic display typefaces. Orange. Pink was in vogue too. The Instagram-ish combination of both pink and orange (sometimes with deep purple-ish blues too) seemed to be very much a thing this year. I suspect this is what happens when you ask designers to make things “pop” one too many times.

It is hard to know if these are genuine trends, or if it is just the stuff I notice. I’m sure there are things going on with commercial covers that I don’t pay enough attention to (although I will not be sad to see the popularity of that flat illustration style — the one that Slate pointed out in TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN! — eventually fade away). I certainly don’t get the sense that everything looks the same, which is often the criticism. There is still room for a little weirdness and that can only be a good thing…

Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / September 2022)

Also designed by Lauren Peters-Collaer:


Boy Friends by Michael Pedersen; design by Gray 318; illustration by Nathaniel Russell (Faber & Faber / July 2022)

Brother Alive by Zain Khalid; design by Jo Walker (Grove Press UK / August 2022)

A Calm & Normal Heart by Chelsea T. Hicks; design by Jaya Nicely (Unnamed Press / June 2022)

Carnality by Lina Wolff; design by Tyler Comrie (Other Press / July 2022)

The Bloater by Rosemary Tonks; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / September 2022)

Also designed by Oliver Munday:


The Ghetto Within by Santiago H. Amigorena; design by Mike McQuade (HarperVia / August 2022)

A Girlhood by Carolyn Hays; design by Mel Four (Blair / September 2022)

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak by Jamil Jan Kochai; design by Zak Tebbal (Viking / July 2022)

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu; design by Will Staehle (William Morrow & Co. / January 2022)

I Want to Keep Smashing Myself Until I Am Whole by Elias Canetti, edited by Joshua Cohen; design by Alex Merto; illustration Ian Woods (Picador USA / September 2022)

Also designed by Alex Merto:


Joan by Katherine J. Chen; design by Holly Ovenden (Hodder & Stoughton / July 2022)

The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid; design by Ahlawat Gunjan (India Hamish Hamilton / August 2022)

The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid; design by Chris Bentham (Hamish Hamilton / August 2022).

Lessons by Ian McEwan; design by Suzanne Dean; illustration by Tina Berning (Jonathan Cape / September 2022)

Also designed by Suzanne Dean:

The Julian Barnes cover also came in blue, and under the die-cut jacket is a beautiful photo from René Groebli’s photoessay The Eye of Love.


A Little Piece of Mind by Giles Paley-Phillips; design by Tree Abraham (Unbound / June 2022)

Tree had her own book, Cyclettes, published this year. You can read about the process of designing her own cover over at Spine.

No Land in Sight by Charles Simic; design by John Gall; photograph by Michael Kenna (Knopf / August 2022)

Also designed by John Gall:


O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker; design by Tristan Offit (Scribner / September 2022)

Also designed by Tristan Offit:


Offended Sensibilities by Alisa Ganieva; design by Emily Mahon (Deep Vellum / November 2022)

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield; design by Ami Smithson (Picador / March 2022)

I also really liked Ami’s cover for the UK edition of New Animal by Ella Baxter.

The Pink Hotel by Liska Jacobs; design by June Park; (MCD / July 2022)

Also designed by June Park:


Pure Colour by Sheila Heti; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2022)

Also designed by Na Kim:


The Raptures by Jan Carson; design by Irene Martinez Costa (Doubleday UK / January 2022)

The Red Zone by Chloe Caldwell; design by Michael Salu (Soft Skull Press / April 2022)

Sacrificio by Ernesto Mestre-Reed; design by Dana Li (SoHo Press / September 2022)

Also designed by Dana Li:


Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby; design and illustration by Lydia Ortiz (Penguin Books / January 2022)

This is like hallucinatory nightmare vision of the Francis Cugat illustration on the cover of The Great Gatsby first edition.

Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu; design by Anna Jordan (Deep Vellum / October 2022)

The Status Game by Will Storr; design by Steve Leard (William Collins / July 2022)

True Biz by Sara Novic; design by Jack Smyth (Little, Brown / April 2022)

Jack did a lot of great covers this year. I could easily have posted a couple more with no dip in quality:


Trust by Hernan Diaz; design by Katie Tooke (Picador / August 2022)

The New York skyline was printed onto the edges of the books and then photographed for this one.

Walk the Vanished Earth by Erin Swan; design by Elizabeth Yaffe (Viking / May 2022)

The Waste Land by Matthew Hollis; design by Jamie Keenan (Faber & Faber / October 2022)

Watergate by Garrett M. Graff; design by Alison Forner (Avid Reader Press / February 2022)

Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada; design by Luke Bird (Granta / November 2022)

Also designed by Luke Bird:


White Bull by Elizabeth Hughey; design by Alban Fischer (Sarabande Books / January 2022)

Also designed by Alban Fischer:

You can read about Alban’s design process for Till the Wheels Come Off at Spine.


