Book covers

I was just looking at an old post of mine, about book covers. It was from 2016. Five years can make a big difference in aesthetic expectations. So I thought I'd see what 2021's choices for "best book covers" were. I actually don't know that they're that "different" from 2016, but they are cool to look at. Here's the New York Times's roundup (the art director's pick):

 Compare with the Washington Post selection:

Clearly, "best" is in the eye of the beholder.

And here's the American Institute of Graphic Artists list of eight.
And the Lithub list of 101.
Curiously, Parade's list of 25 doesn't actually include images, just verbal descriptions. Number 1 goes like this: "From the big bold type to the vibrant use of color, After the Sun by Jonas Eika evokes a lot of emotion and is sure to get the reader’s attention while sitting on the shelf." Seriously?

Anyway, all that subjectivity, of course, got me wondering about the best covers ever, of which I was sure there would be a list. And yes! The internet never disappoints! Here are a few:

The owner of Porter Square Books weighs in with two top-ten lists: one voted on by Pinterest folks, and his very own list. (They do not overlap, and they both are interesting.)

LitHub again weighs in with the 25 Most Iconic book covers (admittedly, not the same as "best"), all of them, I would say, quite dated. But yes, also familiar.

And here are the 50 Coolest Covers from Shortlist, many of which overlap with the Most Iconic.

Here are 20 from Glorify, which seems to be a graphic designers' site—with The Little Prince in number 1 place, which, yeah: I'll go along with that: great, iconic, classic, do-not-mess-with-ever cover.

And finally—because I could go on forever—here is a link to 19 famous book covers and (sort of) the stories behind them.