2024 was … a year!
And if you’re still reeling from it, the holidays are a perfect time to get punch-drunk distracted on a bounty of brilliant book covers.
For as much insanity as the year held (and it was … a lot!), it was offset by a constant stream of cathartic tomes and jackets. To that end, in 2023 our annual December list featured 50 titles—and it has now doubled to 100.
Some of my personal favorites: Thomas Colligans’ beautiful cover for Beautyland, which has been stuck in my head for the better part of a year. Janet Hansen’s work on Ask Me Again, is equal parts electrifying and haunting. Pablo Delcan’s genius VanderMeer covers the best encapsulations of the Southern Reach series since his Spanish editions. Arsh Raziuddin’s jacket for Knife. Alex Merto and Seymour Chwast’s Tom Wolfe reissues. Pete Adlington’s utterly perfect Not Waving But Drowning. Grace Han’s take on God of the Woods, which disproves the theory that great covers are only the stuff of niche imprints and genres and not mainstream bestsellers. And so many others, which you’ll see below.
Here’s to all the striking work in 2024, and all that we have to look forward to in 2025. There has truly never been a better time to get lost in a book—or a book cover.