Worn by Sofi Thanhauser; design by Janet Hansen (Pantheon / January 2022)

Also designed by Janet Hansen:


Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / August 2022)

Also designed by Rodrigo Corral:


You Have a Friend in 10A by Maggie Shipstead; design by Kelly Blair; illustration by Toby Leigh (Knopf / May 2022)

You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi; design by Anna Morrison (Faber and Faber / May 2022)

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart; design by Christopher Moisan; photograph by Kyle Thompson (Grove Press / April 2022)

Comments closed

Book Covers of Note, October 2022

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.

And just a reminder with all the stuff going on with social media that if you’d prefer to get new posts auto-magically emailed to you, you can subscribe here. I have also re-opened comments on new posts after closing them for a few months if you want to politely share your thoughts below.

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)

Comments closed

Book Covers of Note, September 2022

Busy month. Lots of book covers. Gotta go…

Barred by Daniel S. Medwed; design by Chin-Yee Lai (Basic Books / September 2022)

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / September 2022)

Rodrigo Corral also designed the cover of Ling Ma’s previous novel Severance.

Canción by Eduardo Halfon; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / September 2022)

Drive by James Sallis; design by David Litman (Poisoned Pen Press / September 2022)

I was just talking about this book — how it is a near perfect thriller, but also great for dudes who don’t read a lot of fiction — so I was happy to see it’s been given a new lick of paint. And pink covers are, as I keep saying ad nauseam, a thing…

Fingers Crossed by Miki Berenyi; design by Paul Palmer-Edwards photo Jurgen Ostarhild (Nine Eight Books / September 2022)

I’m including this because of the beautiful photo (with a colour palette remarkably on trend in 2022) and my inevitable teenage crush on indie style icon Miki from Lush.

I Want to Keep Smashing Myself Until I Am Whole by Elias Canetti, edited by Joshua Cohen; design by Alex Merto; illustration Ian Woods (Picador USA / September 2022)

This collage is incredible.

A Girlhood by Carolyn Hays; design by Mel Four (Blair / September 2022)

Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan; design by John Gall (New Directions / September 2022)

Lessons by Ian McEwan; design by Suzanne Dean; illustration by Tina Berning (Jonathan Cape / September 2022)

Modern Fables by Mikka Jacobsen; design by Natalie Olsen (Freehand Books / September 2022)

Perish by Latoya Watkins; design by Grace Han (Tiny Reparations / August 2022)

Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble; design by Linda Huang; art by Simone Noronha (Knopf / July 2022)

Sacrificio by Ernesto Mestre-Reed; design by Dana Li (SoHo Press / September 2022)

This reminded me Peter Mendelsund‘s Amerika cover for Schocken back in the day. But, as is the norm around here, the two covers do not actually look that much alike side by side…

Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / September 2022)

We Spread by Iain Reid; design by Chelsea McGuckin (Scout Press / September 2022)

Are letters growing roots a mini-thing?

Worn Out by Alyssa Hardy; design by Emily Mahon; embroidery and dyeing by Alex Stikeleather (New Press / September 2022)

Comments closed

Book Covers of Note, April 2022

We’ve almost made it to the end of April, so that’s something. Thanks to Daniel Benneworth-Gray for the mention earlier this month. It surely means I’m about to disappoint a large number of people — if I have not, in fact, already done so — but I hope you find something you like here…

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan; design by Jamie Keenan (Scribner / April 2022)

Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / April 2022)

I believe the Elizabeth Finch cover also comes in yellow, but I wasn’t able to find a hi-res image. If anyone wants to send it over, I’ll be happy to add it.

The jacket also comes in yellow, which feels very on trend to me and the blue and yellow look lovely side by side. Thank you to Suzanne for taking the time to send over the image of the yellow version.

Suzanne also sent over an image of the boards for those of you curious to see what is under the jacket, peeking through the die-cuts. The gorgeous photograph is from René Groebli’s photoessay The Eye of Love.

This is the problem with seeing covers/jackets primarily online. You rarely get to appreciate these finer details. This must be a beautiful book to hold and unwrap.

But going back to cut-out circles/semi-circles for a moment. They reminded of Olga Kominek‘s cover design for The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing edited by Hannah Dawson published last year.

And I have been trying to recall what both these covers remind me of. Possibly ‘Composition of Circles and Semicircles‘ by abstract artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp?

End of the World House by Adrienne Celt; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / April 2022)

A House Between Earth and the Moon by Rebecca Scherm; design by Colin Webber; image by Maciej Toporowicz (Viking / April 2022)

Like Animals by Eve Lemieux; design by Michel Vrana; illustration Saul Herrera (Rare Machines / April 2022)

Inspired by Basquiat presumably?

