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Book Covers of Note, October 2024
Published October 30, 2024

Book Covers of Note, October 2024

Hey, I hope you are good. It’s a stressful time and everyone is super busy trying to hold it together, but here we are at the end of October with another post that is both rushed and yet wordier than ever! As usual, I won’t be doing a covers round-up in November. I have to start working on the massive end of year post so I can get it done in something resembling a timely and relevant manner. I am open to last minute submissions if you think I have missed a cover, or you have something coming out between now and December. I can’t promise to include everything, but it would be especially great to hear from you if you’ve done something cool for a university press or an independent publisher this year. The only requirement is that the book was published and on shelves in 2024. If it was published in a non-English speaking part of the world, be sure to include a link to where people can find out more about the book (and ideally buy it) that isn’t Amazon.

On a related note, I have compiled an annual post of YA covers for, I don’t know, years now (10 maybe?). I don’t read a lot of YA, and it’s not a category I am very involved in professionally, so the posts take quite a long time to compile and I usually end up publishing them early in the New Year, which is less than ideal. So I guess my question is: do you still want a YA round-up? Folks used to ask for them, and now they don’t, which just be general fatigue and the fragmented nature of things at the moment, but the posts don’t attract submissions or much feedback, and interest seems to be waning. Obviously I don’t think I do a great job (if that wasn’t abundantly clear already!), but I haven’t really seen anyone else do one either, so I’ve kept doing it. I don’t know… I’m not a big a believer in clicks or engagement metrics as a measurement of anything useful, so I happy to do it if even just a couple of you say it’s still valuable. Or maybe it is just time to call it quits? Let me know what you think…

And with that, onto this month’s selections…

Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer; design by Pablo Delcan (MCD / October 2024)

Pablo Delcan also designed the covers of the 10th anniversary editions of the previous books in the Southern Reach series, Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance, published by Picador earlier this year.

I’m still quite partial to the original US covers the trilogy (as was) designed by Charlotte Strick with illustrations by Eric Nyquist. The cover of Annihilation reminds me of The Day of the Triffids, which coincidentally has has an introduction by Jeff VanderMeer if you have the Modern Library edition. (The slightly bonkers cover of the Modern Library edition was designed by Cassie Gonzales with an illustration by comic book artist and illustrator Anders Nilson). Anyway, I’m a little sad that I can’t get the prequel to match the rest of my existing set.

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (US); design by Charlotte Strick; Illustration by Eric Nyquist (FSG / 2014)
Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer (US); design by Charlotte Strick; Illustration by Eric Nyquist (FSG / 2014)

Between This World and the Next by Praveen Herat; design by Jamie Keenan; illustration by Sukutangan (Restless Books / June 2024)

The Book Against Death by Elias Canetti; design by Jamie Keenan (New Directions / November 2024)

The Book of George by Kate Greathead; design by Nicole Seeback Ruggiero (Henry Holt / October 2024)

The cover of the UK edition of The Book of George, available from Atlantic Books in January 2025, was designed by Holly Battle.

On the Calculation of Volume Book I and Book II by Solvej Balle; design by Matt Dorfman (New Directions / November 2024)

The Coiled Serpent by Camilla Grudova; design by Jaya Nicely (Unnamed Press / October 2024)

The cover of the UK edition, published in November 2023 by Atlantic Books, was also designed by Holly Battle.

Version 1.0.0

The Driving Machine by Witold Rybczynski; design by Jared Bartman (W.W. Norton / October 2024)

An Earthquake is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth by Anna Moschovakis; design by Gregg Kulick (Soft Skull / November 2024)

First Law of Holes by Meg Pokrass; design by Steven Seighman (Dzanc / September 2024)

Sorry I missed this last month when I was complaining about not having enough covers from independent publishers (sigh). But also birds + polka dots…

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout; design by Anna Kochman (Random House / September 2024)

Hold Everything by Dobby Gibson; design by Alban Fischer (Graywolf / October 2024)

Invisible Kitties by Yu Yoyo; design by Steven Brayda; art by Yu Yoyo (HarperVia / October 2024)

Ixelles by Johannes Anyuru; design by Jonathan Pelham (Two Lines Press / October 2024)

The Living Statue by Günter Grass; design by Pablo Delcan (New Directions / October 2024)

This feels very familiar, but I can’t put my finger on why. The best I’ve got is that it looks like a poster for a theatre production. It feels very European. The austerity of it gives late 1980s-90s vibes. I don’t know. I think it’s great.

