Angels by Denis Johnson. 1989 Vintage Contemporaries trade paperback. Cover design by Lorraine Louie. Cover illustration by Chris Moore. Fiskadoro by Denis Johnson. 1986 Vintage Contemporaries trade paperback. Cover design by Lorraine Louie. Cover illustration by Rick Lovell. The Stars at Noon by Denis Johnson. 1988 Vintage Contemporaries trade paperback. Cover design by Lorraine Louie. Cover illustration by Rick Lovell.
Airships by Barry Hannah. 1994 trade paperback by Grove Press. Cover design by Rick Pracher. The cover painting is Chrysanthemum by Hannah’s contemporary, the photorealist painter Glennray Tutor. Hannah wrote an essay about Tutor’s work called “Deep Pop,” declaring Once one’s amazement at the astonishing precision in the paintings of Glennray Tutor has had time to sink in,… Continue reading Three Books
J R by William Gaddis. 1993 trade paperback edition by Penguin. Cover art is a detail of an Associated Gas and Electric Company stock certificate “Courtesy of William Gaddis.” No designer credited. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. 1997 first paperback printing edition by Abacus (Great Britain). No designer credited. The Lost Scrapbook by Evan Dara.… Continue reading Three Books
The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller. 1964 paperback by Penguin Books. Cover drawing by the English cartoonist and art critic Osbert Lancaster. The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir. 1964 paperback by Penguin Books. Cover art by Anthony Common. The Holy Sinner by Thomas Mann. 1961 paperback by Penguin Books. Cover art by the… Continue reading Three Books
Last week on Three Books, I featured three books I kinda sorta maybe plan to read in 2016. Here are three more: Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon. First edition hardback by Little, Brown (1984). Jacket design by Fred Marcellino. I’ve only read “Entropy” from this collection so far. (I actually tried to use it in… Continue reading Three Books
Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte. English translation by Cesare Foligno. 2005 trade paperback by NYRB. Cover painting is Odd Nerdrum’s The Dentures; cover design by Katy Homans. Bought this a while ago and have been meaning to take a serious crack at it for some time now. 1982 Janine by Alasdair Gray. 1985 trade paperback by Penguin. No designer… Continue reading Three Books
These were my three favorite (?!) reading experiences in 2015: Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. 1973 first edition trade paperback by Viking. Cover design and illustration by Marc Getter. Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson. First Vintage Contemporaries edition, trade paperback, 1998. Cover design by Carol Devine Carson. Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed. 1978 mass market… Continue reading Three Books (or, My three favorite reading experiences in 2015)
Homesick: New & Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin. Lovely Black Sparrow trade edition, 1990; design by Barbara Martin. An amazing book, a revelation to me. I picked it up looking for the posthumous collection A Manual for Cleaning Women (that track is collected here) based on, well, the hype. But the hype was more than… Continue reading Three Books
Masquerade and Other Stories by Robert Walser. English translation by Susan Bernofsky. 1990 trade paperback published by The Johns Hopkins UP. Cover design and lettering by Ann Walston. The illustration is a detail from Adolf Wölfli’s 1917 Arnica Flower. This was the first Walser I read. The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa. English translation by Archibald Colqhoun. A… Continue reading Three Books
Speedboat by Renata Adler. 1988 trade paperback edition by Perennial Fiction Library (Harper & Row). No designer credited, but the cover illustration is by Steve Guarnaccia. A strange and funny (anti-)novel. The Uses of Literature by Italo Calvino (trans. Patrick Creagh). 1986 trade paperback by Harvest/HBJ. Design by Kaelin Chappell, with a cover illustration by Saul… Continue reading Three Books
Usually, these Three Books posts come from my own library (with scans of the covers and not photos). Today’s post features books from my uncle’s library (my family stayed with my aunt and uncle for the Thanksgiving week and had a marvelous time—thanks for asking). Anyway, my uncle had a tremendous early influence on the… Continue reading Three Books
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.Sixty-second printing of a mass market paperback Ballantine Books edition (1977). No designer is credited, but the cover painting, titled, The Hills: Hobbiton-across-the-Water, is by Tolkien. All three books were a gift from my aunt. The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien.Sixtieth printing of a mass market paperback Ballantine Books edition (1978).… Continue reading Three Books
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. 1948 Grosset & Dunlop hardback. The designer credit goes to Oscar Ogg, but the dark and often violent images (many in full color) are by Lynd Ward. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. A 1986 oversized hardback edition from dilithium Press. No designer credited, but he illustrations are by Milo Winter (from… Continue reading Three Books
Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed. 1978 mass market paperback by Bard Books, a division of Avon Books. No designer or illustrator credited. I picked this copy up after giving away the edition I read this summer. An amazing novel. Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down by Ishmael Reed. 1977 mass market paperback by Bard Books, a division of… Continue reading Three Books
The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald. 1979 2nd edition hardback from FS&G. Jacket design by Janet Halverson. A marvelous book—Fitzgerald’s editing is wonderful here—there’s a rich index that makes this book a pick me up and read me anytime kind of resource. Particularly great are O’Connor’s letters to ‘A,’ a… Continue reading Three Books
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. First edition trade paperback by The University of California Press, based on the 1979 Arion Press edition. Cover illustration by Barry Moser. I have too many copies of Moby-Dick. Call Me Ishmael by Charles Olson. 1971 trade paperback by City Lights Books. No designer credited. Call Me Ishmael is a perfect book. Selected Tales… Continue reading Three Books
The Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald; edited by Edmund Wilson. A 1956 New Directions mass market paperback. No designer credited. The Crack-Up collects autobiographical pieces by Fitzgerald, along with letters and essays by some of Fitzgerald’s contemporaries and near-contemporaries—but the highlight is the inclusion of Fitzgerald’s note-books. (I shamelessly plundered them on this blog for years). Its cover… Continue reading Three Books
Biblioklept 