The 11 Best Book Covers of July ' Literary Hub
By: By Emily Temple (Literary Hub)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The 11 Best Book Covers of July
High Art for High Summer
Another month of books, another month of book covers. July brings us a fresh summer basket of juicy, saturated colors, clever concepts, and weird peek-a-boos. Here are some of my favorites from the month that was:
Ruben Reyes, Jr., Archive of Unknown Universes ; illustration by Maria Jesus Contreras (Mariner, July 1)
Love the font, love the frame, but what I find most pleasing is that an illustrated cover can look so matte and so juicy at the same time. (Contreras also illustrated the cover of Reyes' There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven which pulls off a similar effect.)
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Helen Schulman, Fools for Love: Stories ; cover design by Janet Hansen (Knopf, July 8)
I have seen many many many mouths on book covers (people like mouths, I wonder why?), but never quite like this—I love both the concept and the restraint. I also appreciate that Hansen carried over the font for the supplementary text from her design for Schulman's Lucky Dogs.
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Daniela Catrileo, tr. Jacob Edelstein, Chilco ; cover design by Charlotte Grimm (FSG Originals, July 15)
I can go either way on faux-distressing these days, but the colors and balance are really doing it for me here.
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Kyung-Ran Jo, tr. Chi-Young Kim, Blowfish ; cover design by Giacomo Girardi/Rodrigo Corral Studio, based on the Korean edition (Astra House, July 15)
This art might have made for a thousand good covers, but the title placement, on its little faux-sticker, makes it great.
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Carrie R. Moore, Make Your Way Home ; cover design by Beth Steidle (Tin House, July 15)
Holy saturation, Batman. I love the intensity of the colors, the takeover pattern, the text treatment on the edges (with, for contrast, its subtle gradation).
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Laura Poppick, Strata: Stories from Deep Time ; cover design by Steve Attardo (Norton, July 15)
Just perfectly what it needs to be. Love the font.
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Helene Bessette, tr. Kate Briggs, Lili is Crying ; cover design by Jamie Keenan (New Directions, July 22)
The paper tear/tear with the title in it! The face just barely visible! Brilliant.
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Michael Clune, Pan ; cover design by Janet Hansen (Penguin Press, July 22)
As Dan at Casual Optimist pointed out, peephole eyes are weirdly prevalent this month. But I particularly appreciate this one for how unabashedly creepy it is.
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Kate Broad, Greenwich ; cover design by Olga Grlic (St. Martin's Press, July 22)
What can I say, I love a drip.
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Eloghosa Osunde, Necessary Fiction ; cover design by Lauren Peters-Collaer, art by Affen Segun (Riverhead, July 22)
Another great frame, another great color story, another great piece of art.
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Tre Johnson, Black Genius ; cover design by Dominique Jones (Dutton, July 29)
And one with no color or art at all, that manages to be just as impactful, in its own way.
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Emily Temple
Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness , was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020.
Best book covers of the month book cover design: book coversdesign
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Well, why not? If I can post an article about movie posters on the Movies & TV group, why not book covers on the Books group. Some of them are pretty fantastic, and I bet the cover helps to sell the book.
Actually, maybe we can't tell a book by its cover (to quote a saying).
"There's the rub." (Shakespeare's Hamlet)
A nice collection of art.
But I would never ever buy a book because of the cover.
Nor would I choose to go to a movie based on a movie poster.