Mojave Ghost by Forrest Gander; design by Giacomo Girardi / Rodrigo Corral; lettering by Adriana Tonello (New Directions / October 2024)

Music and Joy by Daniel K. L. Chua; design by Sarah Schulte (Yale University Press / August 2024)

Paper Boat by Margaret Atwood; design by Suzanne Dean; paper art by Nathan Ward (Chatto & Windus / October 2024)

Remarkably, the design incorporates a template for paper boat that can be cut from the dust jacket and stuck together.

The cover of the Canadian edition of Paper Boat, published by McClelland & Stewart, was designed by Kelly Hill using art by Paul Klee. The cover for the US edition published by Knopf was designed by Janet Hansen. The photograph is by Ruven Afanador. It’s interesting to me that it was the US decided to use a portrait on the cover. I mean it’s a beautiful photograph and Margaret Atwood is very distinctive looking, but I would imagine she would be more recognizable to Canadians than to Americans? Anyway, it’s not often you see three entirely different approaches in the UK, US and Canada for a poetry collection.

Paper of Wreckage by Susan Mulcahy and Frank DiGiacomo; design by Claire Sullivan (Atria Books / October 2024)

It’s quite something that they got “Wanker” into the subtitle.

Perris, California by Rachel Stark; design by Holly Macdonald (New River Books / September 2024)

The Silver Snarling Trumpet by Robert Hunter; design and illustration by Nathaniel Deas (Hachette / October 2024)

Tell Me Something, Tell Me Anything, Even It It’s a Lie by Steve Wasserman; design by David Drummond (Heyday Books / October 2024)

I knew exactly who designed this cover the moment I saw it!

The Unfinished Harauld Hughes by Richard Ayoade; portrait by James Lloyd (Faber / October 2024)

If anyone can tell me who the designer is on this, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Way Home by Josephine Ensign; design by Tobias Design (John Hopkins University Press / November 2024)

We All Shine On by Elliot Mintz; Design by Vi-An Nguyen; photography by Nishi F. Saimaru (Dutton / October 2024)

Women’s Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery; design by Stephen Brayda; illustration by Thibaud Herem (Harpervia / October 2024)

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Published May 14, 2024

New Stamps Celebrate Canadian Graphic Novelists

Canada Post is celebrating Canadian graphic novels with a set of stamps created by Chester Brown, Michel Rabagliati, Seth, and Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki.

While Canada Post has previously issued stamps featuring superheroes, it hasn’t specifically showcased the work of contemporary Canadian cartoonists before. These new stamps feature original drawings by each of the artists depicting their best known characters reading the books they’re in.

As a side note, I don’t know how well known Michel Rabagliati is outside of Canada (I’m actually not sure how well known he is in Anglo-Canada either come to that!), but his gentle semi-autobiographical graphic novels are all lovely. They’re beautiful drawn. Paul Moves Out, the first one I read, is a charming look at studying illustration and graphic design in Montreal the 1970s. It was published in English by Drawn & Quarterly back in the day, but it looks like it might be out of print, which would be a shame. Anyway, worth trying to find a copy if you can.

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Sure, It Won an Oscar. But Is It Criterion?
Published March 8, 2024

Sure, It Won an Oscar. But Is It Criterion?

