Light in August by William Faulkner. Vintage International trade paperback. Design by Marc J. Cohen from a photograph by Marion Post Wolcott. I wrote about Light in August here. Joe Christmas is a Jesus Christ figure.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. An oversized trade paperback edition with French flaps and deckle edges from Penguin. Cover design by Paul Buckley, using art by Andrew Davidson. This was part of a class set I used in a school where I used to teach; it left with me when I left. Jim Casy is a Jesus Christ figure.
The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction by Stephen Crane. A cheap trade paperback by Barnes & Nobles Classics. Cover design by Dutton & Sherman, using a detail from Winsolw Homer’s painting Drum and Bugle Corp, Civil War Encampment. Another class set copy that made its way to my home. Jim Conklin is a Jesus Christ figure.
Vladimir Nabokov’s recipe for eggs (à la Nabocoque, natch)–
Boil water in a saucepan (bubbles mean it is boiling!). Take two eggs (for one person) out of the refrigerator. Hold them under the hot tap water to make them ready for what awaits them.
Place each in a pan, one after the other, and let them slip soundlessly into the (boiling) water. Consult your wristwatch. Stand over them with a spoon preventing them (they are apt to roll) from knocking against the damned side of the pan.
If, however, an egg cracks in the water (now bubbling like mad) and starts to disgorge a cloud of white stuff like a medium in an oldfashioned seance, fish it out and throw it away. Take another and be more careful.
After 200 seconds have passed, or, say, 240 (taking interruptions into account), start scooping the eggs out. Place them, round end up, in two egg cups. With a small spoon tap-tap in a circle and hen pry open the lid of the shell. Have some salt and buttered bread (white) ready. Eat.
V.N.
November 18, 1972
Biblioklept 