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seribulan · Post time 21-5-2017 07:48 PM

[size=0.8125]BOOK REVIEW

The Best Book Covers of 2016

By MATT DORFMAN DEC. 7, 2016

The year's best covers, as chosen by the art director of The New York Times Book Review.

However ornamental book jackets may be, they are also entry points to both the good and bad ideas that illuminate our possible futures. Conventional wisdom holds that an uninteresting book cover should never stop a worthy idea within from taking hold. And yet, so many conventions and so much wisdom were proved wrong this year that during my more histrionic moments, I wonder how many instances exist throughout the course of history in which book covers have worked against the potential human value of the books they’re wrapped around.

Here then are 12 reasons to be less fatalistic and more optimistic. These covers are challenging without being impenetrable and playful without being precious — none of which is an easy task for a designer. If good design might lure us into an experience that makes us smarter, then we’ve hit the jackpot when the book allows us to spend time within the head space of a stranger. To that end, the choices and considerations that went into each of these covers were persuasive enough for me to tune out the noise, turn away from my screen and be drawn into somebody else’s world for 250 or so -pages. In a caustic year in which we have been driven to near-constant distraction, that makes effective design a superpower.

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“The Mothers” by Brit Bennett
Designed by Rachel Willey
Publisher: Riverhead Books
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“Moonglow” by Michael Chabon
Designed by Adalis Martinez
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins Publishers
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“The Bed Moved” by Rebecca Schiff
Designed by Janet Hansen
Publisher: Knopf
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“Beautiful Gravity” by Martin Hyatt
Designed by John Gall
Publisher: Antibookclub
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“The Hideous Hidden” by Sylvia Legris
Designed by Erik Carter
Publisher: New Directions
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“But What If We’re Wrong?” by Chuck Klosterman
Designed by Paul Sahre
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
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“Against Everything” by Mark Greif
Designed by Kelly Blair
Publisher: Pantheon
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“The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead
Designed by Oliver Munday
Publisher: Doubleday
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“Private Novelist” by Nell Zink
Designed by Sara Wood, Art by Evgenia Loli
Publisher: Ecco
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“Cannibals in Love” by Mike Roberts
Designed by Na Kim
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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“On Trails” by Robert Moor
Designed by Jim Tierney
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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“How to See” by David Salle
Designed by Peter Mendelsund
Publisher: W. W. NortonMore on NYTimes.