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Book Covers of Note, September 2025
Published September 30, 2025

Book Covers of Note, September 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

All Consuming by Ruby Tandoh; design by Jared Bartman (Knopf / September 2025)

At Last by Marisa Silver; design by Luísa Dias (Simon & Schuster / September 2025)

Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill; design and illustration by Elizabeth Story (Tachyon Books / September 2025)

Awake by Jen Hatmaker; design by Elizabeth Yaffe (Avid Reader Press / September 2025)

Big Time by Jordan Prosser; design by Luke Bird (Dead Ink Books / September 2025)

Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus is Alive! by Melissa Lozada-Oliva; design by Luísa Dias (Astra House / September 2025)

I love that we have two grungy / pulpy covers from Luísa Dias this month…

Chasing the Dark by Ben Machell; design by Ben Prior (Abacus / August 2025)

The Collected Stories by Cixin Liu; design by Jessie Price (Head of Zeus / September 2025)

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!)

Discontent by Beatriz Serrano; design by Madeline Partner (Vintage / September 2025)

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)

Facing Infinity by Jonas Enander; design by Anna Morrison (Atlantic Books / September 2025)

For the Sun After Long Nights by Fatemeh Jamalpour & Nilo Tabrizy; design by Linda Huang; illustration by Laura Acquaviva (Pantheon / September 2025)

Great Disasters by Grady Chambers; design by Beth Steidle (Tin House / September 2025)

In the Green Heart by Richard Lloyd Parry; design by Julia Connolly; photograph by Albarran Cabrera (Jonathan Cape / August 2025)

The Hunger We Pass Down by Jen Sookfong Lee; design by Jennifer Griffiths (Erewhon Books / September 2025)

The Island of Last Things by Emma Sloley; design by Keith Hayes; art by Jose David Morales (Flatiron Books / September 2025)

The Last Jewish Joke by Michel Wieviorka; design by David Drummond (Polity Press / September 2025)

Letters in Exile by Claude McKay; design by Jenny Volvovski (Yale University Press / September 2025)

Moderation by Elaine Castillo; design by Lynn Buckley (Viking / August 2025)

The Shadow of the Mammoth by Fabio Morábito; design by Jared Bartman (Other Press / September 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?

Swallows by Natsuo Kirino; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / September 2025)

The UK cover of Swallows published by Canongate last month was designed by Jack Smyth.

They All Came To Barneys by Gene Pressman; design by Colin Webber (Viking / September 2025)

Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead Books / September 2025)

Lauren also designed the cover for No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, which was on my notable list back in 2021.

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Book Covers of Note, May 2025
Published May 29, 2025

Book Covers of Note, May 2025

Hey, sorry, just sliding in under the wire with another slightly rushed post this month. I hope everyone is safe and well (all things considered). Let’s just get on with it shall we?

Autocorrect by Etgar Keret; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / May 2025)

The Bombshell by Darrow Farr; design by Colin Webber (Pamela Dorman Books / May 2025)

(Don’t) Call Mum by Matt Wesolowski; design by Luísa Dias (Wild Hunt Books / May 2025)

You can read about Luísa Dias’s work for Wild Hunt Books in Zach Petit’s April cover round-up for PRINT.

Also, the cover of Matt Wesolowski’s book Six Stories designed by Mark Swan was featured here way back in April 2017 (which was a pretty good month for covers!)

Engines Beneath Us by Malcolm Devlin; design by Luke Bird (Influx Press / May 2025)

Food Person by Adam Roberts; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / May 2025)

Foreign Fruit by Katie Goh; design by Beth Steidle (Tin House / May 2025)

The Holy Innocents Miguel Delibes; design by Jenny Volvovski (Yale University Press / May 2025)

Jenny has a new portfolio site so go check that out. (Also, if anyone has a higher res version of the cover for The Holy Innocents, please send it over! I’d love to have a better one. Thanks!)

Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa; design by Michael Morris (Hogarth / March 2025)

I’m a couple of months late to this one, but I thought it went quite well with the cover of Foreign Fruit.

Metallic Realms by Lincoln Michel; design by Danielle Mazzella di Bosco (Atria / May 2025)

Mothersalt by Mia Ayumo Malhotra; cover art by Yoshi Nakagawa (Alice James Books / May 2025)

Mrs. Lilienblum’s Cloud Factory by Iddo Gefen; design by Pablo Delcan (Astra House / April 2025)

Parallel Lines by Edward St. Aubyn; design by Suzanne Dean (Vintage / May 2025)

The cover of the US edition, out next month (OK, next week) from Knopf, was designed by John Gall Jack Smyth (sorry Jack!).

