OK, so two quick things about this cover: one, it immediately made me think of the Nicole Kidman “Eyes Wide Shut” poster (which it doesn’t really look like?), and two, I really like the ambiguity of which way she is looking.
Bait by Eugenia Ladra, translated by Miriam Tobin; design by Gray318 (Daunt Originals / June 2026)
Hi. Hello. I hope you’re all keeping well. This month seems to have flown by so I apologise for rather rushing this out at the last minute.
I was reminded this week there are people in the world (some of whom should know better) who think that all contemporary book covers are boring and banal. I don’t really know where to start with arguments like this. It just seems objectively false to me?
Anyway, I hope these posts help dispel some of those notions and you enjoy this month’s selections….
Hi. Hello. I hope you’re keeping safe and well. I’m getting this month’s post out at little earlier than usual (i.e. not the 11th hour), and on a Monday no less, because I’m going to be in NYC the rest of this week for work. Even though this is a little bit of a quick and dirty post, there are still lots of covers for you to peruse and admire. Apologies if I’ve missed anything obvious and/or spectacular. I will try to catch up next month.
The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley; design by Katy Homans; photo by Bill Brandt (NYRB Books / April 2026)Famesick by Lean Dunham; design by Teddy Blanks (I think?); photo by Anna Gaskell (Random House / April 2026)
Hey. I hope you’re keeping safe and well, especially my friends and colleagues in snowy NYC. Thanks to everyone who helped with images and design credits this month — it’s been a really busy month so I really appreciate it!
Oliver’s own novel, Head of Household, is out from Simon & Schuster in the US this month too. The cover was designed by Christopher Brand, and you can read a conversation between the two about the design process at LitHub.
Favorita by Michelle Steinbeck; translated by Jen Calleja; design by Henry Petrides (Faber & Faber / February 2026)
Well, it’s been a month. I hope you’re all keeping safe and well, especially my friends and publishing colleagues in Minnesota. Stay Strong.
The Aquatics by Osvalde Lewat, translated by Maren Baudet-Lackner; design by Alban Fischer (Coffee House Press / December 2025)
As If by Magic by Edgard Telles Ribeiro, translated by Kim M Hastings & Margaret A Neves; design by Alban Fischer (Bellevue Literary Press / January 2026)
Yes, starting off the year with two covers designed by Alban, but also two books from nonprofit publishers based in Minneapolis, Coffee House Press and Bellevue Literary Press.
Crux by Gabriel Tallent; design by Jaya Miceli (Riverhead / January 2026)
Some of my favourite covers this year were series designs. I loved the Julio Cortázar Vintage Classics editions with covers illustrated by Stephen Smith, AKA Neasden Control Centre. I was lucky enough to meet art director Suzanne Dean for coffee when she visited Toronto this summer, which was lovely. Her Haruki Murakami designs for Vintage Classics and Harvill are always a delight too.
The typographic covers for the ‘Penguin Archive’ designed by Jim Stoddart triggered my curiosity. Published in April to celebrate 90 years of Penguin Books, the designs use typography to evoke the different eras of the publisher. You can read more about the series and the design process at Creative Review. But which historic Penguin covers inspired type choices in the first place?
There was some really nice series design from independent publishers this year too. I really liked Luísa Dias‘s covers for Wild Hunt Books’ Northern Weird Project. I wanted to feature them here when the final book of the series, Turbine 34 by Katherine Clements, came out last month, but time was not on my side. Fortunately, Zachary Petit talked to Luísa about the series for PRINT in April.
In Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume septology a women repeats the same day over and over again, and Matt Dorfman‘s covers for the New Direction editions are a really creative take on loops and repetition. The first two books came out last year and were featured in my October 2024 post so they’re not on this year’s list even though the third book was published in November. There are, however, two covers from a different Danish septology included below.
In terms of trends, Alban Fischer noticed that there have been a lot of close-ups of lips recently, something which I Need A Book Cover also picked up on.
One strand of the ‘trend you’re seeing everywhere’ was paintings of women in various states of repose. There was a lot of elegant ennui and it almost felt like an art school version of well-dressed and distressed covers at times.
Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan; design by Rachel Ake; art ‘After the Ball’ by Ramon Casas i Carbo (Dial Press / May 2025)What a Time to be Alive by Jenny Mustard; cover art by Shannon Cartier Lucy (Sceptre / April 2025)These Days by Lucy Caldwell; design by Ploy Siripant; art ‘Woman in the Window’, by Alberto Morrocco (SJP Lit / April 2025)Hungerstone by Kat Dunn; design by Alicia Tatone; art ‘The Nightmare’ by Henry Fuseli
Another strand was historical paintings of animals, which fits with the “old-timey animals” covers Patrick Redford wrote about for Defector last year.
