Everybody judges books by their covers. Everybody. Even if you're reading an ebook. Even if you're reading it on a Kindle Braille. So post your favourites here. Some of mine:

All of Pratchett's Discworld Collector's Editions. This one in particular I adore.



And the Hobbit has had a few gorgeous images slapped around it over the years. This one is the one I like the best. I have it in a tiny pocket-sized books which is deliciously appropriate to Hobbitry.



There's a new print run out now so I may be unable to collect this series, but the previous run of Temeraire was lovely. They're all equally good, but as an example:



And my absolute favourite rendition of the Harry Potter series is the Signature edition set.



Looking at the above, there seems to be a pretty consistent thread in what I like. I like some pretty artwork, but I also like it to be fairly minimalist compared to the visual noise of traditional fantasy artwork covers. I'm fairly lucky in that UK publishers tend to print things more along these lines than the garish American versions. Compare this to this. Yeesh.

 

I've got this Hobbit cover, nice and glossy.



This cover pretty much convinced 8 year old me to beg mum for the book and started a years long Jacques binge.





There are so many more, but for the life of me I can't think of them.

 

The Stormlight Archive has good covers in the UK.

Brent Weeks also has good covers for most of his books. The Way of Shadows below, got me into his stuff at about 15.



Whilst I don't think they're especially good external covers, the maps and illustrations of these early Unwin published LotR copies are excellent, if done in a faintly cartoony style.



I have a pristine 1963 copy of all three and a 1951 print Hobbit, all of which I found in a second hand book shop in Wrexham for the princely sum of £6 the lot.

Some of the Culture novels are also good, especially use of weapons and Inversions.



Oh, and mustn't forget the Inheritance Cycle covers

 

Absolutely love this cover. It‘s actually what got me interested in the book in the first place. The fact that a really good story lies beneath it certainly doesn‘t hurt either.

 

The original cover for Uprooted was nice enough, but a new hardback has been released as well which I really like.

 

Marie Brennan's Memoirs of Lady Trent have stunning covers:

Exquisite drawings, magnificent beasts, and that hint of naturalist journal flavour to match the theme of the books.

 

Not my favorite book but we're talking covers and this one is superb. Made by an artist that makes alternate book covers, iirc.

 

Spoiler: post

Your taste in books is exquisite.

 

The Discworld books had two artists (special editions aside), both of which were awesome in their own different ways. The original artist, Josh Kirby, created images that were often of limited accuracy to the details of the book behind the cover, but totally captured the rather more eccentric vibe of the earlier books, while the second, Paul Kidby, did better, more accurate art - art I'd be more inclined to display - but that was a little less exciting, IMO.

Josh Kirby:







Paul Kidby:





Not Discworld, but I do love this cover for Good Omens, partly because I think it makes Aziraphale look like Gordon Ramsey, which makes him even funnier.

 

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Echoes of the Fall series has an amazing set of covers. I really love this stylized almost-stencil-art.

Spoiler

and the way that the deuteragonist turns into a velociraptor (and, rarely, a pterodactyl)

 

While the original Wheel of Time book covers were pretty mediocre, the new eBook covers are almost all superb, this being my favorite one.

 

Well it's got to be this of course

 

A somewhat mediocre book but with a fantastic cover.

 

The cover of a recent Polish edition of Slaughterhouse-Five.

 

And Cat's Cradle

 

Brazilian edition of Liber Null & Psychonaut, one of the key books about chaos magick.