We’re starting with non-fiction not only because I have fewer covers in the category, but because I am less likely to read non-fiction in the coming days.

In some ways non-fiction covers are more difficult to judge because they need to reflect their subject. That said, I have read some non-fiction this year with singularly unappealing covers.

An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination (2021) Sheera Frenkel, Cecilia Kang
Publisher: Harper Collins.
Cover design by Nico Taylor

The expected here would probably be to go with the Facebook logo. But Zuckerberg isn’t simply the face of the company–he is the company, as this book lays out. So the sketch of half his face, with the only color fading tons of Facebook blue, is very eye catching and also very much reflected in the contents of the book.

Women Warriors: An Unexpected History (2019) Pamela D. Toler
Publisher: Beacon Press.
Cover art: Jo Anne Davies for Artful Doodlers, based on woodblock print of Tomoe Gozen by Toyohara Chikanobu

The cover is relatively simple, divided into three sections, with a print of woman in battle. But that portrays precisely the contents of the book. (If only the contents had been as good as the cover.)

Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine (2021) Olivia Campbell
Publisher: Park Row
No artist or photograph information given, but this was published “by arrangement with Harlequin” and they are crap at crediting cover artists.

This is another eye-catching cover, giving you precisely the contents of the book.

And again, I wish I’d like the book itself as much as the contents.

A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie (2015) by Kathryn Harkup
Publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma
No cover artist listed or readily found.

I love the art deco look of this book, which matches the time Christie when Christie started writing. And the single color is Paris green, which is a perfect touch.

No Man’s Land: The Trailblazing Women Who Ran Britain’s Most Extraordinary Military Hospital During World War I (2020) Wendy Moore.
Publisher: Basic Books.
Cover design by Ann Kirchner

This is another cover I really liked, and I think I prefer the grayscale to the sepia of the other book on a similar subject.

I also like the use of white space, which to me reflects much about the subject, from the outfits the women wore to the lack of modern knowledge about female doctors in the Great War.

For those who use eReaders, there are pictures in the back that shouldn’t be missed.

Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction  (2019) Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson.
Publisher: Quirk Books.
Illustrations by Natalya Balnova

Is the color Paris green? Possibly. I think I’ll assume it is and that someone was being very clever.

We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation (2021) Eric Garcia
Publisher: Mariner Books
Cover design by Pete Garceau

I live the simpleness of the cover. It’s text, with a mosaic motif, and it got my attention among a lot of covers I found busy, directed towards parents, or just uninteresting.

Basic Books (Hachette Book Group): 1
Beacon Press (Independent): 1
Bloomsbury Sigma (Bloomsbury): 1
Harper Collins : 1
Mariner Books (Harper Collins): 1
Park Row (Harper Collins): 1
Quirk Books (Independent): 1

No standouts here, aside from the fact there are three Harper Collins imprints.

The Books of 2022: Yearly Reading Roundup