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Friday, April 18, 2008

Judging a Book by Its Cover-

I admit it- I do sometimes judge a book by its cover, and sometimes I can't resist buying a book for its cover. Here are a few garden-related covers that struck my fancy lately-

I love the Art Deco feel of this one, and its simplicity-


This is from the 1920s, and I loved both the cover, which shows the classic 1920s suburban cottage garden, and the subject matter-


I picked this one up last year. Its a beautiful cover, and it also looks a lot like our woods out back do in the winter at sunset-


And how was I supposed to resist this?


19 comments:

Moooooog35 said...

This is EXACTLY how I decide what to buy at the convenience store.

Penthouse?
Juggs?
Hustler?
Bi-Sexual Commando He-Women?

It's all in the cover art. All in the cover art.

FreeOscar said...

My marmalade... where is it? It's on the cover of my book.

Damn!

Mike said...

Damn Moooooog35 stole my comment. Sort of.

Truthfully, more often than not, cover art is what attracts me to reading something new.

Malach the Merciless said...

I admit it too

DILLIGAF said...

love old books.

Got a first edition 'Round The Rugged Rocks' by David Niven. It went out of print when he brought out 'The Moons A Balloon' and few remember it existed I think.

Got a very old 'Wuthering Heights' and a second or third (I forget) edition 'Pillars of Wisdom' by Lawrence.

I look after 'em and read 'em too.

Mrs. Chili said...

I LOVE the frog!

I'm often disappointed when books don't have fun covers, so I totally get what you're saying here, Colonel.

Tequila Mockingbird said...

i want to read insect adventures. i had pet toads and frogs when i was a kid... sigh, this makes me nostalgic!

fu said...

my sister just picked up some book of Tennyson's poems from 1880 from a yard sale, it has an inscription in it, it was given to a teacher by her class in 1881, it's in good condition , she got it for 5 bucks.

Phoebe Fay said...

I didn't know that Tia Carrere was a nature lover.

Au naturale, sure, but I didn't know about nature. (Gratuitous nekkid link inserted for medicinal purposes only.)

Forrest Proper said...

Mooog Jugs!

C.Rag: Jugs!

Mike: Jugs!

Malach: Jugs!

Punk: Jugs!

Forrest Proper said...

Mrs. Chili: You have found my one weakness- Red Hot chiliburgers!

T-Bird: All frogs & toads are winners!

T-Velvet: If'n she bought it from a Red Sox fan, she got screwed.

Phoebe: TIA.... ahhhhhh....

Malicious Intent said...

I collect old books. I got into it when my mother use to be president of the friends of the new casle library. Every year they had a bood sale and would have books dropped off at the library for the sale, often from estates. I loved the old books, the leather covers, the quality and simplicity of them.
Here are a few that I have (each I got for a buck.)

The French Revolution; Epochs of History
New York; Charles Scribner's Sons
1909

The Burning of Rome by Alfred J. Church
London MacMillian and Co. and New York 1891

Of Human Bondage by V. Somerset Maugham; Grosset & Dunlap Publishers 1915

"We" by Charles Lindbergh
G. P. Putman's Sons - New York
The Knickerbocker Press 1927.

Anyway this is just a few, some are so old I dare not handle them anymore. The ones I have on plants and herbs came from my grandmother and I don't open it because I discovered she had put flowers and leaves on coresponding pages and pressed them dry in the book.

I really love the cover of Insect Adventures.

here today, gone tomorrow said...

They're all wonderful, but I seriously covet the "Insect Adventures".

Hungry Mother said...

One of the things that we miss in "beaches and boardwalks" land is a good bookstore of any kind. I'm in the Atlanta area for a few days and have already spent some quality time at Barnes & Noble. Hopefully, I'll run into a good used bookstore in my wanderings.

Forrest Proper said...

MI: If you use a little care, I wouldn't worry about handling them- a lot of old books are better constructed than many new books, whose pages pop out the moment you open them. that's wonderful that your grandmother pressed leaves in the herb books, we run into books like that sometime. ferns were very popular among Victorians for pressing in books- unfortunately they often left stains on the pages...

HTGT: It's mine, all mine!!!! bwhahahahah!!!!! <-evil laugh

HungryMo: Happy hunting!

Utah Savage said...

Concerning the frog, I bought a book when I was living in Santa Barbara called, Small Game Hunting. It's filled with tips, most of them organic and safe to other living creatures, on how to rid you house and garden of "pests." Now living in Utah and having a rather large and wooded yard, I find myself thumbing through it to find a way to deal with snails, slugs, and squirrels. The snails and slugs are only a problem for me when I plant vegetables, but the squirrels have invaded the attic spaces of the main house. The house has a tile roof, which the squirrels can easily enter, walnut in mouth. I have cut down three trees that were overhanging the roof, trying to make it harder for the squirrels to get onto the roof. Now they climb another tree, leap onto the phone line and get there that way. I have removed the walnut tree from my back yard, but I have neighbors on either side with walnut trees, so ridding the neighborhood of walnuts is not feasible. Finally found online a product designed just for the purpose of evicting squirrels and raccoons from home invasion. it is a highly intense strobe light that makes navigation, nesting and mating impossible for the critters. So, in the end, technology has won this round. But I still keep "Small Game Hunting" close at hand.

You are so right about old books being better made and not so fragile. Sad that book binders have gone the way of the printing press. Now I have so many hardcover books, new and read once that are starting to come apart at the seams, and their actual hard covers are so unattractive that they look cheap and shabby on the bookshelf next to their antique cousins.

anaglyph said...

Um. You know how you kindly sent me a hi rez scan of the mad scientist making wives SF cover? I wonder if you could do the same for the spider & frog? It would make a stunning t-shirt. I will as usual make it available at cost for all interested...

Forrest Proper said...

Utah: we are indeed in the Dark Ages of book production and design, and I don't see it getting better anytime soon.

Rev: But of course! I'll send it tomorrow.

Simply Curious said...

Rrrribbit!

Jugs!

Nah... I don't really like the word jugs. Tits? Boobs? Breastisiss? Bobbles? Nipple holders? Bouncy things?

Big ones?
Perky ones?
Little ones?
Smirky ones?
Some are round
and some are flat.
Some are even

smaller yet
.
Can you imagine that?

Sorry. A little off topic. I couldn't help myself.