Hello! I hope you’re safe and well wherever you are.
Before we get to the covers, a couple of brief admin things. First up, there have been a couple of behind-the-scenes changes at the CO this past month. They’ve solved a few tech issues for me and hopefully no one else has noticed. Secondly, I’ve been tinkering with the RSS. I’m not sure that’s quite right yet, so apologies if it’s not been working as expected. Let me know if you’re experiencing any weirdness.
I also wanted quickly mention that the deadline for the DPI mentorship scheme has been extended to April 12th. I’m not involved with the DPI, but some really great people are so if you are a designer from an under represented background living in the UK or Ireland, you should think about applying!
Anyway, it’s a really big post this month! The are lots of great covers with the UK, Australia and Canada all represented, as well as the usual folks from US. There are some compare-and-contrasts, a couple of covers from indie presses, a couple of covers for translations, and a couple of poetry covers too. There’s even a meandering digression in the middle (sorry). Enjoy!
Anxiety by Samir Chopra; design by Karl Spurzem (Princeton University Press / March 2024)
Candy Darling by Cynthia Carr; design by Alex Merto (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / March 2024)
Crisis Actor by Declan Ryan; design by Stephanie Cui (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2024)
Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood & Douglas Preston; design by Nathan Burton (Harper / February 2024)
Free Therapy by Rebecca Ivory; design by Luke Bird (Vintage / March 2024)
Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon; design by Math Monahan (Scribner / March 2024)
So this cover sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. It reminded me of a cover design from a few years ago. It didn’t really look the same but, in my mind at least, this other cover featured a blue-red capsule shape (possibly a stretched illustration of a planet and its core) centred on a white background with black Swiss-style sans serif type. It was not exactly minimalist, but clean and precise. I think I saw it on Twitter back in the day. I thought it was maybe literary sci-fi or pop science, and published by one of the big American imprints. I was also pretty convinced that it was designed by Alex Merto or possibly John Gall. One of the dudes.
This is not the first time I have thought about this cover, and I can, or at least could, picture it quite clearly. The problem is that I can find no evidence of this cover ever existing, and the more I think about, the more the details shift and doubt creeps in. I don’t seem to have posted it anywhere, and I can’t find it in the usual places. It’s possible that I am getting some of the crucial details wrong, mentally combining a couple of covers into one, or it was something other than an actual book cover. But maybe this is some kind of Visual Mandela Effect thing, and this design that I’ve believed existed for years is actually a figment of my imagination.
My search has felt a bit like the online equivalent of walking into a bookstore and asking for the book with the blue cover. It has made realise that we have very few tools to find cover designs in a systematic way, especially since the Book Cover Archive stopped being a going concern. You just kind of have to browse and I hope you eventually look in the right place (or risk slowly lose your sanity).
Anyway, if this mystery cover is ringing any bells with you, please let me know and put me out of my misery. I have been going slightly crazy. (This sort of thing happens more than I care to admit by the way, but it is particularly bad this time! And, no, I do not have much of a life. Why do you ask?)
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel; design by Lynn Buckley; photo by Jenna Garrett (Viking / March 2024)
Two boxing covers in one month…
The History of My Sexuality by Tobi Lakmaker; design by Arneaux (Granta / January 2024)
(Thanks to Jon Gray for helping me with the design credit for this and the other Granta title Three Births below. Publishers: post the design credits with your cover reveals!)
The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon; design by Craig Fraser (Simon & Schuster / March 2024)
The cover of the US edition of The Hive and the Honey, published by S & S in October last year, was design by Oliver Munday.
How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone by Cameron Russell; design by Arsh Raziuddin (Random House / March 2024)
I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both by Mariah Stovall; design by Jack Smyth (Soft Skull / February 2024)
Lobster by Hollie McNish; design by Jack Smyth (Little, Brown / March 2024)
The two Jacks
The Manicurist’s Daughter by Susan Lieu; design by Juliana Lee; art by Justin Metz (Celadon Books / March 2024)
While looking for the other, possibly imaginary, book cover, I came across the cover for the New Directions edition of The Musical Brain by César Aira designed by Rodrigo Corral and Zak Tebbal a few times. It was on one or two best of 2015 lists, including mine.
Is neon-style lettering on covers a bit of thing? (see also Candy Darling above)
No Judgment by Lauren Oyler; design by Tree Abraham (HarperOne / March 2024)
Those curvy “u”s are fun.
The Observable Universe by Heather McCalden; design by Arsh Raziuddin and Gaby Pesqueira Ortiz (Hogarth / March 2024)
Two very nice, poster-like covers from Arsh Raziuddin this month:
Pelican Girls by Julia Malye; design by Joanne O’Neill (Harper / March 2024)
Piglet by Lottie Hazell; design by Jenni Oughton; art by Noah Verrier (Henry Holt / February 2024)
Beci Kelly designed the covers of the UK (left) and Australian (right) editions of Piglet:
Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash; design by Joanne O’Neill (Harper Perennial / March 2024)
And two contrasting covers from Joanne O’Neill too this month:
Sorry for the Inconvenience But This Is an Emergency by Lynne Jones; design by Steve Leard (Hurst / March 2024)
There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib; design by Tyler Comrie; photograph by Matt Eich (Random House / March 2024)
Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk; design by Kaitlin Kall (Dutton / March 2024)
The slightly more gothic cover of the Australia and UK editions of Thirst was designed by Luke Bird. Scribe are publishing it in October.
Three Births by K Patrick; design by David Pearson (Granta / March 2024)
The Understory by Saneh Sangsuk; design by Emily Mahon (Deep Vellum / March 2024)
The cover of the UK edition of The Understory, published by Peirene Press in October last year, was designed by Orlando Lloyd. The illustration is by Miki Lowe.
Your Absence is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson; design by Jason Arias (Biblioasis / March 2024)
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