As I did in 2019 and again last year, I’ve picked out some favourite book covers from the year’s new releases. In general, slap some flora and/or fauna on and I’m going to be drawn to a book. A lot of these covers are colourful and busy; on some later ones the layout is more stark.
Here are my favourite covers from books I’ve actually read:
Plus a couple I’ve read whose covers aren’t quite like the others (I like swirly lines):
I prefer the U.S. cover (left) to the U.K. cover in these three cases:
And I’ve noticed these particular fonts seem popular nowadays:
Here are some covers that caught my eye even though I’ve not read the books themselves (or maybe don’t plan to):
A few even buck the flora/fauna trend, employing interesting lines, shapes or perspective instead.
And I think these would be my absolute favourites:
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Absolutely beautiful! I especially love covers to “What Isn’t Remembered” , “Flesh and Blood” and “World of Wonders”
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Like you, I go for the flora/fauna type covers, particularly if they have a fantastical note or nod to art deco! My vote is for Arshi’s Somebody Loves You, with Byatt’s Medusa’s Ankles a close second. In a different style, the cover for The Oscillations was also very appealing (and very appropriate, which covers aren’t always).
So nice to begin my Saturday with a visual treat — many thanks!
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I’ve only just started thinking about my year in review posts – in which a selection of favourite covers will surely feature. You certainly do go for the flora and fauna! Well spotted on the typefaces. I tend to prefer UK covers to the US, but I like that one with the cactus a lot more than the messy UK one in that case.
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I love these and the typefaces thing is particularly interesting. I had one like Deep Time, I think it was an archaeology book, and I’m liking Cat Jarman’s River Kings cover at the moment.
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Cover trends are fascinating! The floral motif seems very popular these days along with geometrics and that blocky font. Of your faves, I especially like Somebody loves you, with its approach that is a little bit different. Thanks, this was fun to look at!
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Gorgeous! And, I love the cover–and title–of SPARROW ENVY!
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I have a soft spot for the fauna/flower covers, but often what catches my eye is one that is strikingly different from the ‘trendy’ ones.
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I always like flowers, and anything with water or swimmers on the cover (this year Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien caught my eye, even though I haven’t read it).
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I think you already know that Somebody Loves You is also one of my favorite covers from this year’s books.
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I don’t think I’m in tune with the latest cover trends – I’m so tired of floral covers and random collections of shapes. However, those Kate Fox and Helen Gordon covers are gorgeous!
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Re: the Kate Fox, I think moons are the first cover trend I’m noticing for 2022!
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Nice selection, Rebecca. Two of my covers of the year are on your list!
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The “Book Blob” cover has been a trend for the past year or two. Here’s an article another blogger turned me onto about it. https://www.printmag.com/book-covers/the-book-cover-behold-the-book-blob/
I think the next trend will be faces and heads, based on what I’ve seen of early 2022 book covers.
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Ha ha, I like “book blob” — it’s true that a lot of those covers tend to look the same, and have a similar font and title layout too. I wonder if it’s because of employing the same designer for multiple books, or (a cynical view) if they think, that book is popular, if we make one that looks just like it people might be confused and buy ours by mistake.
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the cover of The Four Humans is SO BEAUTIFUL. it definitely fits into the trend you’ve outlined here but it is such a stellar execution of that trend 👌👌👌
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Maybe I should have named that one of my absolute favourites — I love everything about it: the handwriting font, the half-face, and the flowers.
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From a technical perspective, did it take you a thousand hours to get all these images into this post?! Or do you have a way to drag from an online image into your post somehow? Sheesh, I’m tired just thinking about all that image work. LOL
I like a lot of the same ones you’ve marked and I think the copy of Violet Kupersmith’s that you’ve got is prettier than the one I read (although the mosaic pattern against the forest green suited the story just fine).
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Nope, this was the simplest post to put together! I used last year’s post as a template, and have a cover-love shelf on Goodreads, so all I had to do was pull the cover images from that.
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You don’t have to download each one individually?
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Yes, but it’s just a moment’s work. Btw, thanks for catching up on my blog posts when you could have been doing anything else with your day after Christmas 🙂
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That UK cover for Filthy Animals is *terrible*!
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In one sense it’s not that different from the U.S. one (doing interesting things with lines), but in another it’s not right at all!
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I can’t believe I forget the cover for What Doesn’t Kill You in my post, that is one of my absolute favorites!
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[…] I did in 2019, 2020, and 2021, I’ve picked out some favourite book covers from the year’s new releases. Fewer have stood out […]
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