The stabbing of Salman Rushdie in 2022 was a uniquely horrifying event in the literary world, the real world, and, well, any world. And thus as someone who writes about design and publishing, I wondered how the cover to Rushdie’s memoir in the wake of the attack—Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder—would take shape.
Given the weight of the assignment, it’s perhaps no surprise that it took a lot of work. Or, as designer Arsh Raziuddin put it, “5 [million] options for weeks on end.” You can see a fraction of those comps on Raziuddin’s Instagram—and below, you can find the final cover that hit bookstores last week. It’s restrained, if not elegant—yet hauntingly captures the story of Rushdie’s attack and his recovery in the wake of it.
Elsewhere this month: Na Kim delivers a perfect watercolor cover with some Ralph Steadman vibes for Rough Trade—a novel set around opium smugglers in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s. Emily Mahon seems to utterly nail the tone of The Most Famous Girl in the World—which isn’t out until September, but features the tagline, “Stars―they’re just like us! Except much, much worse.” And Tom Etherington hypnotically delves into book design’s past.
Here are 15 of our favorite book covers that were revealed or published this month.