My Face in the Light by Martha Schabas; design by Kate Sinclair (Knopf Canada / April 2022)

Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes; design Milan Bozic; illustration by Laura Anastasio (Harper Perennial / March 2022)

(Special thanks to Caro for identifying the designer and illustrator)

Poguemahone by Patrick McCabe; design by Mark Ecob (Unbound / April 2022)

Post-Traumatic by Chantal V. Johnson; design by Lucy Kim (Little Brown and Co. / April 2022)

Feeling the international typographic style influence this month…

The Red Zone by Chloe Caldwell; design Michael Salu (Soft Skull Press / April 2022)

Their Four Hearts by Vladimir Sorokin; design by Alban Fischer (Dalkey Archive Press / April 2022)

The Void Ascendant by Premee Mohamed; design by James Paul Jones (Solaris / April 2022)

This is the third book in the ‘Beneath the Rising’ trilogy.

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart; design by Christopher Moisan; photograph by Kyle Thompson (Grove Press / April 2022)

The cover of the UK edition published by Picador features a photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans. The design is by Stuart Wilson.

Comments closed

Notable Book Covers of 2020

I didn’t blog much this year. It felt strange to be posting about something as trivial as book covers during a deadly pandemic. 2020 has been a tough year. I feel lucky that my family are safe and well, and I have kept my job and my health. I know others have not been so fortunate.

It has been hard.

I haven’t read much and I’ve struggled to keep track of new work. Toronto has been in lockdown for most of 2020. Browsing bookstores hasn’t been possible, and I didn’t spend as much time as usual trawling for covers online. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of covers in this year’s post are featured here for the first time.

Looking back at last year’s post, I was apparently feeling gloomy about the state of things in 2019 too.1 If I remember correctly, I was — in the midst of everything — trying to get through sales conference, wrap up a big project before the holidays, and feeling more than a little stressed. Somehow I still managed to write a little bit about the trends I was seeing. A few things — painterly covers for example — seem to have continued into 2020. Lydian certainly hasn’t gone away. It felt so common, in fact, I stopped keeping track of individual examples. On the other hand, I did see less Avant Garde for which I am quietly grateful (although I’m not sure that’s a popular sentiment).

At The Literary Hub, Emily Temple declared 2020 to be “the year of enormous pink lady faces on book covers.” While at Spine Magazine, Viki Hendy collected together examples of covers with type around the edges. I don’t know that I have a lot to add that. There were a few new meta, books on book covers this year, which is always a delight. And I think perhaps collage might be having a moment too, which is fun. Although we may be overdoing the half-face compositions.

There is, of course, a lag. Trends always bleed over from one year to the next. One of this year’s “big books”, Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, which featured a bright and bold cover designed by Vi-An Nguyen, was published in the US on December 31, 2019. A lot of 2020 books have been delayed until 2021. But I wonder how the changes in the way we work and consume brought on by the pandemic — designing in isolation for an audience that is now browsing predominantly online — will change things in the next couple of years. Will we see more experimentation or less? Will there be demand for beautiful tactile objects, or will we more fully embrace digital reading experiences? There’s a lot to ponder…

Anyway, thanks to all the folks who have supported the Casual Op this year and encouraged me to keep it going. I’m sorry that I have not responded to all the emails I have received. I’m going to try to be a bit better with that in future. Hopefully there have been some silver linings for you in 2020, and you can still find some joy in a few good book covers…

Afterland by Lauren Beukes; design by Lauren Wakefield (Penguin / July 2020)

Also designed by Lauren Wakefield:

The Age of Skin by Dubravka Ugresic; design by Jack Smyth (Open Letter / November 2020)

Also designed by Jack Smyth:

All Men Want to Know by Nina Bouraoui; design by Holly Ovenden (Viking / August 2020)

Also designed by Holly Ovenden:

Analogia by George Dyson; design by Tom Etherington; illustration by Andy Bridge (Allen Lane / August 2020)

Also designed by Tom Etherington:

Anger by Barbara H. Rosenwein; design by Alex Kirby (Yale University Press / July 2020)

Also designed by Alex Kirby:

The Art of War by Sun Tzu; design by Jaya Miceli (W. W. Norton / January 2020)

Also designed by Jaya Miceli:

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

Also designed by Nicole Caputo:

Nicole talks about book covers and her design process in this video for Belletrist from earlier this year.

The Book of Eels by Patrick Svensson; design by Allison Saltzman; illustration by Grady McFerrin (Ecco / May 2020)

Also designed by Allison Saltzman:

Carry by Toni Jensen; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Carmi Grau (Ballantine / September 2020)

Also designed by Emily Mahon:

Cesare by Jerome Charyn; design by Elsa Mathern (No Exit Press / November 2020)

Companions by Katie M. Flynn; design by Laywan Kwan (Scout Press / March 2020)

The Complete Works of Alberto Caeiro by Fernando Pessoa; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / July 2020)

You can find a recent interview with Peter at InsideHook, and he has a big new book out called The Look of the Book with David J. Alworth.

