jessie price – The Casual Optimist

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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I compile these posts over the month and then write this bit at the end if I have anything to say. I really don’t have the words at the moment. Posting about the most superficial of subjects feels faintly ridiculous at the end of yet another awful week. But here we are. I am just going to refer you to Wednesday’s Today in Tabs and say that there a lot of really nice covers this month if you are need of distraction…

Appliance by J. O. Morgan; design by the author (Jonathan Cape / May 2022)

City of Orange by David Yoon; design by Eric Fuentecilla (G. P. Putnam’s Sons / May 2022)

Elektra by Jennifer Saint; design by Joanne O’Neill (Flatiron Books / May 2022)

The cover of Ariadne by Jennifer Saint, also designed by Joanne O’Neill, was on my Notable list last year.

The cover of the UK edition of Elektra, published by Headline imprint Wildfire last month, was designed by Micaela Alcaino who recently won Designer of the Year at the British Book Awards.

Illustration of brunette woman with wreath of flowers

España by Giles Tremlett; design by Jessie Price; art by Oscar Dominguez (Head of Zeus / April 2022)

The type is apparently Ohno Blazeface if you are curious.

Finding Me by Viola Davis; design Stephen Brayda; photograph by AB+DM (HarperOne / April 2022)

The Illusion of Simple by Charles Forrest Jones; design by Derek Thornton / Notch Design (University of Iowa / May 2022)

Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough; design by Juliana Lee (William Morrow & Company / April 2022)

I like the wobbly type.

The Life of Crime by Martin Edwards; design by Steve Leard (HarperCollins / May 2022)

I was reminded of Jon Gray‘s cover for Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco from what seems like ages ago (2010)… Of course they look nothing alike. I had completely forgotten the pen was at jaunty angle.

Linea Nigra by Jazmina Barrera; design by Gabriele Wilson (Two Lines Press / May 2022)

Losing Face by George Haddad; design Josh Durham (University of Queensland Press / May 2022)

Mean Baby by Selma Blair; design by Janet Hansen; photograph by Peggy Sirota (Knopf / May 2022)

I don’t post a lot of celebrity memoirs here, but I thought these were an interesting pair to compare and contrast. Similar but different…

My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley; design by Jack Smyth (Granta / May 2022)

Vladimir by Julia May Jonas; design by Katie Tooke (Picador / May 2022)

This made me think of Rafqa Touma’s piece for The Guardian earlier this year, ‘Well-dressed and distressed: why sad young women are the latest book cover trend’.

An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie; design by Jack Smyth (Headline / April 2022)

The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight; design Jack Smyth (Faber & Faber / May 2022)

A very Saul Bass / Vertigo vibe to this.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel; design by Abby Weintraub (Knopf / April 2022)

I think this is possibly my favourite of the recent Emily St. John Mandel covers.

Sedating Elaine by Dawn Winter; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / April 2022)

The endless possibilities of a banana and sharpie… (the cover of Come On Up was designed by the multi-talented Roman Muradov)

Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud; design by Jennifer Griffiths (McClelland & Stewart / May 2022)

The cover of the US edition was designed by Rachel Ake Kuech using a illustration by Grant Haffner. The difference between how Canada represents Canada and how the US represents Canada is…. interesting.