The 13 Best Book Covers of May
A Pretty Dark Spring
Another month of books, another month of book covers. This month, despite the spring of it all, my favorite covers were strange and dark, their meanings obscure. Is it my mood, or the designers’? Who can say. Probably we’ve all been feeling the same way for quite some time, no matter the weather. At any rate, here are a few of the book covers that caught my attention in May:
Harriet Clark, The Hill; cover design by Na Kim (FSG, May 5)
Points for oddness, and for use of space.
Avigayl Sharp, Offseason; cover design by Chloe Scheffe (Astra House, May 5)
Pretty rare that a cover this literally muddy feels so vibrant and fun.
Séamas O’Reilly, Prestige Drama; cover design by Jaya Miceli (Cardinal, May 5)
My favorite emoji in book cover form.
Vanessa Hua, Coyoteland; cover design by Claire Sullivan (Flatiron, May 12)
Contrast is king.
Charlotte Druckman and Mayukh Sen, Love in the Afternoon, and Evening; cover design by Evan Gaffney (W.W. Norton, May 12)
Gold in, gold out, sure, but this cover strikes the perfect note.
Sarah Wang, New Skin; cover design by Oliver Munday (Little Brown, May 12)
Paired with the title, it’s beautifully creepy.
Jess Gibson, The Good Eye; cover design by Dana Li (Cardinal, May 12)
I love a good repetition, and the overlapping Os don’t hurt either.
Ashton Politanoff, Dad Had a Bad Day; cover design by Rodrigo Corral Studio (Astra House, May 19)
Very funny. (So is the UK cover.)
Emily LaBarge, Dog Days; cover design by Jared Bartman (Transit Books, May 19)
Book cover as art!
Emily Haworth-Booth, Mare; cover design and hand-lettering by Na Kim (FSG, May 19)
Hand-lettering, in this economy? A simple but daring treatment that really works.
Jill Dawson, Pixie; cover design by Carmen R. Balit (Bloomsbury Publishing, May 26)
I will never not love this Tarot card/woodblock energy.
Bobuq Sayed, No God But Us; cover design by Olivia McGiff, art by Iman Read (Harper, May 26)
An alluring take on the Bento box book cover trend.
Missouri Williams, The Vivisectors; cover design by Thomas Colligan (MCD, May 26)
I don’t know what those lines mean, but they are doing a ton of work here.
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. You can buy it here.
