Cover girls: this year's book jacket fashions

As the London Book Fair showcases this year's literary trends, we showcase the latest must-have looks
by: John Dugdale



Totes on trend ... the covers for Kate Atkinson and Francesca Segal's new novels

What's the fashionable book wearing, with publishing's spring/summer season just begun and its answer to London Fashion Week - the London Book Fair - starting tomorrow? Here are the hottest current looks in jackets; some would call them "cliches", but at Guardian books we prefer "trends".

Look: woman or girl's back in period frock

Example (latest from): Kate Atkinson
Also worn by: plenty, from Francesca Segal to Kate Summerscale
What it says: you'll like her - heroine and author - but she's a bit quirky, elusive and old-fashioned

Look: pure text - just name and title

Example: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Also worn by: Julian Barnes, Gillian Flynn
What it says: bow down - author is such a god that usual visual accessories would be vulgar




Look: red (lettering or background - usually non-fiction)
Example: David Goodhart
Also worn by: eight of the 12 Orwell prize longlistees
What it says: really not as dull as it sounds, trust us; sexy material there if you look for it, admittedly well-buried

Look: sunset and silhouette(s)

Example: Khaled Hosseini
Also worn by: Jhumpa Lahiri, Romesh Gunesekera; also crime, eg Lee Child
What it says: really not as bleak as it sounds; setting is lovely, anyway





Look: giant ancient symbolic object, eg torque
Example: Lindsey Davis
Also worn by: fantasy and hist-fic writers envious of George RR Martin
What it says: series bound to become another HBO drama and cult - or at least we desperately hope it is

Look: WTF – cover image no obvious relation to book

Example: JM Coetzee - jacket seems to be photo of English interwar trio post-tennis, but novel is called The Childhood Of Jesus and about strange Latin utopia
Also worn by: no one yet, but could start trend like McQueen bonkers frocks
What it says: help!




Look: suited man's back, often running
Example: Roger Hobbs
Also worn by: Chris Morgan Jones, Daniel Silva
What it says: trad blokey thriller, by writer who luckily is not a big enough name to make a fuss about our insultingly hackneyed jacket

Look: multicoloured cover resembling gallery art
Example: Taiye Selasi
Also worn by: Zadie Smith, Monica Ali
What it says: we're convinced novel's vibrant multiculturalism will make other fiction seem grey and stale (but have fingers crossed that full-on cover and book alike won't put off punters rather than wowing them)




Look: handwritten name and title, or jumbled typeface
Example: Nicola Barker
Also worn by: Jonathan Safran Foer, Will Self
What it says: linguistic antics from madcap maverick. Of course it's almost unreadable - didn't you get cover's subtext?


Look: copycat cover - references earlier hit crudely or subtly

Example: Sabine Durrant (mimics orange-on-black palette of Flynn's Gone Girl)
Also worn by: dozens of erotica titles imitating EL James black look; SJ Watson wannabes
What it says: we're still gutted about missing out on zillion-selling X, but might pull off a limited recovery if we can convince you Y is almost as good



And what's not hot? On the way out are yellows and pastels; the curious short-lived vogue for showing only women's feet or arms; images of furniture; ostensibly hand-illustrated covers (eg The Art of Fielding) - and the retro look in general has become passe

from: Guardian