Perhaps you can’t judge a book by its cover, but don’t you just love a great book jacket? One that seems to pop off the shelf? It can make all the difference when browsing through a bookstore, for a book to catch your eye and to have that special touchability. And lucky for us, this was a phenomenal year in jacket design.
We’ve picked our 25 favorite covers from 2011 (click images for a larger view):
And the full list in alphabetical order:
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran
Emily, Alone by Stewart O’Nan
Fiction Ruined My Family by Jeanne Darst
Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
My New American Life by Francine Prose
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
Seven Seasons in Siena by Robert Rodi
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
The Storm at the Door by Stefan Merrill Block
The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen
The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer
The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson
This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park
Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tannen
We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
West of Here by Jonathan Evison
For more of our Best of 2011, check out our Top 50 Books of 2011 and our Readers’ Choice: 30 Best Books of 2011.
Also, click here to see the best book jackets of 2010.
Or simply browse all of The Book Case’s Best of 2011 coverage.
What were your favorite book jackets of 2011?
“Imaginary Girls” by Nova Ren Suma. The cover is so gorgeous I’d hang a print of it above my bed.
http://novaren.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/imaginary-girls-cover-reveal/
Like Jenna, there is one cover I would hang on my wall – but my choice is Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Love the detail.
Love all these, of course. Don’t forget the Penguin Threads, the classics with the embroidered covers. Here’s Jillian Tamaki’s blog where she writes about how she created these amazing covers: http://blog.jilliantamaki.com/2011/03/penguin-threads-deluxe-classics/
(And no, I don’t know her–I just wish I did!)
How could you feature the 25 best book jackets without naming their designers?
I have read a lot of these books. I learned today that I apparently choose books because of the covers.
Pingback: CRITICAL LINKING: December 21, 2011 | BOOK RIOT
The Borrowers cover was excellent. And “Doc” by Mary Doria Russell had a cover that just drew me to it.
This actually addresses something I’d been wondering: whether cover art was likely to suffer or fall by the wayside as the popularity of e-books rises.
Pingback: 25 best book jackets of 2011 « GRAM ::: disseny gràfic :::: solucions creatives
Pingback: Recently Read, January 2, 2012 « Quoted Quarterly
Pingback: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern « moonfun.net
I WISH YOU WOULD STILL MENTION ,”LIFE LOVE AND DEATH,” AND,”FARTHER ALONG,”MORE ON LIFE LOVE AND DEATH. THEY ARE AS GOOD AS THEY WERE IN 2010 OR MAYBE BETTER. SOMEONE NEW IN THE BUSINESS HAS A HARD TIME GETTING NOTICED, AND GET A PRODUCER TO TAKE THE TIME TO CHECK THEM OUT. I KNOW IN MY HEART THAT I HAVE THE KIND OF STORY THAT GREAT MOVIES ARE MADE OF. IT’S A TRUE STORY ABOUT MY PRECIOUS MOTHER’S VERY HARD LIFE, FROM THE DAY SHE WAS BORN TIL THE DAY SHE DIED. PLEASE HELP ME GET MY BOOKS NOTICED AND WHOEVER GETS THEM WILL NOT BE SORRY. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MARY TUCKER
229 532 4785
Such gorgeous covers! Every time I wandered through fiction at the bookstore, Vaclav & Lena caught my eye!
Pingback: Undercover | Oh, Columbus!
I have been browsing online greater than three hours today, yet I never discovered any attention-grabbing article like yours. It?s lovely value enough for me. In my opinion, if all web owners and bloggers made good content material as you probably did, the internet can be a lot more useful than ever before.
Pingback: Rasco From RIF » Talking ’bout Book-Jackets
Are we judging books by their covers?
Because we are really not supposed to do that
ok , now seriously.. i think the leftovers one reflects the idea the best – i like it
Re: The person who created the remark that this was a good web site genuinely needs to have their head inspected.