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi; design by Grace Han (Riverhead / August 2020)

Also designed by Grace Han:

Los Falcón by Melissa Rivero; design by Adalis Martinez (Vintage Espanol / April 2020)

Sadly, Adalis unexpectedly passed away in July 2020. I only knew Adalis through her work, but she is such a huge a loss to our community. There is a GoFundMe page if you wish to donate to her family.

Also designed by Adalis Martinez:

Figure It Out by Wayne Koestenbaum; design by Michael Salu (Soft Skull Press / May 2020)

Also designed by Michael Salu:

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada; design by Janet Hansen (New Directions / October 2020)

Also designed by Janet Hansen:

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor; design Jamie Keenan (New Directions / March 2020)

Also designed by Jamie Keenan:

Hysteria by Jessica Gross; design by Jaya Nicely (Unnamed Press / August 2020)

Also designed by Jaya Nicely:

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / October 2020)

The Hype Machine by Sinan Aral; design by Steve Leard (HarperCollins / September 2020)

Indelicacy by Amina Cain; design by June Park (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2020)

Also designed by June Park:

Insomnia by John Kinsella; design by Sarahmay Wilkinson (W. W. Norton / November 2020)

Also designed by Sarahmay Wilkinson:

Lakewood by Megan Giddings; design by Stephen Brayda; art by Yulia Bas (Amistad / March 2020)

Also designed by Stephen Brayda:

Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford; design by Lucy Kim; photograph by Pari Dukovic (Little Brown & Co / July 2020)

Also designed by Lucy Kim:

Ledger by Jane Hirshfield; design by John Gall (Knopf / March 2020)

Also designed by John Gall:

You can find a short interview with John in which he discusses his cover for Red Pill at Bear Books, and you can read about his design process for Weather by Jenny Offill at Spine Magazine.

The Light Ages by Seb Falk; design by Richard Green (Allen Lane / September 2020)

Is it just me, or were star charts on book covers a bit of thing this year?

Life of a Klansman; design by Rodrigo Corral; illustration by Matt Buck (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / August 2020)

Also designed by Rodrigo Corral:

Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin; design by Na Kim (Riverhead / May 2020)

Also designed by Na Kim:

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / May 2020)

Moss by Klaus Modick; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / August 2020)

Alban recently talked to the folks at Faceout Books about his design for Moss, and you can read about his design process for Four By Four by Sara Mesa at Spine Magazine.

Also designed by Alban Fischer:

Natural History by Carlos Fonseca; design by Pablo Delcan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / July 2020)

Notes from an Apocalypse by Mark O’Connell; design by Matthew Young; art by Joe Webb (Granta / April 2020)

Of Color by Jaswinder Bolina; design by Jude Landry (McSweeney’s / June 2020)

Oligarchy by Scarlett Thomas; design by Kelly Winton (Counterpoint / January 2020)

On the Road by Jack Kerouac; design by Moker Ontwerp (De Bezige Bij / July 2020)

The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell; design by Stephanie Ross (Penguin Press / July 2020)

You can read about Stephanie’s design process for The Party Upstairs at Spine Magazine.

Pew by Catherine Lacey; design by Luke Bird (Granta / May 2020)

Also designed by Luke Bird:

Prosper’s Demon by K. J. Parker; design by Christine Foltzer; art by Sam Weber (Tor / January 2020)

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue; design by Sara Wood (Little Brown & Co / July 2020)

Also designed by Sara Wood:

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

Also designed by David Pearson:

Sensation Machines by Adam Wilson; design by David Litman (Soho Press / July 2020)

Also designed by David Litman:

Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran; design Henry Sene Yee (Flatiron Books / April 2020)

Also designed by Henry Sene Yee

Soot by Dan Vyleta; design by Mark Swan (Weidenfeld & Nicolson / February 2020)

The Sun Collective by Charles Baxter; design Tyler Comrie (Pantheon / November 2020)

Also designed by Tyler Comrie:

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner; design by Gray318 (Granta / September 2020)

Also designed by Gray318:

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

Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey; design Sinem Erkas (Serpent’s Tail / February 2020)

You can read about Sinem’s design process for Topic of Conversation at Spine Magazine.

Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah, translated by Deborah Smith; design by  Suzanne Dean; photograph Marta Bevacqua (Jonathan Cape / January 2020)

Also designed by Suzanne Dean:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / June 2020)

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

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; design by Kimberly Glyder (Scribner / January 2020)

Also designed by Kimberly Glyder:

  1. For those of you that don’t know, the name of the blog comes from a joke about my general lack of enthusiasm for anything.
3 Comments

Book Covers of Note, August 2020

A quick update for August…

All Men Want to Know by Nina Bouraoui; design by Holly Ovenden (Viking / August 2020)

Analogia by George Dyson; design by Tom Etherington; illustration by Andy Bridge (Allen Lane / August 2020)

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi; design by Grace Han (Riverhead / August 2020)

Must I Go by Yiyun Li; design by Gray318 and Richard Bravery (Hamish Hamilton / August 2020)

The Last Great Road Bum by Héctor Tobar; design by Rodrigo Corral; illustration by Matt Buck (MCD / August 2020)

Life of a Klansman; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / August 2020)

I believe this illustration is also by Matt Buck.

