The Best Book Covers of 2015, According to The New York Times

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it’s hard not to be swayed by these gorgeous designs. Matt Dorfman, the art director of The New York Times Book Review, has just released his top 12 picks for the best literary cover art of 2015.

His selections include Matt Sumell’s debut novel Making Nice, a re-release of Flannery O’Connor’s beloved story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge, and Nikolaus Wachsmann's comprehensive KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. According to Dorfman, the one thread connecting the covers is that they each pose an intriguing question. The book jackets caused him to "stop, stare, and ask aloud to no one in particular what the cover means, only to turn to the first page and then the following and then the one after that and onward,” he wrote. You can check out 12 of the year’s most striking book covers below.