I think the success of these covers largely depends on the image selection and the cleverness of the crop. I’m sure we will see more of them going forward, but doing it well is probably harder than it looks.
I don’t have a good name for this next trend, but in my mind I’ve been referring to this as “corner type” because of the way the text seems to turn the corners the cover. I guess what it is really doing is framing the central image. I don’t know if this is new, but I noticed it a lot this year.
Culpability by Bruce Holsinger; design by Rodrigo Corral (Spiegal & Grau / July 2025)The True Happiness Company by Veena Dinavahi; design by Rachel Ake (Random House / May 2025)The Ten Year Affair; by Erin Somers; design by Emily Mahon; cover art by Shannon Cartier Lucy (Simon & Schuster / October 2025)Palaver by Bryan Washington; design by Na Kim; art by Keita Morimoto (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / November 2025)
I mentioned a wave of retro-nostalgic horror and suspense covers back in 2023 (I could’ve sworn it was last year until I checked!), but it feels like designers are still having fun with it as the genre as a whole gets more mainstream attention.
And speaking of nostalgia, I feel like covers inspired by 1980s advertising and airbrush art are suddenly a thing. There are a few examples from 2025, but it might be something we see more of next year as well.
Lastly, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who supported the blog this year, especially the folks that helped out with cover images, credits, and corrections. I really appreciate you taking the time to reach out, and I’m sorry if you sent me a note and didn’t hear back. I try my best to read and reply to everything, but this is a one man show and sometimes life has other plans.
Unfit by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Jessie Mendez Sayer; design by Erik Carter (New Directions / October 2025)Into the Sun by C. F. Ramuz translated by Olivia Baes &, Emma Ramadan; design by Erik Carter (New Directions / August 2025)
Zone Rouge by Michael Jerome Plunkett; design by Jaya Nicely (Unnamed Press / September 2025)Open Up by Thomas Morris; design by Jaya Nicely (Unnamed Press / April 2025)
Hey. I hope you’re keeping safe and well. I’m posting this late on the last day of the month, but hopefully it was worth waiting for.
I will let you get to the covers posthaste, but before I go, today (September 30th) is also Orange Shirt Day and National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, so I would like take a moment to acknowledge and remember the survivors of residential schools, their families and the kids who didn’t come home. <3
This is holographic foil just in case it’s not obvious from the above (and if someone at Head of Zeus / Bloomsbury is reading and wants to fire me a better cover image that would be great!)
With this and the cover of The Dilemmas of Working Women designed by Sarah Kellogg (featured last month), we may have a new sub-genre of ‘well dressed and distressed’. Are there other examples?
Possibly a different kind of distress, the UK edition of Discontent, published last month by Harvill Secker, was designed by Kris Potter using a photograph by Laurent Tixador.
Dogs by C. Mallon; design by Jaya Miceli (Scribner / August 2025)
Is the “blob cut-out” a thing? I kind of thought it was but then I couldn’t think of any other examples except maybe this Paul Sahre / Erik Carter cover for The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson from a few years ago, which is more of a collage really. Are they any other examples?
Somehow it is the end of July, and I am once again rushing to get this done. I think it’s a decent mix of covers this month though, with some big books, some indies, a few type-only covers, some nice art, and a couple of trends to watch out for. I’m glad it’s all come together, even if it is last minute!
Thanks to everyone who took time to help me with cover images and design credits over the past couple of weeks (days!) — it’s really, really appreciated! I hope everyone is having a good summer.
Hey, I hope you’re all keeping safe and well. Apologies for a slightly rushed post this month. It’s been kind of a busy time, and I’m travelling for work next week, so I’m sure I’ve missed a few covers and connections. I’ll try to catch up over the summer if/when things quieten down. Anyway… there are still lots of great covers in this month’s post — some from the usual suspects for sure, but also a few indies, a university press, a couple of covers from the UK and Ireland, and one from Canada…
The Odyssey translated by Daniel Mendelsohn; design by Monograph (University of Chicago Press / April 2025)
I was reminded of Matt’s 2017 cover for David Ferry’s translations of the Aeneid from University of Chicago Press. It sticks in my mind at least partially for it’s use of Sandrine Nugue’s typeface Infini.
