It’s been another busy month here, so apologies for the slightly scattered post. It includes a few covers that I missed earlier in early in the year, and a few other bits and pieces. I hope everyone is doing OK. Here are the covers…
Audition by Pip Adam; cover art by Leopold Adi Surya (Coffee House Press / June 2025)
It looks like this was actually the cover of the editions originally available in New Zealand and Australia in 2023, so apologies for being so late to it.
Bad Animals by Sarah Braunstein; design Oliver Munday (W. W. Norton / February 2025)
Bear Witness by Ross Halperin; design by David Litman (Liveright / May 2025)
They are obviously very, very different books, but the cover Bear Witness reminded me of the cover for Going Home by Tom Lamont designed by Jared Bartman published by Knopf earlier this year.
Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan; design by Rachel Ake (Dial Press / May 2025)
Everybody Says It’s Everything by Xhenet Aliu; design Eli Mock (Random House / March 2025)
Flashlight by Susan Choi; design by June Park (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / June 2025)
I had almost forgotten that I did a little post about sideways covers 10 years ago(!). It could be time for a new one?
Girls with Long Shadows by Tennessee Hill; design Robin Bilardello (Harper / May 2025)
Are green covers with pink type a thing now? There’s also the cover of All the Parts We Exile by Roza Nozari designed by Lisa Jager for Knopf Canada which came out in February…
The Island by Antigone Kefala; design by Sarah Schulte (Transit Books / June 2025)
Another (mostly) green cover, with some pink type here!
Sarah’s (also mostly green with some pink!) cover for Rosa Mistika by Euphrase Kezilahabi, published this month by Yale University Press, also caught my eye, but I couldn’t source a hi-res image for it in time for the post…
Kill Creatures by Rory Power; illustration by Kei-Ella Loewe; art direction by Liz Dresner (Delacorte Press / June 2025)
The Longest Way to Eat a Melon by Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross; design by Emily Mahon (Sarabande Books / June 2025)
Both this and the cover for Disappoint Me were featured in a New York Times piece about recent books that are part of a painting + bold sans-serif cover trend.
The Longest Way to Eat a Melon is also an addition to the yellow type trend. The cover of The Slip by Miriam Webster designed by Typography Studio, out next month in Australia from Aniko Press, hits both trends too… (Do paintings of animals count as a separate trend from painting of people?)
Misophonia by Dana Vowinckel; design by Jack Smyth (HarperVia / May 2025)
Participatory Culture Wars by Simone Driessen, Bethan Jones and Benjamin Litherland; design by Ashley Muehlbauer (University of Iowa Press / June 2025)
This made me think of transferring newspaper print with pink silly putty, which probably hasn’t been possible for decades. I am ancient and made of dust.
Spine Magazine has brought back its round-up of recent university press covers too if you’re interested.
The Pawn by Paco Cerdà; design by Emily Mahon (Deep Vellum / June 2025)
Rytual by Chloe Elisabeth Wilson; design by Design by Committee (Penguin Australia / May 2025)
Separate Rooms by Pier Vittorio Tondelli; design Elena Giavaldi (Zando / April 2025)
The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri; design by Rodrigo Corral (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / June 2025)
I think this cover was originally used for the Swedish edition so technically it is also from 2023. (Finger on the pulse over here… )
The Slip by Lucas Schaeffer; design by Jack Smyth (Simon & Schuster / June 2025)
Tank by Mark Urban; design by Chris Bentham (Penguin / June 2025)
I love the “does what it says on the tin” literalness of both the title and image here.
UnWorld by Jason Greene; design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf / June 2025)
Valencia by Michelle Tea; design by Megan Grace (Profile / June 2025)
Let me know if you recognize the photo / photographer and I’ll add the credit.
The photograph is by photographer Chloe Sherman from her project Renegades: San Francisco, the 1990s, which is now available as book from Hatje Cantz.
Weepers by Peter Mendelsund; design by Thom Colligan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / June 2025)
This reminded me of the cover of The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane designed by Na Kim for FSG a few years ago (the colour palette of which is similar to a lot of Na’s paintings funnily enough!).
Peter Mendelsund‘s memoir/monograph Exhibitionist is available from Catapult this month too. I think Peter designed the cover for this one himself (with Corbusier inspired stencil type?).
The Washington Post recently toured Peter’s apartment and talked to him about the book.
Work Nights by Erica Peplin; design by Holly Ovenden (Gallery Books / June 2025)
This is giving me Claes Oldenburg vibes. (Is there someone who paints photorealistic donuts? There is probably is).
Are donut covers a thing? Can we make them a thing?
