Books, Design and Culture
Tom Gauld has a new collection of his science-based cartoons for the New Scientist, Physics for Cats, out this week.
Tom talked to the New York Times about the previous collection, Department of Mind-Blowing Theories, in 2020.
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I don’t post a lot of picture books here, but seeing how it’s spooky season, I thought I would mention The Slightly Spooky Tale of Fox and Mole by Swedish illustrator Cecilia Heikkilä, published by Floris Books, which just landed on my desk at work. It’s an appropriately autumnal and windswept story about a dark and scuffling monster that emerges from the moor after Mole takes his friendship with his neighbour Fox for granted. As you can see below, the illustrations are wonderful and although things get a little scary in the middle, it all works out in the end.
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.
I like these bright and bold covers by Stephen Smith, AKA Neasden Control Centre, for the new Vintage Classics editions of Julio Cortázar a lot. It feels like an inspired match of illustrator to author. The art direction is by Suzanne Dean of course.
You will have to wait for the hardcover of Divertimento (translated into English for the first time by Harry Morales) because it doesn’t go on sale until May 2026, but the paperback reissues came out last month in the UK.
Hey. Here are this month’s book covers of note.
Archipelago by Natalie Bakopoulos; design by Beth Steidle (Tin House Books / August 2025)
I really had to wrack my brain to think of what this reminded me of. It was this Jaya Miceli cover for Archetype by M.D. Waters from June 2014!
(Although having said that, the type and palette also reminded me of Kelly Winton’s cover for Black Swans by Eve Babitz from April 2018)
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz; design Christine Folzer; illustration by Eric Nyquist (Tordotcom / August 2025)
Chilco by Daniela Catrileo; design by Charlotte Grimm (FSG Originals / July 2025)
The Dance and the Fire by Daniel Saldaña París; design by Farjana Yasmin (Catapult / July 2025)
The Dilemmas of Working Women by Fumio Yamamoto; design Sarah Kellogg (HarperVia / August 2025)
The “well-dressed and distressed” trend is still very much a thing.
Dominion by Addie E. Citchens; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / August 2025)
Dwelling by Emily Hunt Kivel; design by Matt Dorfman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / August 2025)
Friends with Words by Martha Barnette; design by Ben Denzer (Abrams / August 2025)
In the Family Way by Laney Katz Becker; design by Joanne O’Neill; illustration by Luis Mendo (Harper / June 2025)
Lessons for Young Artists by David Gentleman; design Tom Etherington (Penguin Books / July 2025)
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel; design by Nick Misani (Black Swan / June 2025)
Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer; art Affen Oluwasegun (Riverhead / July 2025)
A New New Me by Helen Oyeyemi; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / August 2025)
Resting Bitch Face by Taylor Byas; design Nicole Caputo (Soft Skull / August 2025)
Ruth by Kate Riley; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / August 2025)
Lots of Lauren’s work in this month’s post…
Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian; design by Julianna Lee (Little Brown and Company / August 2025)
Solitaria by Eliana Alves Cruz; design by Talia Abramson (Knopf Canada / August 2025)
Sound System by Dave Randall; design by Jack Smyth (Pluto Press / August 2025)
The original cover for Sound System designed by Jamie Keenan was featured here in April 2017. This month’s post is a time machine!
Sweetener by Marissa Higgins; design by Sarah Brody (Catapult / August 2025)
Weren’t we just talking about lips on book covers…?
13 Months Haunted by Jimmy Juliano design by Alex Robbins (Dutton / August 2025)
Alex also designed the cover of Jimmy Juliano’s previous book Dead Eleven. I confess I have mixed feelings about the current nostalgia for all things 1980s/90s…
This Here is Love by Princess Joy L. Perry; design by Keith Hayes (W.W. Norton / August 2025)
I was reminded, looking back at the posts from 2018, that someone really should collect Keith’s photos into a book…
TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker; design by Luke Bird (Granta / August 2025)
A Truce That Is Not Peace by Miriam Toews; design by Kelly Hill (Knopf Canada / August 2025)
The covers of the UK (left) and US (right) were designed by Julian Humphries for 4th Estate and Patti Ratchford for Bloomsbury respectively.
Visions and Temptations by Harald Voetmann; design by Jamie Keenan (New Directions / August 2025)
Jamie’ also designed the cover of Sublunar by Harald Voetmann which was one of my favourite covers of 2023.
With Her Own Hands by Nicole Nehrig; design by Sara Wood (W.W. Norton / August 2025)
What Hunger by Catherine Dang; design by Maddy Angstreich; photograph by Bobby Doherty (Simon & Schuster / August 2025)
Leave a CommentSomehow 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.
Black Genius by Tre Johnson; design by Dominique Jones (Dutton / July 2025)
Fools for Love by Helen Schulman; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / July 2025)
Janet also designed the cover of Helen Schulman’s novel Lucky Dogs, which was on my 2023 notable book covers list.
And thanks to Alban Fischer for pointing out that red lips on book covers are a bit of a thing at the moment (or maybe have been for a while?)
Harbour Doubts by Bebe Ashley; design by Jack Smyth (Banshee Press / July 2025)
Special thanks to Jack for sending me this cover while he was on vacation!
I Remember by Joe Brainard; design by David Pearson (Daunt Books / July 2025)
Killer on the Road / The Babysitter Lives by Stephen Graham Jones; design by David Litman (Saga Press / July 2025)
This is fun a double cover…
Oh and I’m not saying Dave likes a ripped paper motif, but I’m not not saying it either… ;-)
There might also be a thing for cars from above…
Killing Stella by Marlen Haushofer; design by Matt Dorfman (New Directions / July 2025)
Matt also designed the cover of the New Directions edition of The Wall by Marlen Haushofer, which was featured on the blog back in October 2022 (where does the time go???)
