Beautiful and unique book covers

Brilliantly original cover designs, typography and finishes can all help to make a book jump out at you, and so we've compiled a small selection of some of our favourite and most unique covers from the past few months.

Here at Picador we just can't resist a beautiful book – the kind you pick up in a bookshop and immediately want to take home and proudly display on your shelf. Prepare yourself for some serious #bookporn

Dear Mr. M, Herman Koch

Featuring an extended dust jacket that wraps all the way around the book to create an envelope effect, and with buttons and string that seem to leap off the cover.

The front of the Dear Mr M book jacket
The back of the Dear Mr M book jacket
The author description inner sleeve for the Dear Mr M jacket.

Dear Mr M

Book cover for Dear Mr M

Dear Mr. M,

I'd like to start by telling you that I'm doing better now. I do so because you probably have no idea that I was ever doing worse. Much worse, in fact, but I'll get to that later on.


Dear Mr. M is an unsettling and irresistibly readable novel, set in the world of writing and bookselling, by Herman Koch, the author of the international bestseller, The Dinner.


Not Working, Lisa Owens

The partial dustjacket can be removed to show off the pop art-style portrait that is printed directly on to the board below.

The front of the Not Working hardback book jacket.
The Not Working hardback next to its dust jacket.
The Not Working hardback without its dust jacket. An illustration of a worried woman's face is spread over both sides.

Not Working

by Lisa Owens

Claire Flannery has had more than a few sleepless nights lately. Maybe she shouldn't have walked out of her job with no idea what to do next. Maybe she should think before she speaks -- and maybe then her mother would start returning her calls. Maybe she should be spending more time going to art galleries, or reading up on current affairs, and less time in her pyjamas, entering competitions on the internet. Then again, maybe the perfect solution to life's problems only arises when you stop looking for it . . .


Walls Come Tumbling Down, Daniel Rachel

Like Not Working, this cover is printed straight onto the hardback board, using just three colours for a stark, simple yet eye-catching design. And it’s also well worth picking up for the gorgeous full-colour endpapers within.

Walls Come Tumbling Down hardback stood up and open.
The end papers of Walls Come Tumbling Down
The front of the hardback edition of Walls Come Tumbling Down

Walls Come Tumbling Down

Book cover for Walls Come Tumbling Down

Composed of interviews with over 150 of the key players at the time, Walls Come Tumbling Down is a fascinating, polyphonic and authoritative account of those crucial sixteen years in Britain's history, the pivotal period between 1976 and 1992 that saw politics and pop music come together for the first time in Britain's musical history; musicians and their fans suddenly became instigators of social change, and 'the political persuasion of musicians was as important as the songs they sang'. 



What is Not Yours is Not Yours, Helen Oyeyemi

The beautiful cover illustration and typography foiling are stunning in their own right, but this edition’s exposed spine helps to make it extra special.

The front of the What Is Yours Is Not Yours hardback jacket.
The spine of the book What Is Yours Is Not Yours
What Is Yours Is Not Yours stood open highlighting its spine, front and back covers.

What Is Yours Is Not Yours

by Helen Oyeyemi

A remarkable collection of short stories from one of our most gifted writers, Helen Oyeyemi.


Zero K, Don DeLillo

A translucent dust jacket can be removed to reveal the haunting mirrored cover design that lies beneath.

The hardback of Zero K with dust jacket on.
The hardback of Zero K with the dust jacket partially removed.
Zero K with the dust jacket removed.

Zero K

Book cover for Zero K

The wisest, richest, funniest, and most moving novel in years from Don DeLillo, one of the great American novelists of our time-an ode to language, at the heart of our humanity, a meditation on death, and an embrace of life.


Off the Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse, edited by Carol Ann Duffy

Produced especially for bookshops to celebrate the Shore to Shore tour, this collection boasts gold foil, designed endpapers and a bookmark ribbon.

The front cover of the Off The Shelf hardback.
The end papers of the Off The Shelf hardback.
A close up shot of the front cover of the Off The Shelf hardback.

Off The Shelf

by Carol Ann Duffy

Off the Shelf is a beautiful anthology of specially commissioned poems written in celebration of books and bookshops, edited by the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.


The Wonder, Emma Donoghue

The latest novel by the author of Room features one of our favourite recent works of foiling, with the bright gold contrasting beautifully with the darker blue and black.

The Wonder dust jacket of the hardback.
A close up of The Wonder dust jacket.

The Wonder

by Emma Donoghue

Inspired by numerous European and North American cases of 'fasting girls' between the sixteenth century and the twentieth, The Wonder is a psychological thriller about a child's murder happening in slow motion.


Everyone is Watching, Megan Bradbury

Not one but two fantastic designs! Remove the die-cut dust jacket and there’s another work of art on printed straight on to the hardback board below.

Everyone is Watching front cover of hardback.
Everyone Is Watching without dust jacket.
Everyone Is Watching stood open

Everyone Is Watching

by Megan Bradbury

Everyone is Watching is a novel about the men and women who have defined New York. Through the lives and perspectives of these great creators, artists and thinkers, and through other iconic works of art that capture its essence, New York itself solidifies. Complex, rich, sordid, tantalizing, it is constantly changing and evolving. Both intimate and epic in its sweep, Everyone is Watching is a love letter to New York and its people - past, present and future.


Island Home, Tim Winton

A stunner both inside and out. As well as the gorgeous foiling on the cover, the book itself features line block printed images by renowned illustrator Chris Wormell. 

Island Home dust jacket.
A chapter illustration of an octopus in Island Home.
A close up of Island Home front cover.

Island Home

Book cover for Island Home

'I grew up on the world's largest island.'

From his childhood, Tim Winton's relationship with the landscape around him - Australia's swamps and bush, rockpools, seacaves and scrub - has been as vital as any other connection. Whether camping in hidden inlets, walking in the high rocky desert fringe, or diving at Ningaloo Reef, Winton has felt the place seep into him - its rhythms, its dangers, its strange sustenance