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I have always been interested in book covers—I use them to judge contents like most readers do—but now I‘m hyperaware! Graphic designer Peter Mendelsund & scholar David Alworth collaborated on this heavily-illustrated investigation into the cover art on literary fiction. The way cover design first grabs our attention; how it frames and even shapes our reading experience; and the tricks or techniques used to translate verbal art into visual form.

Identifying genres by their covers: examples on the left are mass market suspense & thrillers, while the opposite page shows literary fiction. Elements of literary covers:
—Large typography
—Handmade decorative elements
—Bright colours
—Crowding of space

“A great book cover is, for me, like a great Spanish edition. The designer takes the manuscript and deftly translates it into a language I understand but am unable to speak with any clarity. ‘How on earth did you do that?‘ I think when I‘m given the finished product. To take 70,000 words and turn them into a single image. How is that not a miracle?”
—David Sedaris

[Teju Cole] insists that we push back against the “epidemic of relatability” that has besieged book culture. “It‘s like everybody wants to be ‘fun,‘ but not all books are ‘fun.‘”

Like a bag of potato chips or a television commercial, book covers have an obvious mandate, which is to sell a commodity, except in the case of literature the commodity is also art.

If a book contains a map, it is likely either military history or fantasy—or Faulkner, which is both. Certain paratextual details, in other words, are indicators of genre: they tell you what kind of book you hold in your hands.

A couple of book cover examples (the top pair in my collage) in the tagged book reminded me of similar book covers (bottom pair).

Announcing the text and creating a conduit between imaginary and real space are two key tasks of the book cover. They are what the book cover does, first and foremost, but they are not all that it does. The cover‘s job is not over when you begin reading the pages. A good book cover has that time-release quality: it changes with you as you read.

Walt Whitman used a sentence from Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s private words of encouragement to him—“I greet you at the beginning of a great career”—as publicity for his work, printing them on the spine of the second edition of Leaves of Grass. Perhaps the earliest example of a blurb.

Ha! @shawnmooney recently complained to me about how boring the Fitzcarraldo covers are, and here is an example in a book about book cover design. (I paid no attention to Fitzcarraldo Editions prior to Shawn mentioning them.)

Do you judge a book by its cover? Then this is the perfect read for you! It‘s a gorgeously illustrated book about the history and trends in book cover design and the stories behind some of the most iconic covers in literature.

Interesting book - interviewing artists, designers and authors about the choices made for book jackets. 👍🏼