I enjoyed Joshua Hunt’s recent New York Times article on the Criterion Collection:

Always in awe of auteurs but never in their thrall, Criterion producers have never been afraid to look beyond the biggest and most marketable names. When Criterion released “Peeping Tom,” a ’60s psychosexual thriller by the English director Michael Powell, the company chose not to ask Scorsese to record the audio commentary, though he would have been the obvious candidate, having done them for other Criterion editions of Powell films. The job instead went to a feminist scholar, Laura Mulvey, the author of the influential essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” which brought forward the concept of “the male gaze.” Over the years, such decisions added up to an editorial voice that became influential, even authoritative, transforming a mere distributor of films into a creator of film culture.

There are also some nice details about the look of the collection:

Criterion’s distinctive visual language began to emerge in the early ’90s when [Rebekah] Audic, the former head of design, started building up its art staff with an aim “to really show the power of these films through the cover designs,” she told me. To do that it was sometimes necessary to go through every frame of film in search of the perfect image. Other times, images alone were not enough. “For the cover of ‘RoboCop,’ we had an actual aluminum-cast letterpress plate made and then photographed the plate with a 4-by-5 camera,” Audic says. It took days, she told me, but “using a physical piece of metal gave it a feeling of aesthetic truth.”

I don’t know if the Criterion Designs book, written and edited by Criterion art director Eric Skillman, is still available. It must be 10 years old now (dies) — I didn’t see it on the Criterion website — but there’s a nice piece about it on AIGA’s Eye on Design blog from around the time it came out. There is also a Criterion Designs blog, but it hasn’t been updated for a little while (am I imagining that Eric Skillman had a blog himself once upon a time?).

Oh and as an aside, the illustration for the NYT article is by Ben Denzer, who also designs book covers, and is the creator of Ice Cream Books should you ever need to pair great literature with frozen desserts (and who doesn’t?).

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Published December 19, 2023

Notable Book Covers of 2023

At the turn of the year, writer and activist Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshitification.” Although he was specifically describing the process of online services getting worse for users, it was hard not to see it everywhere in 2023.

In his annual look at the year’s best book covers for the New York Times, art director Matt Dorfman recounts a friend describing 2023 as a “year of survival”, a year of “no growth, no withering, just getting by.”

This year saw a centuries-old business contending with rounds of buyouts and layoffs, alongside an endless news cycle involving two brutal wars from which no authors, friends, enemies or strangers were immune from accountability for any unrehearsed sentiment they might voice in passing. Add to this the ongoing concern about how artificial intelligence will affect a business historically dependent upon human creativity — yet through it all, there was still the matter of making books, and their covers, to get on with.

I read Matt’s piece the same day I read an article by Kyle Chayka in the New Yorker about his search for an epochal term to “evoke the panicky incoherence of our lives of late.” The suggestions range from the bland ‘Long 2016,’ to the incredibly ominous-sounding ‘Chthulucene,’ the Lovecraftian ‘New Dark Age,’ and the frankly terrifying and plausible ‘Jackpot’ from William Gibson’s 2014 novel The Peripheral.

This was the context of life and work in 2023.

Matt notes some designers found inspiration in the zeitgeist. He’s not wrong. But, ironically perhaps, I feel less optimistic about the overall picture than he does.

At the risk of repeating what I’ve written in the past couple of years, it’s like we’re stuck in a holding pattern, circling the same design ideas. Trends have stuck around. A lot of covers feel safe. Some of this was the books themselves. I’m not sure exactly how many celebrity memoirs is too many, but I’m pretty sure we reached that point and sailed right past it in 2023. No doubt some of it is sales and marketing departments sanding down all the edges and demanding the tried and true (see Zachary Petit’s alternative best of 2023 piece on killed covers for Fast Company). But I would not be surprised if it designers were just getting caught up in the churn — too many books, too many covers, and too much other stuff to worry about.

Or maybe it’s just me.