Portalmania by Debbie Urbanski; deisgn by Math Monahan (Simon & Schuster / May 2025)

Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth; design by Sarah Foster; photo by Ed Templeton (HarperCollins / May 2025)

I am a sucker for good photo selection on a cover. This photo is from Ed Templeton’s series/installation (and book) Teenage Smokers. Although it is kind of interesting to me that a book with such a British title uses a photograph by an American photographer, but it does have incredible 1990s vibes.

Sympathy for Wild Girls by Demree McGhee; design by Dana Li (Feminist Press / May 2025)

That’s All I Know by Elisa Levi; design by Alban Fischer (Graywolf / May 2025)

The cover of the UK edition, published by Daunt Books, was designed by Kishan Rajani. It’s interesting to see the differences in two covers with a similar approach…

Time and Chance by Katharine Coles; design by Joan Wong (Turtle Point Press / April 2025)

I 100% mean this in the best possible way, but this feels like a very Joan Wong cover somehow!

The True Happiness by Veena Dinavahi; design by Rachel Ake (Random House / May 2025)

The Wanderer’s Curse by Jennifer Hope Choi; design by Grace Han (W. W. Norton / May 2025)

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Book Covers of Note, March 2025
Published March 27, 2025

Book Covers of Note, March 2025

Well, I don’t know about you, but I certainly didn’t miss the ceaseless chaos and constant anxiety. It is exhausting.

Anyway… I hope you’re keeping safe and well despite it all. I don’t know where March has gone, but this month’s post is another bumper edition with lots of great covers. I’m happy to have a bit more nonfiction in the mix, and there are lots of covers from indie publishers and even a university press along side the usual suspects. There are also a couple of Canadians if you’re keeping score.

Disposable by Sarah Jones; design by Keith Hayes; photograph by Susan Goldstein (Avid Reader / February 2025)

Goth by Lol Tolhurst; design by Timothy O’Donnell (Da Capo / February 2025)

This is the cover for US paperback and it feels like it should be printed with that blackest black stuff from MIT.

Update: here’s a photo from Timothy’s Instagram of the sprayed edges:

The hardcover, also designed by Timothy was featured way back in September 2023 (I was convinced it was from last year!).

How To Change History by Robin Hemley; design Ashley Muehlbauer (University of Nebraska Press / March 2025)

Integrated by Noliwe Rooks; design by Adam Maida (Pantheon / March 2025)

The Last Bell by Donald McRae; design by Craig Fraser; art by Amanda Kelley (Simon & Schuster / March 2025)

Lion by Sonya Walger; design by Katy Homans (NYRB Books / February 2025)

Luminous by Sylvia Park; design by Alex Merto (Simon & Schuster / March 2025)

Motherdom by Alex Bollen; design by Jenny Volvovski (Verso / March 2025)

I posted Jenny’s black and white cover designs for the Latvian Translator Triptych published by Open Letter earlier this month if you missed them.

Nobody Asked For This by Georgia Toews; design by Emma Dolan; art by Ginna Nebrig (Doubleday Canada / March 2025)

On Giving Up by Adam Phillips; design by Alex Merto (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / March 2024)

Yes, this is from March 2024, so I am precisely a year late posting it. Either I didn’t see it last year or I couldn’t find the credit at the time. Anyway, Alex posted or re-posted this cover relatively recently and it spoke to me.

I also thought it went quite well with this cover…

On the Clock by Claire Baglin; design by Jack Smyth (Daunt Books / March 2025)

If you haven’t listened to Jack in conversation with Steve Leard on the Cover Meeting podcast yet, you should remedy that.

The cover of the US edition of On the Clock by Claire Baglin, published by New Directions and also out this month, was designed by Erik Carter.

The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana; design by Zoe Norvell (Biblioasis / March 2025)

Passing Through a Prairie Country by Dennis E. Staples; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / March 2025)

Potomac Fever by Charlotte Taylor Fryar; design by Tree Abraham (Bellevue Literary Press / March 2025)

Rain of Ruin by Richard Overy; design by David Gee (W.W. Norton / March 2025)

Rehearsals for Dying by Ariel Gore; design by Sarah Schulte (Amethyst Editions / March 2025)

A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland; design by Tom Etherington (Granta / March 2025)

I compared Tom’s covers for Amitava Kumar to Peter Blake last month. This one is giving me Elsworth Kelly vibes!