Luster by Raven Leilani; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / August 2020)

Moss by Klaus Modick; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / August 2020)

The New American by Micheline Aharonian Marcom; design Dave Litman (Simon & Schuster / August 2020)

Scabby Queen by Kirstin Innes; design by Jack Smyth (Fourth Estate / July 2020)

Sisters by Daisy Johnson; design by Suzanne Dean; photograph Simon Kerola (Jonathan Cape / August 2020)

The cover of the US edition of Sisters, published by Riverhead this month, was designed by Jaya Miceli. The painting is by Jeremy Olson. (Thank you to the folks on Twitter who helped me with this!)

You Will Never Be Forgotten by Mary South; design by Jamie Keenan (Picador / August

Comments closed

The Decade in Book Covers

There is a bit of story to this post. The short version is that I started it in 2018 to celebrate 10 years of the blog. When that deadline went whooshing past, I thought I would rework it for the end of 2019 as a look back at the decade. Now in 2020, with the risk of another deadline coming and going before I get it exactly right, I am just going to post this as it is — a collection of covers from the past 10 years1 that I quite like!

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, design by Will Staehle (Little Brown & Co. / July 2010)

Ethics of Interrogation by Michael Skerker, designed by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press / May 2010)

Filthy English by Peter Silverton, design by Dan Mogford (Portobello / October 2010)

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman, designed by Roberto de Vicq (Random House / 2010)

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, design by David Pearson (Picador / December 2010)

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, designed by Rodrigo Corral Design (Random House / September 2010)

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan; design by Barbara deWilde (Knopf / June 2010)

Amerika by Franz Kafka, design by Peter Mendelsund (Schocken / August 2011)

Adventures in the Orgasmatron by Christopher Turner; design by Marina Drukman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux June 2011)

Fever by Sonia Shah; design by LeeAnn Falciani (Picador / June 2011)

The First Husband by Laura Dave, designed by Jaya Miceli (Penguin / May 2011)

The Information by James Gleick, designed by Peter Mendelsund (Pantheon March 2011)

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi design by Helen Yentus with Jason Booher (Riverhead / September 2011)

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, design by Matt Dorfman (Riverhead Books / May 2011)

After Freud Left edited by John Burnham; designed by Isaac Tobin (University of Chicago Press / May 2012)

The Dubliners by James Joyce; design by Apfel Zet (Penguin / May 2012)

Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck by Eric G. Wilson; design by  Rodrigo Corrall, hand-lettering by Jennifer Carrow, photograph by Simon Lee (FSG March 2012)

The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus; design by Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / January 2012)

Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel by Shalom Auslander; design by John Gall (Riverhead / January 2012)

May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes; designed by Alison Forner (Viking / September 2012)

NW by Zadie Smith; design by Gray318 (Hamish Hamilton / September 2012)

First Novel by Nicholas Royle; design by Suzanne Dean; photography Stephen Banks (Cape / February 2013)

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner; design by Charlotte Strick (Scribner / April 2013)

The Hamlet Doctrine by Simon Critchley & Jamieson Webster; design by David A. Gee (Verso September 2013)

Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis; design by Jamie Keenan (Vintage / May 2013)

Middle C by William Gass; Design by Gabriele Wilson (Knopf / March 2013)

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell; design by David Pearson (Penguin / January 2013)

The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot; design by Jamie Keenan (Liveright Classics / September 2013)

What the Family Needed by Steven Amsterdam; design by Jennifer Heuer (Riverhead / March 2013)

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu; design by Isabel Urbina Peña (Knopf / March 2014)

The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace; design by Linda Huang (Pantheon / February 2014)

California by Edan Lepucki; design Julianna Lee (Little Brown & Co. / July 2014)

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson; design by Allison Saltzman; illustration by Bryan Nash Gill (Ecco / June 2014)

Love Me Back by Merritt Tierce; design by Emily Mahon; illustration by Rizon Parein(Doubleday / September 2014)

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka; design by Jamie Keenan (W. W. Norton / February 2014)

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead; design by Elena Giavaldi (Crown / January 2014)

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee; design by Helen Yentus; lettering Jason Booher (Riverhead / January 2014)

Your Face in Mine by Jess Row; design by Oliver Munday (Riverhead / August 2014)

The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / August 2015)

Hotels of North America by Rick Moody; design by Keith Hayes (Little, Brown & Co. / November 2015)

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin; design by Justine Anweiler; photography Jonathan Simpson (Picador UK / September 2015)

Motorcycles I’ve Loved by Lily Brooks-Dalton; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / April 2015)

Munich Airport by Greg Baxter; design by Anne Twomey (Twelve Books / January 2015)

One Day in the Life of the English Language by Frank L. Cioffi; design by Chris Ferrante (Princeton University Press / March 2015)