Rouge by Mona Awad; design by Oliver Munday (Simon & Schuster / September 2023)
Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; design by Regina Flath (Del Rey Books / July 2023)
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez; design by Donna Cheng (Hogarth / September 2023)

One of the themes of the year was nostalgia, which I’m sure can also be put down to the present being pretty fucking awful. It was apparent across almost all genres, including literary fiction, but nowhere more so than in the resurgent supernatural suspense and horror categories. There were creative stylistic mashups with retro vibes, along side fastidious Stranger Things-like homages to the 1980s and Stephen King.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward; design by Katie Klimowicz (Tor / August 2023)
The Only One Left by Riley Sager; design by Kaitlin Kall (Dutton / June 2023)
Come Closer by Sara Gran; design by Caroline Johnson (Soho Press / September 2023)

One genuinely pleasant surprise was the number of interesting covers from Canadian publishers this year. They’ve been quietly risk-averse in recent years, so it was nice to see a few bolder design choices getting approved. I was happy to see a Canadian cover was one of the top picks on Literary Hub’s (very, very long) list of the best covers of 2023.  

There were other things to cheer this year too.

The Lights by Ben Lerner; design by David Pearson (Granta / September 2023)
Total Reset by Sinéad Brady; design Steve Leard (HarperCollins / March 2023)
How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney; design by Zoe Norvell (Biblioasis / November 2023)

Spine continued to give space to designers to talk about their work in a way I’ve never been able to do consistently here. You can find their 2023 cover picks here.

David Pearson started the Book Cover Review, a website for short reviews of book covers.

Zoe Norvell’s I Need A Book Cover, a resource for book cover inspiration as well as place for authors and publishers to connect with designers, also went live.

Steve Leard launched Cover Meeting, a podcast series of in-depth interviews with cover designers (including David and Zoe among others). As Mark Sinclair notes in his piece on book cover design this year for Creative Review, Steve’s conversations shed light on wider concerns in the industry as well as each designer’s individual process. Have a listen if you haven’t already.

Thanks for reading.

The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer; design by Kate Sinclair (Random House Canada / May 2023)

Also designed by Kate Sinclair:

Landscapes by Christine Lai; design by Kate Sinclair (Doubleday Canada / May 2023)
The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright; design by Kate Sinclair; art by Darek Grabus (McClelland & Stewart / September 2023)

The Annual Banquet of The Gravediggers’ Guild by Mathias Énard; design by John Gall (New Directions / December 2023)

I like John’s cover for Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, also published by New Directions, a lot too.

Bariloche by Andrés Neuman; design by Alban Fischer (Open Letter / March 2023)

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / August 2023)

Also designed by Na Kim:

Grand Tour by Elisa Gonzalez; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Close to Home by Michael Magee; design by Na Kim; photograph by Oumayma B. Tanfous (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / May 2023)

Beijing Sprawl by Xu Zechen; design by Andrew Walters (Two Lines Press / June 2023)

Berlin by Bea Setton; design by Emily Mahon; cover image by Nataša Denić (Penguin Books / May 2023)

Also designed by Emily Mahon:

Lost Believers by Irina Zhorov; design by Emily Mahon (Scribner / August 2023)
Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch; design by Emily Mahon; illustration and lettering by Studio Martina Flor (Doubleday / July 2023)

B.F.F. by Christie Tate; design by Ben Wiseman (Avid Reader Press / February 2023)

Blue Hunger by Viola Di Grado; design by Myunghee Kwon (Bloomsbury / March 2023)

Breaking and Entering by Don Gillmor; design by Michel Vrana; photograph by Joe Cohen (Biblioasis / August 2023)

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

Brutes by Dizz Tate; design by Nicole Caputo (Catapult / February 2023)

Caret, Pilcrow and Cedilla by Adam Mars-Jones; design by Jonathan Pelham (Faber / August 2023)

I also really liked Jonny’s cover design for the UK edition of Tremor by Teju Cole, published by Faber.

