Just as with pinpointing why a certain title is wonderful, it is difficult to say exactly what makes a book jacket great. I know that I am drawn to bright, graphic cover designs that feature art rather than people—although I love that jacket for Backseat Saints.
Our favorite book jackets of 2010 range from kooky to beautiful to clever:
As Easy as Falling off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
Chicken Big by Keith Graves
Exley by Brocke Clark
Five Days Apart by Chris Binchy
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Gold Boy, Emerald Girl by Yiyun Li
Lift by Kelly Corrigan
Lives Like Loaded Guns by Lyndall Gordon
Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie
Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross
Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas
Running the Books by Avi Steinberg
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
Street Shadows by Jerald Walker
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman
The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale
The Passage by Justin Cronin
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant
What to Cook & How to Cook It by Jane Hornby
You Had Me at Woof by Julie Klam
What were your favorite book jackets of 2010?
Also on The Book Case: Browse our Best of 2010 coverage.
All together, they make quite a colorful lot!
I like the cover for Lisa Brackmann’s “Rock Paper Tiger,” a thriller about a female Iraq war veteran in China. The cover’s reds and golds are vibrant, and it calls to mind a package of Chinese firecrackers. You can see it here: http://www.lisabrackmann.com
Stay by Allie Larkin. How could you resist those big brown eyes?
The cover photo of ‘The Wave:in pursuit of the rogues,freaks,and giants of the ocean’ by Susan Casey was the most powerful book jacket cover for me this year. Other spectacular book jackets ‘Juliet:a novel’ by Anne Fortier, ‘Cleopatra: a life’ by Stacy Schiff. Children’s picture book favorite is ‘Art & Max’ by David Wiesner. I totally agree with BookPage favorites ‘Our Tragic Universe’ , ‘The vanishing of Katharina Linden’ and ‘As easy as falling off the face of the earth’.
Exley is definitely on my list.
I loved the peppermint-striped swirl cover of Katherine Weber’s TRUE CONFECTIONS.
The Gendarme by Mark Mustian. Haunting picture of a beautiful woman.
I’ll agree with “Exley” and “Mr. Peanut,” they’re clever without being too silly.
Some of my favorites included “Lord of Misrule” by Jaimy Gordon, “The Four Fingers of Death” by Rick Moody, “Master of Disguises” by Charles Simic, “Celebrity Chekhov” by Ben Greenman, and “The Next Queen of Heaven” by Gregory Maguire.
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These choices are all wonderful! My blog is dedicated to YA covers, and I had a top 10 post from 2010 — http://thatcovergirl.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/five-x-2-great-covers/
It would be nice to know who the designers are, since this is a post about design. I tried to search for that info for Backseat Saints, and found nothing. I guess you have to have the actual book to find out that information. A shame.
The Zune concentrates on becoming a Transportable Media Participant. Not a web browser. Not a gaming machine. Perhaps in the potential it’ll do even much better in these places, but for now it really is a amazing way to organize and listen to your songs and videos, and is with out peer in that regard. The iPod’s strengths are its world wide web browsing and applications. If those sound more persuasive, possibly it is your best selection.