Even The New York Times has something to say about copycat covers...

As you probably already know, I’m fascinated by books with similar covers. It turns out that back in 2005, Andrew Adam Newman commented on this phenomenon in The New York Times, pointing out the resemblance between the covers to The Task of This Translator by Todd Hasak-Lowy, Wearing Dad’s Head by Barry Yourgrau and The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (all pictured below), as well as providing examples of books that used the exact same images on their covers. Newman said:

When a book hits stores with a cover nearly identical to another’s, it’s the publishing equivalent of arriving at a party wearing the same dress as the hostess. But while book jacket look-alikes may chafe publishers, it happens more often than you might think.

After I prepared this post, I noticed that Sheri at Bookopolis had already posted about this article in a post entitled “Book Cover Faux-Pas.” Apologies, then, to those who read both our blogs and have seen this twice!

Edited to add:
Here are a few more covers that feature a similar bowler hat: Rubies in the Orchard by Lynda Resnick, Negotiating Perfection by Allan Fox, The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.

As I mentioned in the comments (and as is mentioned in the article), all of these hat covers are inspired by Magritte’s paintings.