Cat Prince by Michael Pedersen; design by Gray318 (Little, Brown / July 2023)

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

Chrysalis by Anna Metcalfe; design by Jack Smyth (Granta / May 2023)

Vengeance is Mine by Marie Ndiaye; design by Jack Smyth (Quercus Publishing / October 2023)
A Thread of Violence by Mark O’Connell; design by Jack Smyth (Granta / July 2023)
Mister Mister by Guy Gunaratne; design by Jack Smyth (Pantheon / October 2023)

The Complete Works of Álvaro de Campos by Fernando Pessoa; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / July 2023)

The Details by Ia Genberg translated by Kira Josefsson; design Stephen Brayda; illustration Najeebah Al-Ghadban (Harpervia / August 2023)

A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare; design by Matt Broughton (Vintage / August 2023)

The Employees by Olga Ravn; design by Paul Sahre (New Directions / February 2023)

Excavations by Hannah Michell; design by Arsh Raziuddin (One World / July 2023)

The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank; design by Annie Atkins (Penguin / May 2023)

Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith; design by Beth Steidle (Tin House / July 2023)

Good Men by Arnon Grunberg; design by Anna Jordan (Open Letter / May 2023)

Greek Lessons by Han Kang; design by Anna Kochman (Hogarth / April 2023)

Hangman by Maya Binyam; design by Alex Merto; art by Belkis Ayón (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / August 2023)

Also designed by Alex Merto:

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova; design by Alex Merto (Zando / March 2023)
The Future, The Future by Adam Thirlwell; design by Alex Merto (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / October 2023)
Happy by Celina Baljeet Basra; design by Alex Merto (Astra House / November 2023)

Hope by Andrew Ridker; design by Tyler Comrie; photograph by Melissa Ann Pinney (Viking / July 2023)

Tyler Comrie’s cover for Time Without Keys by Ida Vitale, published by New Directions, is also very nice.

House Woman by Adorah Nworah; design by Jaya Nicely (Unnamed Press / June 2023)

I have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai; design by Elizabeth Yaffe (Viking / February 2023)

The Illiterate by Ágota Kristóf; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / April 2023)

Also designed by Oliver Munday:

The Guest by Emma Cline; design by Oliver Munday (Random House / May 2023)
Life on Delay by John Hendrikson; design by Oliver Munday (Knopf / January 2023)

Island City by Laura Adamczyk; design by Jennifer Heuer (FSG Originals / March 2023)

The Joy of Consent by Manon Garcia; design by Jaya Miceli (Belknap Press / October 2023)

Also designed by Jaya Miceli:

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin; design Jaya Miceli; art by Anna Weyant (Scribner / February 2023)
The New Life by Tom Crewe; design by Jaya Miceli (Scribner / January 2023)

Julia by Sandra Newman; design by Luke Bird (Mariner / October 2023)

Also designed by Luke Bird:


Ponyboy by Eliot Duncan; design by Luke Bird (Footnote Press / June 2023)
Hangman by Maya Binyam; design by Luke Bird (Pushkin Press / August 2023)

The Last Bookseller by Gary Goodman; design by Kimberly Glyder (University of Minnesota Press / October 2023)

The Librarianist by Patrick DeWitt; design by Allison Saltzman (Ecco / July 2023)

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

Lucky Dogs by Helen Schulman; design by Janet Hansen; photograph by Christopher Brand (Knopf / June 2023)

Also designed by Janet Hansen:

Disruptions by Steven Millhauser; design by Janet Hansen (Alfred A. Knopf / August 2023)
The Sorrows of Others by Ada Zhang; design by Janet Hansen (Public Space Books / May 2023)

Our Migrant Souls by Héctor Tobar; design by Rodrigo Corral (MCD / May 2023)

Poverty by Matthew Desmond; design by Christopher Brand (Crown / March 2023)

Prophet by Helen MacDonald and Sin Blache; design by Dan Mogford; lettering by Martin Naumann (Vintage / August 2023)

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey; design by Mumtaz Mustafa; art by Sari Shryack (William Morrow & Co / January 2023)

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter; design by Natalia Olbinski; art by Angela Faustina (Scribner / July 2023)

The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella; design by Dave Litman (Flatiron Books / July 2023)

Shy by Max Porter; design by Carlos Esparza (Graywolf / May 2023)

Someone Who Isn’t Me by Geoff Rickly; design by Jesse Reed; art by Jesse Draxler (Rose Books / July 2023)

Sublunar by Harald Voetmann; design by Jamie Keenan (New Directions / August 2023)

