The 10 Best Book Covers of November

Emily Temple

Nov 30

Another month of books, another month of book covers. Here are my favorites from November—an elegant and controlled group, on the whole, to offset the traditional American month of excess.

Ben Austen, *Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change*; cover design by Keith Hayes (Flatiron, November 7)

There's nothing that new about this tonal bisected style for nonfiction, but this version, with the two walking figures, is so clean and energetic that it caught my eye.

Sigrid Nunez, The Vulnerables — Sigrid Nunez, *The Vulnerables*; cover design by Lauren Peters-Collaer (Riverhead, November 7)

Another bisected cover, in an entirely different way. I'm a sucker for these vintage illustration collages, I have to say. (Also I'm a poet, apparently.)

Elaine Feeney, <em><a class="external" href="https://bookshop.org/a/132/9781771965859" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How to Build a Boat</a></em>; cover design by Zoe Norvell (Biblioasis, November 7) — Elaine Feeney, *How to Build a Boat*; cover design by Zoe Norvell (Biblioasis, November 7)

There is a simple, sad elegance to this cover that I just love.

ed park same bed different dreams — Ed Park, *Same Bed Different Dreams*; cover design by Will Staehle (Random House, November 7)

"I love how Will Staehle's cover instantly conveys two of the novel's dreams—on the left, a ghostly vision of forgotten history (a scene from the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo), on the right, a glimpse of fevered possibility (one of my characters is a science fictioneer)," Park told Lit Hub. "The fonts rock. Subtly threaded in gold is the title, translated into the language of my ancestors—Korean—something I never would have dreamed to suggest, but which ties it all together. I asked if my Korean name could be woven in as well, and there it is, three syllables only my family knows. I actually still can't look at this without crying." Read more here.