Stag Dance by Torrey Peters; design by Rachel Ake (Random House / March 2025)

Rachel Ake also designed the cover of Torrey Peters’ novel Detransition Baby, which was one of my notable covers of 2021.

There Is No Place For Us by Brian Goldstone; design by Anna Kochman (Crown / March 2025)

Tongues by Anders Nilsen; design by Anders Nilsen (Pantheon / March 2025)

I don’t often post the covers of graphic novels, but I like this one a lot.

Two Truths and a Lie by Cory O’Brien; design by Tyler Comrie (Pantheon / March 2025)

This makes me think of David Pelham’s airbrushed sci-fi covers for Penguin.

Ultramarine by Mariette Navarro; design by Daniel Benneworth Gray (Deep Vellum / March 2025)

The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica; design by Emma Ewbank (Pushkin Press / March 2025)

The slightly less bonkers, but also fun cover of the US edition (published by Scribner this month) was designed by Math Monahan. I’m also quite partial to the definitely bonkers Polish(?) cover designed by Tomasz Majewski.

Voices of the Fallen Heroes by Yukio Mishima; design by John Gall (Vintage / January 2025)

design Rachel Ake Keuch
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Latvian Translator Triptych designed by Jenny Volvovski
Published March 7, 2025

Latvian Translator Triptych designed by Jenny Volvovski

I like these elegant Jenny Volvovski cover designs for Open Letter‘s Latvian translator triptych of Berlin by Andris Kuprišs, translated by Ian Gwin, Birthday by Jana Egle, translated by Uldis Balodis, and The River by Laura Vinogradova, translated by Kaija Straumanis, all publishing this month. I think there’s something a bit early 2000’s Knopf about them.

And speaking of Jenny Volvovski, she has fun side project redesigning the covers of books she’s read, From Cover to Cover.

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Published August 31, 2023

Book Covers of Note, August 2023

I hope you’re safe and well wherever you are. What do we have this month? A few British covers for a change, a bit of Canadian content, a couple of indie presses, and even something from a university press, not to mention covers from all the usual suspects. Enjoy!

Anam by André Dao; design by Tiana Dunlop (Pan Macmillan / August 2023)

The Apartment by Ana Menéndez; design by Jaya Miceli (Counterpoint / June 2023)

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

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

Bridge by Lauren Beukes; design by Lauren Wakefield (Penguin / August 2023)

Lauren also designed the cover of Afterland by Lauren Beukes which was on my list of notable covers back in 2020.

I like the cover of the US edition of Bridge published by Mulholland Books too. Let me know if you know who designed it and I’ll add in the credit! It was designed by Kirin Diemont.

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

Jonny also re-designed the previous books in this series to match. They’re a lovely set that somehow feel very British, and very Faber. They sort of remind me of postwar pub signs and vintage lettering on canal barges. Anyway, I like them a lot.

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

(If anyone at PRH in the UK would like to send me a higher quality image, I’d be happy to replace the not quite sharp one above)

The cover of the US edition of A Dictator Calls, available from Counterpoint next month, was designed by Farjana Yasmin.

Everything / Nothing / Someone by Alice Carriere; design by Strick and WIlliams (Spiegel & Grau / August 2023)

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

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim; design by Cassie Gonzales (Hogarth / August 2023)

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / August 2023)

I love the colour palette of this one. The lettering is fun too.

Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue; design by Lucy Kim (Little Brown and Company / August 2023)

I wonder if there is a post in book covers with dots? Maybe even one of dots in circle pattern? that might be a bit niche…

Lost Believers by Irina Zhorov; design by Emily Mahon (Scribner / August 2023)

Another nice palette / lettering combo.

Manor on the Viridian Sea by Eleanor P. Sam; design by Dorian Danielsen (Isalea Publishing / August 2023)

My Name is Iris by Brando Skyhorse; design by Richard Ljoenes (Avid Reader Press / August 2023)

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

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

Hilarious,

Trialectic by Peter A. Alces; design by Jenny Volvovski (University of Chicago Press / August 2023)

Triangles are my favourite shape.

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