Weathering by Lucy Wood; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / January 2015)

The Woman Who Read Too Much by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani; design by Anne Jordan & Mitch Goldstein (Stanford University Press / April 2015)

Addlands by Tom Bullough; design by Jenny Grigg (Granta / June 2016)

The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert; design by Jaya Miceli (Scribner / January 2016)

Dialogue by Robert McKee; design by Catherine Casalino (Twelve Books / July 2016)

How Propaganda Works by Jason Stanley; design by Chris Ferrante (Princeton University Press / May 2016)

Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett; design by Keith Hayes (Little, Brown & Co. / May 2016)

Moonglow by Michael Chabon; design by Adalis Martinez (Harper / November 2016)

The Start of Something by Stuart Dybek; design Suzanne Dean; cover art by Marion de Man (Jonathan Cape / November 2016) 

The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel; design by Allison Colpoys (Scribe / August 2016)

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue design by Kimberly Glyder (Little, Brown & Co. / September 2016)

The Age of Perpetual Light by Josh Weil; design by Nick Misani (Grove Press / September 2017)

All We Saw by Anne Michaels; design by Janet Hansen; photograph by Jouke Bos (Knopf / October 2017)

Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly; design by Alex Merto; photograph by Gregory Reid (W.W. Norton / December 2017)

Jerzy by Jerome Charyn; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / March 2017)

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood; design by Rachel Willey (Riverhead / May 2017)

A Separation by Katie Kitamura; design by Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / February 2017)

Virgin and Other Stories by April Ayers Lawson; design by James Paul Jones (Granta / January 2017)

We All Love the Beautiful Girls by Joanne Proulx; design by Jennifer Griffiths (Viking / August 2017)

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / May 2018)

Cherry by Nico Walker; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / August 2018)

The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin; design by Rachel Willey (Henry Holt / April 2018)

Evening in Paradise by Lucia Berlin; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / November 2018)

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

Liveblog by Megan Boyle; design by Nicole Caputo (Tyrant Books / September 2018)

There There by Tommy Orange; design by Suzanne Dean; art by Bryn Perrott (Harvill Secker / July 2018)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2 Comments

Book Covers of Note, July 2019

Oof, I am very late with this month’s covers post. I think it’s quite a good one though as these things go…? 


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

Swishy retro fonts are definitely a ‘thing’ now. In this instance I believe the font is Cabernet JF — an unofficial revival of Benguiat Caslon — which has been mentioned here before. The sans is Futura of course. I rather rashly went on record not so long ago saying Futura is a little overused on university press covers (much to the chagrin of Robert Bringhurst!), but I think it works here.     


Come Closer and Listen by Charles Simic; design by Allison Saltzman; art by Jessica Brilli (Ecco / July 2019)


Cruising by Alex Espinoza; design by Robert Bieselen (Unnamed Press / June 2019)

More swishy-swishiness. The positioning of the first “i” in “Cruising” does some work here.  


Cults by Herb Lester Associates; design and illustration Brian Rau (Herb Lester Associates / July 2019)


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

Pablo also designed the cover of Ginzburg’s Happiness, as Such, also out this month from New Directions.


Expectation by Anna Hope; design by Jo Thomson (Doubleday / July 2019)


Feel Free by Nick Laird; design by Yang Kim (W.W. Norton / July 2019)


The Fell by Robert Jenkins; design by Jason Anscomb (RedDoor Press / July 2019)


The Great American Cheese War by Paul Flower; design by Dan Mogford (Farrago / June 2019)

(There is probably a post to be had of covers that feature ‘guns’ made of other things. Although I’m struggling to think of any other examples off the top of my head, so maybe I’m thinking of artworks and/or magazine covers? Or just imagining it?)


A Half-Baked Idea by Olivia Potts; design by Helen Crawford-White (Fig Tree / July 2019)


Harbart by Nabarun Bhattacharya; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / June 2019) 


Maggie Brown & Others by Peter Orner; design by Lucy Kim (Little, Brown & Co. / July 2019)


The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead; design by Oliver Munday (Doubleday / July 2019)


Novacene by James Lovelock; design by Tom Etherington (Allen Lane / July 2019)


Radical Ritual by Neil Shister; design by Sarah Brody (Counterpoint / July 2019)


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


The Travelers by Regina Porter; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / July 2019)

The cover of the US edition published by Hogarth last month was designed by Michael Morris.

I would have have a hard time telling you which country these covers came from if I didn’t already know. Using the US spelling “Travelers” on the UK cover confuses the issue, but I don’t think either cover looks particularly American, which is kind of interesting. Michael Morris recently discussed his version with Spine


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

The cover of the UK edition of Turbulence, published at the end of last year by Jonathan Cape, reminded me of Anne Twomey’s 2015 cover for Munich Airport by Greg Baxter…

Interestingly, the barcode on the front of the UK edition actually works. You can read an interview from earlier this year with designer Rosie Palmer about the UK cover over at Spine


Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky; design by Janet Hansen; ice rendered by Justin Metz (Knopf / July 2019)


The Weil Conjectures by Karen Olsson; design by Emma Ewbank (Bloomsbury / July 2019)

The cover of the US edition published by FSG this month was designed by Alison Forner and Thomas Colligan, with art by Jessica Halonen.


