Vision of Medea, 1828 by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)
The Incubus Leaving Two Sleeping Women, 1793 by Henry Fuseli (1741–1825)
The Weeping Woman, 1942 by Raúl Anguiano (1915–2006)
Paroxysm, 1963 by Carlos Raquel Rivera (1923–1999)
Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe. Fat trade paperback by Vintage; most recent date indicates 1975 but that can’t be right. No designer credited.
You know Poe.
Tell My Horse by Zora Neale Hurston. 1983 trade paperback edition from Turtle Island. Neither designer nor photographer are credited.
A wonderful and weird trip to Jamaica and Haiti…and zombies!
From Hell by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell. 2004 irregular-big trade paperback from Top Shelf. No designer/artist credited, but it’s clearly Campbell’s work.
One of my favorite scary novels ever. I reviewed it like a decade ago on this site. I found this postcard in it, a collage by the surealist Jacques Prévert:
The postcard, from James Cooke, included this text, a quote of Cormac McCarthy’s horror novel Blood Meridian:
They entered the city haggard and filthy and reeking with the blood of the citizenry for whose protection they had contracted.
James won a postcard-based contest on this site like a decade ago, god love him.
À la bonne franquette (A Simple Meal), 2019 by Yves Tessier (b. 1955)
Fantasy Based on Goethe’s Faust, 1834 by Theodor von Holst (1810–1844)
Dead Soldier (Fascism), 1940 by Francisco Dosamantes (1911-1986)
Untitled, 1962 by Marcelo Grassman (1925–2013)
Portrait of a Boy, c. 1500 by Pinturicchio (Bernardino di Betto, 1454–1513)
Corners of King Solomon, 1970 by Consuelo González Amezcua (1903–1975)
The Fortune Teller Was Mistaken, 2017 by Gregory Ferrand (b. 1975)
From The Portable February, 2009, Drag City.
Annunciation, 1944 by Wilfredo Lam (1902-1982)
Drive-in Dancers, 2018 by Jamie Adams (b. 1961)
Taking Care by Joy Williams. 1985 trade paperback from Vintage Contemporaries. Cover design by Lorraine Louie. Cover illustration by Rick Lovell.
I read this book earlier this year. It’s really great. I reviewed it on this site, writing—
These are stories of domestic doom and incipient madness, alcoholism and lost pets. There’s humor here, but the humor is ice dry, and never applied as even a palliative to the central sadness of Taking Care. Williams’ humor is something closer to cosmic absurdity, a recognition of the ambiguity at the core of being human, of not knowing. It’s the humor of two girls eating chips on a beach, unable to decide if the people they are gazing at are drowning or just having a good time.
Norwood by Charles Portis. 1985 trade paperback by Vintage Contemporaries. Cover design by Lorraine Louie. Cover illustration by Rick Lovell.
Norwood isn’t the best book I’ve read so far this year but it is the book I most enjoyed reading, and after reading it, I sought everything else by Portis (consuming everything so far except the late novel Gringos, which I’m sort of holding onto as like…I dunno? A consolation prize at some point? Is that grim?). I picked Norwood up on a wonderful whim this summer, possibly simply because it was a Vintage Contemporaries edition (and slim). I’m so glad I did. Great read.
Cathedral by Raymond Carver. 1989 trade paperback from Vintage Contemporaries. Cover design by Lorraine Louie. Cover illustration by Garnet Henderson.
This was the first Vintage Contemporaries edition I ever bought. I bought it when I was maybe 17, sometime in the late nineties, I guess, and I was always vaguely embarrassed of the cover, especially when I used it in not one but two college courses at the end of that decade (Carver was still very cool in that era. He seems to have fallen out of favor. Good for him!) Henderson’s ultra-literal cover of the story “Cathedral” is…something. (I still prefer Lovell’s whimsical work, which is more, uh, I dunno, metaphysical (?)). I circled four short story titles on the table of contents for some reason: “A Small Good Thing,” “Where I’m Calling From,” “Vitamins,” and “Cathedral.” All great numbers. I also am fond of “Feathers” and “Chef’s House,” but I didn’t circle those titles. The rest of the stories I don’t remember, although I’m sure I read them at least once or twice.
Biblioklept 