Also designed by Jamie Keenan:

The Dimensions of a Cave by Greg Jackson; design by Jamie Keenan (Granta / October 2023)
Dr. No by Percival Everett; design by Jamie Keenan (Influx Press / March 2023)

The Sullivanians by Alexander Stille; design by June Park (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / June 2023)

Also designed by June Park:

The Upstairs Delicatessen by Dwight Garner; design June Park (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / October 2023)
Couplets by Maggie Millner; design by June Park (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2023)

To Battersea Park by Philip Hensher; design by Jo Thomson (Fourth Estate / March 2023)

Tunnel 29 by Helena Merriman; design by Pete Garceau (PublicAffairs / January 2023)

Also designed by Pete Garceau:

Deadline by Jill Lepore; design by Pete Garceau (Liveright Books / August 2023)
Going Infinite by Michael Lewis; design by Pete Garceau (W. W. Norton / October 2023)

The Vunerables by Sigrid Nunez; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / November 2023)

Also designed by Lauren Peter-Collaer:

What Napoleon Could Not Do by Dk Nnuro; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / February 2023)
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / August 2023)

While Supplies Last by Anita Lahey; design by David Drummond (Signal Editions / April 2023)

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Published September 19, 2023

Cover Meeting

Cover Meeting is a new book cover design podcast hosted by British designer Steve Leard.

Steve has recorded eight episodes for the first season, with a new episode released each week, and a second season planned for 2024.

The first episode, released earlier this month, is a wide-ranging conversation with David Pearson. David discusses his time at Penguin, working freelance, the issues of low pay in the industry, as well as his design process and the challenges of creating interesting work.

Links to download the podcast can be found here.

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Published July 28, 2023

Book Covers of Note, July 2023

Even though it’s still just about July — a supposedly “quiet” month in publishing — I’m running late once again. Hopefully everyone is on vacation and won’t notice that it’s basically August already and I am here sliding in under the wire. There are some great covers this month though. A bit of collage, some really nice typography, and lots of pink and red. Enjoy!

The Absolutes by Molly Dektar; design by Yeon Kim (Mariner / July 2023)

I like this cover a lot, but I’m shamelessly stealing it from Lit Hub’s most recent book cover round-up (a benefit of being last to post!), so I hope the design credit is correct because I couldn’t verify it before posting!

Beijing Sprawl by Xu Zechen; design by Andrew Walters (Two Lines Press / June 2023)

I had this noted as down as July cover, but the book was actually released in June. The cover of the Two Lines Press edition of Running Through Beijing by Xu Zechen has also been re-designed to match.

The Black Eden by Richard T. Kelly; design by Robbie Porter (Faber & Faber / July 2023)

Cat Prince by Michael Pedersen; design by Gray318 (Little, Brown / July 2023)

Jon’s design for Michael’s previous book Boy Friends, which features an illustration by Nathaniel Russell, was on last year’s notable book cover list.

The Complete Works of Álvaro de Campos by Fernando Pessoa; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / July 2023)

Counterweight by Djuna; design by Tal Goretsky (Pantheon / July 2023)

Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch; design by Emily Mahon; illustration and lettering by Studio Martina Flor (Doubleday / July 2023)

Excavations by Hannah Michell; design by Arsh Raziuddin (One World / July 2023)

This reminded me of the 2017 cover of Smoke by Dan Vyleta designed by Mark Abrams with an illustration by the late Colombian artist Alejandro García Restrepo who passed away last month.

The Librarianist by Patrick DeWitt; design by Allison Saltzman (Ecco / July 2023)

Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery; design by Katya Mezhibovskaya (Bloomsbury / July 2023)

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter; design by Natalia Olbinski; art by Angela Faustina (Scribner / July 2023)

I love pretty much everything about this cover.

Screwjack by Hunter S. Thompson; design by Math Monahan (Simon & Schuster / July 2023)

The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella; design by Dave Litman (Flatiron Books / July 2023)

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; design by Regina Flath (Del Rey Books / July 2023)

I think this delivers just about everything you want from a horror / thriller cover.

