The 11 Best Book Covers of August

Another month of books, another month of book covers. The hazy rainbow trend is back for August, in among a series of bold and mysterious cover treatments. Featuring a whole lot of red and some I-wish-this-was-a-poster standouts. Here are my favorite book covers of the month—as always, feel free to drop any of your own that I’ve missed in the comments below.

Emmanuel Carrère, tr. John Lambert, Yoga: A Novel (cover design by Rodrigo Corral; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August 2)

The text treatment and color story is giving me classic 70s movie poster in the best way.

Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch (cover design by Linda Huang; Knopf, August 2)

I love the font Huang chose here, which feels fresh and unusual for a book cover, and the textural noise—but the best part is how much she does with such a limited number of actual elements. An alluring and very mysterious cover indeed.

Gabino Iglesias, The Devil Takes You Home (cover design by Gregg Kulick; Mulholland Books, August 2)

I love the eerie color story and intense contrast here, updating what might have been a fairly typical image—figure walking away from a small house in a pastoral landscape—and the choice to make the figure white, like a cutout, except for the eyes. It’s a whole mood, as the kids probably don’t say anymore.

Alan Heathcock, 40 (cover design by Rodrigo Corral; MCD, August 2)

It’s just so extra, in the greatest, most psychedelic way.

Emi Yagi, tr. David Boyd and Lucy North, Diary of a Void (cover illustration by Seb Agresti; Viking, August 9)

Not only does this give me major city in the fall vibes (possibly my favorite vibes), but considering the premise of the novel, the choice of the text separated out within a circle is apt, subtle, and very clever.

Jane Campbell, Cat Brushing (cover design by Alison Forner; Grove, August 9)

ASMR in a book cover!

Jesse Ball, Autoportrait (cover design by Nicole Caputo; Catapult, August 16)

I love the tension and movement of this hand-drawn text treatment, and the decision to let it stand on its own—another cover that suits the book very well.

Brenda Lozano, tr. Heather Cleary, Witches (cover design by Jaya Miceli; Catapult, August 16)

Gotta love a bird woman, but I’m extra charmed by that thumb hooked around the C.

Alice Sedgwick Wohl, As It Turns Out: Thinking about Edie and Andy (cover design by Alex Merto; FSG, August 16)

A spiritual sister to Yoga, but even more magically, this is a book jacket without any text at all on the front—unless you count the bits of red spilling over from the title on the spine. Daring!

Rasheed Newson, My Government Means to Kill Me (cover design by Keith Hayes, Flatiron, August 23)

Another excellent rainbow, an even better frame-within-a-frame, and a very fun text treatment that almost acts as another structural element. In pink!

Ella King, Bad Fruit (cover design by Rodrigo Corral Studio, photo by Michael Schmelling; Astra House, August 23)

This one is all about the photograph, which is well chosen: weird and precise and a little threatening, somehow. Now I’m hungry.