We Went to the Woods by Caite Dolan-Leach; design by Jaya Miceli (Random House / July 2019)

1 Comment

Book Covers of Note, June 2019

Apparently it is June already. I’m pretty sure it’s a terrible mistake. 

Here are your book covers of note.


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


Cogito by Victor Dixen; design by Jim Tierney (Collection R / May 2019)

This reminded me of something. I’m not sure exactly what. The best I could up with was Nicole Caputo‘s stripey op-art cover for Liveblog by Megan Boyle, but that’s not it at all… 


The Girl at the Door by Veronica Raimo; design by Julian Humphries (Fourth Estate / June 2019)


The Grand Dark by Richard Kadrey; design by Will Staehle (Harper Voyager / June 2019)


Lie With Me by Philippe Besson; design by Na Kim (Scribner / April 2019)


The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write by Gregory Orr; design by Jared Oriel (W.W. Norton / June 2019)


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


Norco ’80 by Peter Houlahan; design by Jaya Miceli (Counterpoint / June 2019)


November by Jorge Galán; design by Steve Leard (Little, Brown / June 2019)

I’m starting to detect a colour scheme at work here, Steve… ;-) 


On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong; design by Darren Haggar; photograph by Sam Contis (Penguin Press / June 2019)

Are we seeing a trend for close cropped photographs of… arms? (Don’t get me wrong, these are both beautiful photographs / covers.)

Also of note in a compare-and-contrast sort of way, the cover of the UK edition of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous published by Jonathan Cape was designed by Suzanne Dean:

 


Open Me by Lisa Locascio; design by Kelly Winton; collage by Katrien de Blauwer (Grove / June 2019)


Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn; design by Steve Attardo; handlettering by Sarahmay Wilkinson (Liveright / June 2019)


Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh; design by David Curtis (Tor / June 2019)


The Social Photo by Nathan Jurgenson; design by Pablo Delcan (Verso / May 2019)


The Sun On My Head by Geovani Martins; design by Clare Skeats (Faber & Faber / June 2019)


The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri; design by Christopher Gale (Canongate / May 2019)


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

This reminds me (a little bit) of the Penguin English Library covers art directed by Coralie Bickford-Smith a few years ago:


William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll by Casey Rae; design by Matt Avery (University of Texas Press / June 2019)

3 Comments

Book Covers of Note 2018

This has been an exhausting year for oh so, so many reasons, but book covers remained a bright spot for me in 2018. 

As always, my end-of-year list collects together the covers that I found interesting or noteworthy in some way or another in the past 12 months. It is organized alphabetically by title and grouped by designer (because that makes sense to me when I’m compiling the list). 

In terms of trends, there were a lot of hot orange book covers this year. Stark black, white and red covers were popular for non-fiction. Stars and stripes featured heavily too (I refuse to do a post about this!). Snakes seemed to be a thing!

Typographically, big white sans serifs are still a go-to. And hand-lettering and handwriting are still going strong. But retro typefaces, particularly big serifs with swishy swashes, are making a comeback. 

Thanks as always to everyone who has supported the blog this year, especially the folks who have taken the time to help with cover images and design credits. I’m sorry for the many, many the emails I have not replied to this year, and for all the covers, designers, and publishers I have overlooked. 


Aetherial Worlds by Tatyana Tolstaya; design by Stephanie Ross (Knopf / March 2018)

Stephanie Ross’s cover for Ruth Bader Ginsberg by Jane Sherron De Hart, published by Knopf in October, also caught my eye this year. 



Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore by Emma Southon; design by Mark Ecob (Unbound / August 2018)



America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo; design by Gray318 (Atlantic Books / May 2018)

Also designed by Gray318:

(I got to visit Jon in his studio this summer, which was nice.)



Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald; design David Pearson (Penguin / June 2018)

Also designed by David Pearson:



The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch; design by Rafi Romaya; illustration by Florian Schommer (Canongate / January 2018)



Born To Be Posthumous by Mark Dery; design by Jim Tierney; photograph by Richard Corman (Little Brown & Co. / November 2018)

Congratulations to Jim and Sara on the birth of their baby last month! 



Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / May 2018)



Cherry by Nico Walker; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / August 2018)

Also designed by Janet Hansen:



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

Also designed by Will Staehle:



Codex 1962 by Sjón; design by Rodrigo Corral (MCD / September 2018)

The cover of the UK edition of Codex 1962 published by Sceptre, which features art by Owen Gent, is also beautiful.