Someone Who Isn’t Me by Geoff Rickly; design by Jesse Reed; art by Jesse Draxler (Rose Books / July 2023)

The Stolen Coast by Dwyer Murphy; design by Dave Litman (Viking / July 2023)

A Thread of Violence by Mark O’Connell; design by Jack Smyth (Granta / July 2023)

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Published June 29, 2023

Tragedy After Tragedy

A powerful cover for June 23 2023 edition of Guardian Weekly. Art direction by Andrew Stocks.

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Published March 30, 2023

Book Covers of Note, March 2023

I hope you’re keeping safe and well. There’s quite a nice mix of covers this month (I think?). There’s some fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Some paperbacks and some hardcovers. Inevitably there are books from the big folks in NYC, but there’s also some indie titles, and a couple of covers from the UK. There is even some Canadian content for those of you who care about that sort of thing.1

Bariloche by Andrés Neuman; design by Alban Fischer (Open Letter / March 2023)

Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett; design by Stephanie Ross (Riverhead / February 2023)

Does this qualify for the ‘well-dressed and distressed’ trend? Or is this more like an ‘everyone is tired’ thing?

The cover of the hardback edition of Checkout 19 published last year was designed by Jaya Miceli with art by Kristine Moran.

Commitment by Mona Simpson; design by Kelly Blair; art by Lee Heinen (Knopf / March 2023)

Crying Wolf by Eden Boudreau; design by Michel Vrana (Book*hug Press / March 2023)

The Flowers of Buffoonery by Osamu Dazai; design by Rodrigo Corral (New Directions / March 2023)

This is the third Rodrigo Corral cover for New Direction’s editions of Dazai. I’m curious — can anyone can tell me the typeface? UPDATE: it’s not a typeface, it’s lettering! Thanks to Erik at New Directions for letting me know (and for sending the final cover)!

Oh and if you’re curious about the enduring popularity of Dazai (who died in 1948), Andrew Martin wrote a piece about it for the the New York Times.

Halal Sex by Sheima Benembarek; design by Jennifer Griffiths (Viking Canada / March 2023)

Hospital by Han Song; design by Will Staehle (Amazon Crossing / March 2023)

Island City by Laura Adamczyk; design by Jennifer Heuer (FSG Originals / March 2023)

The Natural Hustle by Eva H.D.; design by Talia Abramson (McClelland & Stewart / March 2023)

Now I Am Here by Childi Ebere; design by Lucy Scholes; illustration by Ben Wiseman; type by Matt Willey (Picador / March 2023)

Poverty by Matthew Desmond; design by Christopher Brand (Crown / March 2023)

Spilt Milk by Amy Beashel; design by Emma Rogers (HarperCollins / March 2023)

To Battersea Park by Philip Hensher; design by Jo Thomson (Fourth Estate / March 2023)

Can this start a dogs on book covers trend?

Trace Evidence by Charif Shanahan; design by Beth Steidle (Tin House / March 2023)

If one of the fine folks at Tin House would like to send me a higher quality image, I’ll be glad to add it in! Thanks to the fine folks at Tin House for sending over the cover!

Voyager by Nona Fernández; design by Kapo Ng (Graywolf Press / February 2023)

The Woman with the Cure by Lynn Cullen; design by Vikki Chu (Berkley / February 2023)

Zig-Zag Boy by Tanya Frank; design by Emma Pidsley (William Collins / March 2023)

The cover of the US edition of Zig-Zag Boy, published by W. W. Norton this month, was designed by Alicia Tatone with art by Pedro Covo.

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Published December 12, 2022

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.

Love and Other Puzzles by Kimberley Allsopp; design by Mark Campbell (HarperCollins Australia / February 2022)
No Hard Feelings by Genevieve Novak; design by Mietta Yans (HarperCollins Australia / March 2022)
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas; design by Katie Tooke (Picador / May 2022)

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

The Singularities by John Banville; design by John Gall (Knopf / October 2022)
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2022)

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.

