One name author

You know you have made it when all that is needed to state who you are is just your sirname. Case in point – Steinbeck.

I guess in case the name is not enough, it never hurts to include a pretty woman; and for that extra oomph, it looks like she is about to get  hurt. What is that guy brandishing?

Now, just in case you didn’t know Steinbeck’s first name, they do provide it on the back, along with a photo where he looks rather like John Hurt. Plus, you get to see all the other Steinbeck books that you should already know about (none of which I have heard of; where is Grapes Of Wrath? Of Mice And Men? Cannery Row? They don’t even mention Travels With Charlie which I blogged about before). About the only thing you don’t get is any idea of what this novel is about. I guess the name and the image are meant to be enough.

Next week, another rural flavoured cover…

Worldly Words

Today’s cover combines three Lost Library Things themes; the world tour, lingo and author photos.

The dreamy beautiful girl cover is great but the real fun is to be had by reading the blurb.

Wow. What a rush. First we deal with all the “multifarious” forms of that reallyoverused word love, then we whip around the world America to Europe to Africa and then the moods, the emotions, the spectrum of feeling that Henry passes through. Having just recovered from that we then get the cast of extras. This blurb is like a shopping list. And then there is the words, such words as you just don’t hear any that much more, and I don’t just mean gaiety. I resolve to use mercurial sometime this week in conversation.

Then there is the back of the dust jacket. Here we have another great author picture; thoughtful, elegant, chin supported. To have such a gushing compliment from Albert Camus is a surefire winner, but to be credited with creating the Geographical Novel, I don’t know, it does sound like a bit of a back handed compliment to me.

Wild Times in the West End

Next stop on our book cover world tour is Soho, London, to see the layabouts and their girls.

Look, a giant smoking girl sitting on a building.

And how about the author’s name? Wildeblood; great name for an author for a wild party life book like this. I also admire his photom, with his chin resting on his fist. Reminds me of that scene from Napoleon Dynamite.

See the World with Lost Library Thing

Our book last week was set in Burma; this week we go to Shanghai. You can always count on an exotic beauty to be on the cover of a novel set in a faraway place. As a bonus, the author on the back also counts as an exotic beauty.

 

Wanton? Do you want one?

Ah, ‘wanton’. There’s a word that you just don’t hear that much anymore; except in Asian restaurants.

Today’s book is a true Lost Library Thing Classic. I just sold this one over the weekend. Clever use of image and title, but my partner did point out that there is not much of the cover star that is actually descending or even pointing down.

I am also so glad that they do not have author photos like that any more. The disembodied head look is just plain weird. Also weird is the author’s choice of name for his protagonist. I mean, sure, go for an unusual name, but Solveig? How alluring can a woman be with a name like that? Hopefully she writes under a pen name in the book.

Gun It

Firstly, thanks go out to UltUp for the kind words and for sharing her insight into what changes and what doesn’t. I guess book covers have changed at least.  

Notice anything different about the previous entry in this Girls and Guns series? The Girl did not have the Gun, which is kind of rare for covers like these. Here is another one, with at least the Girl and Gun in close proximity, and some great red pants. And look, it is not a Spillane book. Rather, we have returned to the Matt Helm series, that we saw way back at the start.

I should do another series looking at the author pictures. I think Don Hamilton is trying to be a very cool Hemmingway.