In celebration of April 19th, aka Bicycle Day, I’ve put together a collection of trippy, weird, and sorta-kinda psychedelic cover designs. Some were chosen for their content, others purely for how their designs made me feel. You can always explore the tag “trippy” to see more covers like these.
*If you’re able to provide any missing design credits, please write me at ineedabookcover.site@gmail.com or DM me @zoe-norvell.
Blog post cover image by the extraordinary Brian Blomerth. Be sure to check out his books Bicycle Day (2019), a Technicolor retelling of the discovery of LSD, and Mycelium Wassonii (2021), an account of “the lives and trips of R. Gordon and Valentina Wasson, the pioneering scientist couple responsible for popularizing the use of psychedelic mushrooms in the United States.” Both are published by Anthology Editions/Mexican Summer.



Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Illustrator: Ralph Stedman, 1971

Ways of Being by James Bridle
Designer: Pablo Delcan

The Psychedelic CEO by W. Murray Rodgers

Babble On by Andrew Brobyn
Designer: Laura Boyle

Vagablonde by Anna Dorn
Designer: Jaya Nicely

Through the Billboard Promised Land Without Ever Stopping by Derek Jarman
Designer: Theo Inglis

Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom
Designer: Jaya Nicely

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou
Designer: Darren Haggar, Illustrator: Aleia & Sam Copeland

End of the World House by Adrienne Celt
Designer: David Litman

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
Riverhead, 2014

No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Designer: Lauren Peters-Collaer

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Illustrator: Salvador Dalí

The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin

Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer
Designer: Rodrigo Corral Studio

The Tryst by Monique Roffey
Designer: June Park

Pathological by Sarah Fay
Designer: Pete Garceau

Till the Wheels Fall Off by Brad Zellar
Designer: Alban Fischer

Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones
Coffee House Press, 2019

In Moonland by Miles Allinson
Designer: Allison Colpoys

Hollow by B. Catling
Designer: Pablo Delcan

The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey
Designer: Katie Klimowicz

Fungipedia by Lawrence Millman
Designer: Chris Ferrante

Fieldwork by Iliana Regan
Designer: Morgan Krehbiel

Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan

Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality by Lindsay Wong
Designer: Emma Dolan

The Secret Life of Fungi by Aliya Whiteley
Designer: Faceout Studio/SpencerFuller

The Psilocybin Handbook for Women by Jennifer Chesak

Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion by Michelle Janikian

Mushroom Botanical Art by Toshimitsu Fukiharu

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

This is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan

The Essential Ginsberg edited by Michael Schumacher
Designer: Milan Bozic

High Weirdness by Erik Davis

The Timothy Leary Project by Jennifer Ulrich

The Most Dangerous Man in America by Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis

Sacred Knowledge by William A. Richards

Acid Test by Tom Shroder

A Tiger in the Land of Dreams by Tiger Tateishi