Also designed by Rodrigo Corral Studio: 



The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin; design by Rachel Willey (Henry Holt / April 2018)

Also designed by Rachel Willey:



The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams; design by Joan Wong (New Directions / September 2018)



Educated by Tara Westover; illustration by Patrik Svensson (Random House / March 2018)

Probably the most ubiquitous nonfiction book of the year (if not, in the end, the bestselling). Canada and the UK went with photographic covers. This was more memorable I thought. 



Evening in Paradise by Lucia Berlin; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / November 2018)

Also designed by Na Kim:



he Fed and Lehman Brothers by Laurence M. Ball; design by Catherine Casalino (University of Cambridge Press / June 2018)

Also designed by Catherine Casalino:



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

I also really liked Ben Denzer’s typographic cover for A Short Film About Disappointment by Joshua Mattson (Penguin Press / August 2018).



Feminasty by Erin Gibson; design by Anne Twomey; photograph by Ricky Middlesworth (Grand Central / September 2018)



The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem; design Allison Saltzman; photograph Kate Bellm (Ecco Press / November 2018)



Fox 8 by George Saunders; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / November 2018)



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



Gun Love by Jennifer Clement; design by Michael Morris (Hogarth / March 2018)

Also designed by Michael Morris:



Hippie by Paulo Coelho; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / September 2018)

Also designed by Tyler Comrie:



The Hole by José Revueltas; design by John Gall (New Directions / November 2018)

Also designed by John Gall:

(Don’t forget about the new book collecting 10 years of John Gall’s collages!)



The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara; design by Sara Wood (Ecco / February 2018)

You can read about the design of this cover on Literary Hub



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

Also designed by Alex Merto:



In the Distance by Hernan Diaz; design by Luke Bird (Daunt Books / June 2018)

I read the US edition of In the Distance (Coffee House Press / 2017) earlier this year. It is quite extraordinary and not what I expected — a western, but not really. I was really pleased that Daunt decided to publish it in the UK. 

Also designed by Luke Bird:



The Island That Disappeared by Tom Feiling; design by Marina Drukman (Melville House / March 2018)



The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman; design by Jaya Miceli (Viking / March 2018)

Also designed by Jaya Miceli:



A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne; design by Jo Thomson (Doubleday / August 2018)



Liveblog by Megan Boyle; design by Nicole Caputo (Tyrant Books / September 2018)

Also designed by Nicole Caputo:

The Gunners — a novel about a group of misfit friends reuniting at a funeral — was a favourite in my office this year. 



The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner; design by Peter Mendelsund; photograph by Nan Goldin (Scribner / May 2018)

Also designed by Peter Mendelsund:



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

I thought this was a nice contrast to the cover of the US edition designed by Oliver Munday (Pantheon / April 2017). It’s interesting that only the cat’s ear makes an appearance, and the snake (a boa constrictor in the story I think?) is more prominent.  

Also designed by Anna Morrison:



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



Notes from the Fog by Ben Marcus; design by Jamie Keenan (Granta / September 2018)

Also designed by Jamie Keenan:



On Gravity by A. Zee; design by Jason Alejandro (Princeton University Press / May 2018)



Packing My Library by Alberto Manguel; design by Tom Starr (Yale University Press / March 2018)



The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani; design by Julianna Lee (Penguin / January 2018)



The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor; design by Strick&Williams (Catapult / August 2018)



She Wants It by Jill Soloway; design by Elena Giavaldi (Crown / October 2018)



The Son of Black Thursday by Alejandro Jodorowsky; design by Richard Ljoenes (Restless Books / November 2018)

Richard Ljoenes recently talked about designing covers for Alejandro Jodorowsky — the cover of Where the Bird Sings Best was on my 2016 notable list — with Spine Magazine



The Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams; design by Jack Smyth (Simon & Schuster / August 2018)

Also designed by Jack Smyth:



A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer; design by Design by Committee (Ventura / August 2018)



Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott; design by Lauren Wakefield (Hutchinson / June 2018)



Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering; design Donna Cheng (Simon & Schuster / July 2018)

Crossing out is a thing.



Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier; design Dan Mogford (The Bodley Head / June 2018)

Also designed by Dan Mogford:



There There by Tommy Orange; design by Suzanne Dean; art by Bryn Perrott (Harvill Secker / July 2018)

You can read about the design of this cover at Spine Magazine.

Also designed by Suzanne Dean:



This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga; design Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / August 2018)

Also designed by Kimberly Glyder:


Tin Man by Sarah Winman; design by Grace Han ( G.P. Putnam’s Sons / May 2018)

Everyone should read Tin Man btw. It is sad and lovely.

Also designed by Grace Han:



Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver; design by Ami Smithson (Faber & Faber / October 2018)

This has rather fancy edges (and endpapers I believe):



The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn; design by Elsie Lyons (William Morrow / January 2018)

I also really liked Elisie Lyons’ glamorously noir cover for Sunburn by Laura Lippman (William Morrow / February 2018).

1 Comment