Lili is Crying by Hélène Bessette; design by Jamie Keenan (New Directions / July 2025)
Ripped paper… it’s a thing.
Maggie, Or a Man and Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee; design by Grace Han (Summit Books / July 2025)
Thanks to Jaya Miceli for helping with the credit for this one!
Make Your Way Home by Carrie R. Moore; design by Beth Steidle (Tin House / July 2025)
No Sense in Wishing by Lawrence Burney; design by Janay Nachel (Atria / July 2025)
I think this is a really great (and rare!) example of a quote looking good on a cover. It doesn’t feel jammed in last minute.
One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford; design by Kieryn Tyler (Pan Macmillan / July 2025)
Are peephole covers now a thing too?
The macabre cover of the US edition of One Yellow Eye, out this month from Gallery Books, was designed by Claire Sullivan, with art by Alex Eckman-Lawn.
The Painter’s Fire by Zara Anishanslin; design by Madeline Partner (Harvard University Press / July 2025)
Pan by Michael Clune; design by Janet Hansen (Penguin Press / July 2025)
Not to keep going about trends, but cropped faces might be a thing? Pan has the bonus creepy (peephole?) eyes though…
People With No Charisma by Jente Posthuma; design by Luke Bird (Scribe / July 2025)
The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King; design by Jo Thomson (HarperCollins / July 2025)
The Satisfaction Café by Kathy Wang; design by Jaya Miceli; art by Kosta Morr (Scribner / July 2025)
Whisky & Scotland by Neil M. Gunn; design and illustration by Sinem Erkas (Profile Books / July 2025)
This is just really nicely done.
Zofia Nowak’s Book of Superior Detecting by Piotr Cieplak; design and illustration by Meg Shepherd (Dialogue / June 2025)
I might generally be done with quirky-cozy (quozy? Sorry. Marketing brain) amateur sleuths, but this is a fun cover.
Leave a CommentIt’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?
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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I love the halftone dots and spots in Christoph Niemann’s four different cover illustrations for the recent centennial issue of The New Yorker.
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…
Audition by Katie Kitamura; design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead / April 2025)
The cover of A Separation by Katie Kitamuria, designed by Jaya Miceli, was on my list of notable book covers back in 2017 (and featured on this list from 2020 that I’d forgotten I’d posted!)
Bad Nature by Ariel Courage; design by Emily Mahar (Henry Holt & Co. / April 2025)
Back in the Day by Oliver Lovrenski; design by Josie Staveley Taylor; photography by Valentin Fabre (Penguin Books / April 2025)
Barbara by Joni Murphy; design by Frances DiGiovanni and Rodrigo Corral (Astra House / March 2025)
If you missed it, Rodrigo Corral was recently profiled by Zachary Petit for Fast Company.
And, the cover of Animals by Joni Murphy, designed by Na Kim, was featured on my 2020 notable list. It’s an interesting contrast…
Big Chief by Jon Hickey; design by David Litman (Simon & Schuster / April 2025)
Crumb by Dan Nadel; design by Gregg Kulick (Scribner / April 2025)
The Eternal Dice by César Vallejo; design by Pablo Delcan (New Directions / April 2025)
The Fact Checker by Austin Kelley; cover illustration by Amber Day (Atlantic Monthly Press / April 2025)
Harriet Tubman in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen; design by Chelsea McGuckin (Galley Books / March 2025)
The Honditsch Cross by Ingeborg Bachmann; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / April 2025)
Peter Mendelsund also designed the cover of Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann for New Directions. It was on my notable list in 2019 (and on the aforementioned look back at the decade).
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.
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.
Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt; design by Sarah Schulte (Knopf / April 2025)
Open Up by Thomas Morris; design by Jaya Nicely (Unnamed Press / April 2025)
The Pretender by Jo Harkin; design by Greg Heinimann (Bloomsbury / April 2025)
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)
This Room is Impossible to Eat by Nicol Hochholczerová; design by Matt Needle (Parthian Books / March 2025)
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…
Small Ceremonies by Kyle Edwards; design by Kate Sinclair (McClelland & Stewart / April 2025)
This reminded me of another Grace Han cover, although the resemblance is similarly passing…
Super Gay Poems by Stephanie Burt; design by Jaya Miceli (Harvard University Press / April 2025)
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.
Terrestrial by Joe Mungo Reed; design by Abby Weintraub (W.W. Norton / April 2025)
1 CommentWell, 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)
I recently came across this short PBS Artbound documentary from 2021 on artist, educator, and social justice advocate Corita Kent (1918-1986), which is well worth 20 minutes of your time.
I don’t remember when I first came across Sister Corita’s work. It was probably not until I moved to Canada and became more interested in design and applying typography and lettering to art. Certainly, she was not someone I learnt about in school. It’s hard to know whether that is the result of a parochial British education, or more generalized misogyny and prejudice in art history, or a bit both. But, as the documentary makes clear, she remains a source of inspiration for artists, designers, and teachers 40 years after her death.
The ‘Ten Rules’ she helped create with the students of the Immaculate Heart College Art Department seem as relevant today as they must have at the time they were first written:
You can listen to former students, artists, community organizers, and others read and reflect on the Ten Rules here.
(Video via Letterform Archive!)
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