Top Ten (Or So): Covers of Books Read in 2017

I don't have the time and energy to keep up this blog anymore. But the Top-Ten Lists are just so fun to do, that I can still manage to find what I need to do two of these per year. Here goes the first one.


Here they are--in only approximate order--favourite to least favourite, the best covers of the books I read in 2017. There are fewer than ten because this was another disappointing year for book covers. Maybe because I read so few books last year? Anyway, whatever. Here goes. The first two are a tie because I loved them both so much.

I don't know what it is about Jackaby. Partly the colour scheme--I love blue, and then there's that little, striking bit of red. Partly it's the look of the character on the front. Partly it's the interesting way the scene is shown inside his profile. Partly it's the reference to Sherlock Holmes and Buffy on the quote on the front.

The Omnivore's Dilemma has what I've come to learn is a not uncommon style of cover for food books. But at the time, I found it striking, and I still do. I love the experience of reading a book that looks like this. Just looking at that food on the cover, standing out in the stark, black background, makes me want to be enormously healthy and energetic and productive and knowledgable about food.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. It's just cool looking. I've always loved recursion.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is simple and elegant, like how your life can be if you follow the guidelines in this book.

What If? has a dinosaur being lowered into a wormhole with tentacles. Enough said.

I'm not totally sure why I like the cover for A Darkling Sea. It looks kind of dark and mysterious, I guess?

Archivist Wasp isn't by any means my favourite cover for the year, but it's striking. You can't deny that. It always stood out to me in book lists I looked at.


Runners Up (in No Particular Order): Food Rules and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen, because they were cool in the same way as The Omnivore's Dilemma, but I didn't want to put three books by the same author on the list; Little Sins Mean a Lot by Elizabeth Scalia, maybe because it stood out from all the rest? It's suitable to the content of the book, too; Miss Ellicott's School for the Magically Minded by Sage Blackwood looks like the kind of Middle Grade book I'd like to read--the children look fun and the adventure looks adventure-y.

P.S. See also my previous lists: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.