The Aeneid by Virgil (University of Chicago Press) Design by Matt Avery
Notes to John by Joan Didion; design John Gall; photograph by Annie Leibovitz (Knopf / April 2025)
The photo feels very appropriate given how Didion would probably have felt about this book being published.
The cover of the US edition, published by Knopf this month, was designed by John Gall (the art is from Portrait of a Boy with a Falcon by 17th century Flemish painter Wallerant Vaillant, which is part of the Met’s collection in NYC if you’re curious)
I love the bold movie-posterness of this design, but I also like to think it’s secretly the completes the cover for Mothers by Chris Power designed by Grace Han…
Typefaces with dots are apparently a thing at the moment. The cover of Bad Friend by Tiffany Watt Smith from Faber, also out this month, uses type that has dots for counters too. Please let me know who the designer is and I’ll happily add the credit.
Tenterhoooks by Claire-Lise Kieffer; design by Jack Smyth (Banshee Press / February 2025)
Jack’s conversation with Steve Leard on the Cover Meeting podcast is really great if you haven’t listened to it yet.
I wonder what it is like to live in uninteresting — boring, even — times? It must be nice. While I continue to ponder that, here are this month’s book covers….
If I was good at blogging I would have posted this last month when the book was actually published and before the finals of Euros and Copa America, but here we are. Better late than never I guess, and politics never goes out of sport however much some people pretend they are unconnected. (I’m still thinking about doing a post of covers from books about sport, but haven’t got any further than that. Again, if I was actually smart and organized, I would have had it done in time for the Olympics. Cover suggestions still welcome by the way!).
Anyway… The author’s surname and the book’s subtitle were actually printed on to the shirt for the cover and Steve made or bought actual buttons to decorate it. He kindly sent over these shots of the work in progress…
(If anyone in the UK can tell me who designed the red and green cover of Liars for Pan Macmillan — and send me a hi-res cover image! — I would to love to include it next month’s list when it’s released)
The cover of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s previous novel Fleishman is in Trouble was designed by Kelly Blair. I feel like these work together despite being quite different? Maybe it’s as simple as the combination of really big type for the title and handwriting of “a novel”?
Neu Klang by Christoph Dallach; design by Jack Smyth (Faber & Faber / May 2024)
Hey everyone. I hope you keeping well. It’s another big post this month. There are lots of new covers, but also quite a few that I missed (or didn’t have the design credit for!) from earlier this year too. I expect that’ll keep happening over the next couple of posts as I try to catch up over the summer, so feel free to send me stuff I might have overlooked. Now is the time!
The cover of the UK edition published by Penguin earlier this year, designed by Richard Bravery (I think?), uses the same painting by Tosin Kalejaye but it’s interesting to see the differences in the approach side by side.
Another example of the US and the UK cover sharing the same image but with differing approaches. I like the type and the retro poster vibe of the UK cover a lot. I don’t have the design credit though so please drop me a note if you know whose work it is and I’ll add it in!
Brat by Gabriel Smith; design by Stephanie Ross (Penguin Press / June 2024)
Cue the Sun by Emily Nussbaum; design by Michael Morris (Random House / June 2024)
I’m a bit late to this. An Excellent Host, a short story by Chelsea G. Summers author of the cult hit A Certain Hunger, was originally printed exclusively for Independent Bookstore Day back in April. Signed copies are still currently available from the publisher. Jaya Nicely also designed the cover of A Certain Hunger of course…
The cover of the US edition of Monstrilio, published by Zando in March last year, was designed by Alex Merto. I was a little late to it, but it was included in my September round-up.
I’m not much of a horror fan so my frame of reference is very dated, but this cover immediately made me thing of the 1998 Japanese movie Ringu (and the end of The Blair Witch Project).
This makes a nice pair with the cover of The Upstairs Delicatessen by Dwight Garner designed by June Park and published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in October last year.
I hope you’re staying healthy and optimistic about the new year. As this is the post about new 2024 covers, it inevitably includes a few from 2023 that I missed at the time. There are also a couple of indie covers, one from a university press, and, continuing a theme from last year, one from a Canadian publisher. Keep warm, friends.
Filterworld by Kyle Chayka; design by Oliver Munday (Doubleday / January 2024)
I mentioned Kyle Chayka in the introduction to my post looking back at 2023. I didn’t realize that he had book coming out. I guess I will have to read it now!
Font wizards correct me if I am wrong, but I *think* both of these covers use Manofa from Inhouse Type? (And I think saw it on the cover of a forthcoming book too recently. Maybe a typeface inspired by Lydian is becoming the new Lydian?)
