https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/books/review/book-cover-trends.html

Skip to contentSkip to site index
 
 

What to Read

  * Find Your Next Book
  * Thrillers
  * N.Y.C. Literary Guide
  * Nonfiction Summer Preview

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your
access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will
load.
Details from four book covers that show the juxtaposition of old
fashioned paintings and aggressively colorful and contemporary type.
Clockwise from top left: Details from the covers of "These Days";
"The Longest Way to Eat a Melon"; "Dream State"; and "My Year of Rest
and Relaxation."Credit...The New York Times

The Book Cover Trend You're Seeing Everywhere

Take a genteel painting, maybe featuring a swooning woman. Add
iridescent neon type for a shock to the system. And thank (or blame)
Ottessa Moshfegh for getting there early.

Clockwise from top left: Details from the covers of "These Days";
"The Longest Way to Eat a Melon"; "Dream State"; and "My Year of Rest
and Relaxation."Credit...The New York Times

Supported by

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

  * Share full article
  * 
  * 
  * 195

Elisabeth Egan

By Elisabeth Egan

  * June 21, 2025

Like fashion trends, fads in book covers come and go. One year, the
backs of women's heads might be all the rage; the next, soft focus
photography. And who can forget the exploding flower craze? Or the
proliferation of flames on jackets, from thrillers to science fiction
to self-help?

But the look that's commanding today's runways -- a.k.a. bookshelves --
is not so incendiary. It tends to lay blaringly bright type in a
sans-serif font atop a painting, usually a few centuries old but not
always. Facial expressions are baleful or dyspeptic; an aggressive
burst of spray paint can change the tone entirely.

These covers are the new signifiers of stylish literary fiction,
telegraphing gravitas, wit and cool. They make a bid for a certain
kind of reader -- more city than suburb, more pet-nat than chardonnay.
They wouldn't be caught dead alongside a volume decked out in pop art
or, god forbid, metallic lettering.

Thomas Haggerty, a senior account manager at Bridgeman Images, which
licenses paintings for commercial projects, credits the trend to "the
power of juxtaposition." Gregg Kulick, executive art director at
Hachette Book Group, agrees: "Poppy type" reads as fun, he says,
while the paintings "hint at the academic."

So how did this ripped-from-the galleries craze get off the ground?
After all, paintings have graced the covers of novels since "The
Picture of Dorian Gray," but it appears that "My Year of Rest and
Relaxation" (2019) might be the trailblazer for this century's spate.

Here's the story behind that one, plus eight descendants out -- or
soon to be -- this year.

Image
Image

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in
Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe
 for all of The Times.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Site Index

Site Information Navigation

  * (c) 2025 The New York Times Company

  * NYTCo
  * Contact Us
  * Accessibility
  * Work with us
  * Advertise
  * T Brand Studio
  * Your Ad Choices
  * Privacy Policy
  * Terms of Service
  * Terms of Sale
  * Site Map
  * Canada
  * International
  * Help
  * Subscriptions

  * Manage Privacy Preferences