Being a bibliomaniac with a major in graphic design, it is impossible for me not to judge a book by its cover. I love to collect books with beautiful cover designs or with typesets I personally admire (btw, I'm in love with serif typefaces in small font sizes, and nothing can serve me better than a thousand-page book in a single volume because it holds like a big loaf of bread in my hand, although it is for sure I am never going to finish such a giant book.) I also collect craft papers and postcards with book cover designs, and pic 1 is one such example from my collection on campus. 
I would love to write a post on the cover designs from my collection of books at school, but since I have a giant collection (I haven't been able to figure out the exact number of the books I store in my dorm room, but my best estimation would be between 200 to 300, call me insane), that would be an impossible task to do. Therefore, I decided to introduce you to only a few of them, and shift my focus to comparing cover designs from English speaking countries (since a large portion of my collection were purchased in Dublin) and from my own country, China. 
An interesting (yet embarrassing) phenomenon I have noticed as I was picking out cover designs to include in this post is that while publishers from the West publish mostly authors from their own countries, a large portion of the books produced in China are translated works. I was struggling to find Chinese cover designs of books written by our own authors. It is depressing to me as someone who wishes to work in the book industry. But I don't want to get too deep into the reason behind this. The fact that translated works take up a giant proportion of the Chinese book market has a direct effect on cover designs in China—they have more elements to include in a limited space, with basic elements being the original title, the name of the author in his/her original language, a Chinese translation of the title, a Chinese translation of the author's name, and the name of the translator. Hence, Chinese cover designs are usually crowded. Pictures 2-4 are examples of the typical Chinese cover designs (in my mind)of translated works. One thing I notice in pic 2 is that while the original title is Everybody Behaves Badly, the Chinese translation literally means "the whole Paris belongs to me", which exposes more information in regard to the book's content. (Btw the book is written by Hemingway.) It is not a rare occurrence for Chinese translations of book titles to have drastically different meanings from the original titles. I personally think of it as that the translators come up with an entirely new title in Chinese based on their own interpretations of the books they translate. 
The cover designs in pictures 5 and 6 are less congested with words and have quieter and more succinct layouts (for your interest, we call this a "sexually apathetic" style in China). This is only possible because the font sizes are reduced to the smallest possible. On the other hand, book covers in the Western world can have a clear and concise look even if they incorporate giant letters not only because they have less basic elements to work with than translated works, but also that the Roman alphabet possesses an inherent advantage of a less condensed look in comparison to Chinese characters, as evident in pic 7.
A few other things...
Classic Penguin: Cover to Cover (pic 8) is a book I recently purchased on Amazon. It had been on my wish list for a whole semester, with the recommendation from a Chinese social media account that focuses on the publishing industry. As suggested by its title, the book is a giant exhibition of book covers that have been used by Penguin. I haven't had a chance to read it, but it's guaranteed to treat my passion for book design well.
Pic 9 is a new Chinese edition of The Stranger by Camus I happened to find today. It is definitely different from my copy of the Chinese edition of The Stranger. It has me stuck in awe that classical literature can have dozens of cover designs out in the world and readers can still get hyped every time a new edition releases.
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