Best Book Covers 2018

I’m forever collecting my favorite book designs, and this list of best book covers 2018 is a selection of those that caught my eye throughout the year. From those I’ve spotted in bookstores, through to those I saw online, they range widely in both style and subject matter.

Some of my favorite covers from this list include the bold color palettes of Seventeen designed by Alex Merto and Sexographies designed by Na Kim; while different in style they are strikingly similar in color! I loved the minimal layouts of Evening in Paradise: More Stories also designed by Na Kim and The Frolic of the Beasts designed by John Gall.

Large typography features prominently, including highlights such as A Very Large Expanse of Sea designed by Rodrigo Corral and Feel Free designed by Jon Gray. Another favorite was the concept for Convenience Store Woman designed by Luke Bird, which perfectly captures my memories of living in Tokyo.

Please note: I’ve tried my best to credit all the incredible designers, artists, illustrators, typographers, photographers and art directors responsible for these book cover designs. However some details are harder to find than others. If you can help with any incorrect or missing details please let me know in the comments!

Best Book Covers 2018

A Tokyo Romance: A Memoir by Ian Buruma, cover design by Oliver Munday (Penguin)

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi, cover design by Rodrigo Corral (HarperCollins)

All the Names They Used for God by Anjali Sachdeva, cover design by Rachel Ake (Spiegel & Grau)

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, cover design by Jaya Miceli (Algonquin)

Awayland by Ramona Ausubel, cover design by Alex Merto (Riverhead)

Belly Up by Rita Bullwinkel, design by Kelly Winton (A Strange Object)

** Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller (Penguin)

Black Swans by Eve Babitz, cover design by Kelly Winton (Counterpoint)

Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City by Richard Sennett, cover design by Tom Etherington (Allen Lane)

Calypso by David Sedaris, cover design by Peter Mendelsund (Little, Brown and Company)

Can You Tolerate This? by Ashleigh Young, cover design and art by Grace Han (Riverhead)

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, cover design by Luke Bird (Portobello Books)

Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want by Ruby Tandoh, cover illustration by Ruby Taylor, cover design by Peter Dyer (Serpent’s Tail)

Evening in Paradise: More Stories by Lucia Berlin, cover design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

** Eventide by Therese Bohman (Other Press)

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, cover design Helen Crawford White (Fig Tree)

Feel Free by Zadie Smith, cover design by Jon Gray (Penguin)

Flames by Robbie Arnott, cover design by Helen Crawford-White (Atlantic)

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, cover design by Grace Han (Riverhead)

Florida by Lauren Groff, cover design by Grace Han (Riverhead)

Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Qing Li, cover painting by Charlotte Day (Viking)

Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, cover design by Emily Mahon, typography by Jill DeHaan (Doubleday)

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao, cover design by Keith Hayes (Flatiron Books)

Green by Sam Graham-Felsen, cover design by June Park and Rodrigo Corral (Random House)

Here Is Real Magic: A Magician’s Search for Wonder in the Modern World by Nate Staniforth, design by Katya Mezhibovskaya, photography by Tamara Staples (Bloomsbury)

If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim, cover illustrations by Gina Triplett and Matt Curtius, cover design by Ploy Siripant (William Morrow)

Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar, cover design by Janet Hansen (Knopf)

Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Adventures in the Ordinary by Rebecca Front, design by Anna Morrison (Orion)

Insomnia by Marina Benjamin, cover design by Nicole Caputo (Catapult)

** My Ex-Life by Stephen McCauley (Flatiron Books)

My German Brother by Chico Buarque, cover design by Michael Morris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, cover design by Michael J Windsor (Doubleday)

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, cover design by Darren Haggar, cover painting ‘Portrait of a Young Woman in White’ by Jacques-Louis David (Penguin)

Notes from My Captivity by Kathy Parks, illustrated by Helen Crawford-White, designed by Heather Daugherty (Katherine Tegen Books)

Other People’s Love Affairs by D. Wystan Owen, cover design by David High (Algonquin)

Ponti by Sharlene Teo, cover design by Michael Mateyko (Picador)

Rosewater by Tade Thompson, cover design by Charlotte Stroomer (Orbit)

Seven Types of Atheism by John N. Gray, cover design by Isabelle de Cat (Allen Lane)

Seventeen by Hideo Yokoyama, cover design by Alex Merto (MCD)

Sexographies by Gabriela Wiener, cover design by Na Kim (Restless Books)

Shame Is An Ocean I Swim Across by Mary Lambert, cover design by Carol Ly, photography by Shervin Lainez, art by Micaela Lattanzio (Feiwel & Friends)

She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore, cover design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf Press)

Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi, cover design by Here Design (Ebury Press)

** Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patty Yumi Cottrell (McSweeney’s)

Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering, cover design by Donna Cheng (Atria)

The Adulterants by Joe Dunthorne, cover design by Richard Bravery (Hamish Hamilton)

The Afterlives by Thomas Pierce, cover design by Grace Han (Riverhead)

The Anatomy of Dreams by Chloe Benjamin, cover illustration by Ella Laytham (Atria Books)

The Boat People by Sharon Bala, cover illustration by Emiliano Ponzi, cover design by Emily Mahon (Doubleday)

The Caregiver by Samuel Park, cover design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Simon & Schuster)

The Colors of the Rain by R.L. Toalson, cover art by C S Neal (Yellow Jacket)

The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin, cover design by Rachel Willey (Henry Holt)

The Condition of Secrecy by Inger Christensen, cover design by Joan Wong (New Directions)

** The Distance Home by Paula Saunders (Random House)

The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams, cover design by Joan Wong (New Directions)

The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts by Tessa Fontaine, cover design by Abby Kagan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

The End of the Moment We Had by Toshiki Okada, cover design by Nathan Burton (Pushkin Press)

The Ensemble by Aja Gabel, cover design by Grace Han (Riverhead)

The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer, cover design by Ben Denzer (Riverhead)

The Fountain in the Forest by Tony White, cover design by Luke Bird, cover images by Roger Violet and Mary Evans (Faber and Faber)

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, cover design by Nicolas Ortega (Riverhead)

The Frolic of the Beasts by Yukio Mishima, cover design by John Gall (Vintage)

The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman, cover design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint)

The Houseguest: And Other Stories by Amparo Dávila, cover design by Oliver Munday (New Directions)

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, cover design and illustration by Sandra Chiu (Putnam)

The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon, cover design by Jaya Miceli (Riverhead)

The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman, cover design by Jaya Miceli (Viking)

The Linden Tree by César Aira, cover design by Rodrigo Corral (New Directions)

The Line Becomes A River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantú, cover design by Grace Han (Riverhead)

The Line That Held Us by David Joy, cover design by Michael Morris (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James, cover illustration by Amir Belhoula, cover design by David Curtis (HarperTeen)

The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar, cover design by Sandra Chiu, art direction by Cherlynne Li (Atria Books)

The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers, cover artwork by Shawn Harris (Knopf)

The Neighborhood by Mario Vargas Llosa, cover design by Alex Merto (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

The Neuroscience of Mindfulness: The Astonishing Science behind How Everyday Hobbies Help You Relax by Stan Rodski, cover design by Darren Holt (HarperCollins)

** The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli (Riverhead)

The Origins of Creativity by Edward O. Wilson, cover design by Man vs Machine (Penguin)

The Overstory by Richard Powers, cover design by Evan Gaffney (W. W. Norton & Company)

The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories by Jay Rubin, cover design by Matthew Young, cover illustration by Hiroyuki Izutsu (Penguin)

The Pisces by Melissa Broder, cover illustration by Tim O’Brien, cover design by Rachel Willey (Hogarth)

** The Summer of Broken Things by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers)

The Terrible: A Storyteller’s Memoir by Yrsa Daley-Ward, cover design by Grace Han (Penguin)

There There by Tommy Orange, cover design by Tyler Comrie (Knopf)

** Things Bright and Beautiful by Anbara Salam (Fig Tree)

This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga, cover design Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf)

Tomb of the Unknown Racist by Blanche McCrary Boyd, cover design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint)

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver, cover design by Milan Bozic (Harper)

Up Up, Down Down: Essays by Cheston Knapp, cover design by Anna Laytham (Scribner)

We Begin Our Ascent by Joe Mungo Reed, cover design by Zak Tebbal (Simon and Schuster)

** Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Woman of the Ashes by Mia Couto, cover design by Sarahmay Wilkinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Women Talking by Miriam Toews, cover design by Jonathan Pelham (Faber and Faber)

You Me Everything by Catherine Isaac, cover design by Lynn Buckey, travel poster cover artwork by Roger Broders (Pamela Dorman Books)

You Think It, I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld, cover design by Ami Smithson aka Cabin London, featuring Tisdall Script (Doubleday)

What do you think of these book cover designs?

What do you think of this list of best book covers 2018? Are any of your favorites missing? Do you have any recommendations to add? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this list of best book covers 2018 in the comments below! 

Looking for more on book design?

If you’re looking for more about book design, see these related articles:

• Best Book Covers 2019
• Penguin English Library: The Complete List
• Best Book Covers 2018
• Penguin Clothbound Classics: The Complete List
• Best Book Covers 2017