You Have a Friend in 10A by Maggie Shipstead; design by Irene Martinez (Doubleday / May 2022)
We Move by Gurnaik Johal; design by Jack Smyth (Serpent’s Tail / April 2022)
The Foghorn Echoes by Danny Ramadan; design by Jennifer Griffiths (Viking Canada / August 2022)

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:

Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / June 2022)
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / November 2022)

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:

Fear of Black Consciousness by Lewis R. Gordon; design by Oliver Munday (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2022)
Paradais by Fernanda Melchor; design by Oliver Munday (New Directions / May 2022)

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:

After the Lights Go Out by John Vercher; design by Alex Merto (Soho Press / June 2022)
Reward System by Jem Calder; design by Alex Merto (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / July 2022)

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:

Ghost Music by An Yu; design Suzanne Dean (Harvill Secker / November 2022)
Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes; design by Suzanne Dean (Jonathan Cape / April 2022)

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:

The Singularities by John Banville; design by John Gall (Knopf / October 2022)
Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan; design by John Gall (New Directions / September 2022)
The Red Arrow by William Brewer; design by John Gall (Knopf / May 2022)

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

Also designed by Tristan Offit:

Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens; ; design by Tristan Offit (Scribner / July 2022)
Interesting Women by Andrea Lee; design by Tristan Offit (Scribner / January 2022)
Things They Lost by Okwiri Odour; design by Tristan Offit (Scribner / April 2022)

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:

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley; design by June Park (MCD / June 2022)
Toad by Katherine Dunn; design by June Park; illustration by Lydia Ortiz (MCD / November 2022)

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

Also designed by Na Kim:

Present Tense Machine by Gunnhild Øyehaug; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2022)
Run and Hide by Pankaj Mishra; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / March 2022)
Either/Or by Elif Batuman; design by Na Kim (Penguin Press / May 2022)

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:

Things We Found When the Water Went Down by Tegan Mia Swanson; design by Dana Li (Catapult / December 2022)
Enjoy Me Among My Ruins by Juniper Fitzgerald; design by Dana Li (Feminist Press / August 2022)
Portrait of an Unknown Lady by María Gainza; design by Dana Li (Catapult / March 2022)

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:

The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight; design Jack Smyth (Faber & Faber / May 2022)
My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley; design by Jack Smyth (Granta / May 2022)
The Colony by Audrey Magee; design by Jack Smyth (Faber & Faber / February 2022)

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:

Reward System by Jem Calder; design by Luke Bird (Faber & Faber / May 2022)
The Doloriad by Missouri Williams; design by Luke Bird (Dead Ink / March 2022)
The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua Dusapin; design by Luke Bird (Daunt Books / August 2022)

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

Also designed by Alban Fischer:

Brown Neon by Raquel Gutiérrez; design by Alban Fischer (Coffee House Press / June 2022)
Till the Wheels Come Off by Brad Zeller; design by Alban Fischer (Coffee House Press / July 2022)
The Desperado Days by X.C. Atkins; design by Alban Fischer (Trnsfr Books / July 2022)

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:

A Country of Strangers by D. Nurkse; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / April 2022)
Sedating Elaine by Dawn Winter; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / April 2022)

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

Also designed by Rodrigo Corral:

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / September 2022)
Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / September 2022)
Last Resort by Andrew Lipstein; design Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / January 2022)

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)

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Published October 28, 2022

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)

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Published October 24, 2022

The Perfect Book Cover by Tom Gauld

Tom Gauld for the Guardian.

I think pretty much every book cover designer I know shared this over the weekend. Every British one at least…

Tom’s latest collection of literary cartoons, Revenge of the Librarians, is out now.

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Published August 31, 2022

Work in Progress with Coralie Bickford-Smith

It’s been a while since I posted about author, illustrator and designer Coralie Bickford-Smith. In a new video for Penguin Books she talks about her creative process, her work on the original Clothbound Classics, and Penguin’s new Little Clothbound editions.

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