For their 1,000th issue, EW has gathered up a slew of “classics” from the past 25 years, from movie posters to television to music… to book covers: the top 25 in each category. Being a designer, specifically a book designer, I’ll stick with the one category.
Unlimited room for agreement and disagreement / arguments and complaining for the covers on this list. Some don’t even make sense to me, but that happens most of the time when I walk into the bookstore, so why should this list be any different? One thing’s for sure: Chip Kidd gets kudos for making the list an amazing 5 times. Also very glad to see Rodrigo Corral’s A Million Little Pieces make it high on the list… always been one of my favorite covers.
Don’t have time to scare up images of these, but I’m sure someone will before too long. For now, you’ll just have to live with a simple listing, and Google the titles if you don’t know what the cover looks like…
1. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (Designer: Fred Marcellino, 1986)
2. A Million Little Pieces, James Frey (Rodrigo Corral, 2006)
3. Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer (Anne Chalmers, 2002)
4. Born to Kvetch, Michael Wex (Jennifer Carrow, 2005)
5. Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (Chip Kidd, 1990)
6. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (Chris Ware, 2000)
7. The Wind-up Bird Chronicles, Haruki Murakami (Chip Kidd, 1997)
8. Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld (Allison Saltzman, 2005)
9. August, Judith Rossner (Fred Marcellino, 1983)
10. Oh The Glory Of It All, Sean Wilsey (Non-Format, 2005)
11. Glamorama, Bret Easton Ellis (Chip Kidd, 1998)
12. Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris (Rymn Massand, 1997)
13. The Fuck-Up, Arthur Nersesian (Deklah Polansky, 1997)
14. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (Archie Ferguson, 1995)
15. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (paperback original) (Lorraine Louie, 1984)
16. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (Martha Kennedy, 2001)
17. Hairstyles of the Damned, Joe Meno (Pirate Signal International, 2004)
18. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (Tom Tafuri/One Plus One Studio, 1987)
19. A Wolf at The Table, Augusten Burroughs (Chip Kidd, 2007)
20. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling (Mary GrandPré, 1997)
21. Blindness, José Saramago (Claudine Guerguerian, 1998)
22. All The Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy (Chip Kidd, 1992)
23. Geek Love, Katharine Dunn (Chip Kidd, 1989)
24. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Mark Haddon (Michael Ian Kaye, 2003)
25. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Michael Chabon (Will Staehle, 2007)
