Favorite Dust Jackets of 2012 - So Far

Just thirty days from 2012's halfway point, I thought I would feature some of the more striking cover art from the new books I've read through May.  You will notice quite a contrast in styles here, but what the covers have in common, in addition to their sheer beauty, is how much each of them tells potential readers about what to expect from their book.

I love the colors and the contrasting lights of this cover.  The picture gives a good feel for what it must be like for a young, mediocre pitcher to find himself all alone, with tens of thousands of eyeballs focused on him, as he struggles to find the plate often enough to survive the experience.  (Memoir)

The Bastard Year is a coming-of-age novel focusing on a young man who learns that his parents are not the people he imagined them to be just a few months earlier.  You can feel the boy's loneliness here even before you read the first page.  (Novel)

This cover leaves no doubt what The Lifeboat is all about, does it?  That tiny little speck on the ocean is going to be home to the best and worst of every human emotion imaginable before rescue comes.  The blending of the skyline with the water makes the little lifeboat seem even less significant than it already is.  (Novel)

Mudwoman is oh, so Joyce Carol Oatesish - and the cover sets the book's spooky tone long before the first page of this rather long novel will be turned.  (Novel)

Freaks is the only one of these books that I have not read in its entirety- because it is, so far, only available in Europe.  I have, however, read one of the short stories in this collection (and featured it on Book Chase).  The cartoon art featured on the book's cover seems to be a near perfect representation of these stories involving people with unusual (but aren't they all, I suppose) superpowers.  And I really like the cover...  (Short Stories)

Joe Lansdale has done it again.  Edge of Dark Water is a very dark, sort of  Huck-Finnish novel that takes place up and down what proves to be a very dangerous river for all involved.  The reader can pretty much guess the book's overall tone from this cover.  (novel)

A little girl the reader never meets in life is at the center of Carry the One.  What happens to her haunts the book's main characters for decades (thus, each of them "carries the one") and I particularly like the way the girl stands all alone at the center of this image.  That's the story in a nutshell.

Holy Ghost Girl is the true story of a little girl who grew up following a tent preacher across the U.S. because her mother was infatuated with him.  Donna Johnson had it all figured out long before her mother twigged to the truth.  But, considering the cover image, did I really have to tell you that?  (Memoir)

I can't wait to see what images I collect during the rest of the year because I use my cover collection as the image feed to my screensaver.  I sometimes purposely allow the screensaver to kick in, in fact, because I so much enjoy watching them float by, one by one, for minutes at a time.  Weird...I know.