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The Book Design Review published their Favourite Book Covers of 2009 and the list is marvel of art direction, typography and design. Although I note the books listed are all rather obscure reads — Would they struggle to find such rich pickings if they were restricted to the bestseller list?

A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read “The Lost Symbol”, by Dan Brown. They almost certainly liked it.

A World of Hits — The Economist