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Pinch Hitting Since Maggie's feeling under the weather, I thought I'd fill in with a cover I've seen a few times recently in the inspirational nonfiction section of our Local Grocery Chain(TM)'s bookshelves. Behold, Here for You: It ain't so ugly, maybe, but I swear that when you see this book in amongst others on the shelf, the topmost portion of the cover photo doesn't catch your eye, and you really can't tell that you've got a mom and her daughter sitting next to each on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away. Maybe my mind's just a bit on the macabre side, but every time I've seen this book in the store my first thought has been "double suicide." Way to build those bonds, Mom You may be interested in knowing that Susie Shellenberger is editor of Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family's teen girl mag, Brio. Judging from the prominent (for Focus on the Family, at any rate) lack of mention of family in her author bios, I'm guessing that Ms Shellenberger, besides being proud owner of a 150-pound St.
But what I like most of all is the blurb from Best Sellers. It tells us that this book "Invites comparison to Tolkein's Lord of the Rings" Like, "Tolkein's Lord of the Rings is awesome.
Imagine Sam Spade as a wizard and you pretty much get the idea. Since I'm also (generally) a fan of "high fantasy" I figured I'd give Furies of Calderon a whirl. It was, sadly, pretty mediocre, but you didn't come here for my recommendations, right? Yeah, like that's not trying to attract 14 year-old boys. Hey, when something works, there's no shame in reusing it. "My bulbous spear will certainly take care of these water lions!"
I swore I wouldn't do that to you again, and then look what happens! Okay, I'm waffling because, quite frankly, I don't actually have a book to post right now. Mostly it's weird things happening at the reference desk. You ever want to see crazy people go to your downtown library on a full moon and watch the folks who come to the reference desk. Of course, you'll be one of the weirdos hanging out in the library on a full moon, too, so watch out!
Also, since I've let the cat out of the bag that I'm here in the lovely town of Asheville (note to stalkers and secret admirers: I like chocolate), I figure it's a good time to invite all my closest readers to meet me and DocTurtle (if I can convince him) at Burgermeister on Haywood Road in West Asheville on Sunday, May 4th at 1:30pm for burgers, beers, and a big ole basket of onion rings. And finally, on a more personal note, I've recently (after thirty some odd years) discovered my dream job.
Apparently publishing people will pay someone to read their slush piles. So if any of my publishing readers have some manuscripts just dyin' to be read, let me know.
Phriday is for Phalluses Boooooooooooooooorn Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, as free as the dolphin between my leeeeeeeeeeeegs! Sent in by Carrie Once upon a time, when DocTurtle and I were first gettin' to know one another, we were on the phone when he said, "Excuse me, I have to go drain my pasta." As previously mentioned, I seem to have the mind of a thirteen year old boy residing somewhere in the back of my head, so I thought for sure he was telling me he had to go pee. Sent in by BikerPuppy And finally, Legolas here seems to have, er, grown a bit... Sent in by Writtenwyrdd Is that a sword in your pocket, or are you happy to see me? I wish I could have found a larger picture for this because then you could see that, on the right, is a naked woman with her back to us.
Burnsie likes to try and crawl between me and the chair IN WHICH I'M SITTING making for a very squashed dog under my butt. RichterCa suggests, and I agree, that the following really needs to be added to the Lord's Prayer. Lead us not into the Land of Zombies, but Deliver us from Wolves... So a while back I get an e-mail from TheCritic saying that I've just got to find a copy of the White Hotel because he'd given the book away but remembers the cover with some kind of serious fear and awe. Yesterday I get an e-mail from TheCritic letting me know that the cover had SOOOOOO disturbed him that he went out of his way to track down his friend and have the cover scanned. It's worrisome when the LEAST disturbing thing on a cover is a NAZI! And finally, PH sends us what could quite possibly be the mascot of this site.
There are bad covers, and there are bad covers, but there's just something about science fiction that brings out the worst in a graphic designer. I'll bet there are some halfway decent stories in this volume, but you wouldn't know it from the front. This book appeared in 1997, yet this image can't have been worked up any more recently than 1975. With the Farrah Fawcett hair and the classic Bond-girl pose, this chick is ready to boogie oogie oogie.
A Perfect World (making the world a better place one cartoon at a time) decided to draw a one panel cartoon for every line? Well, folks, she's up to chapter 42 now and there seems to be no stopping!
Guest Blogger Snow Faithful reader Snow sent the following e-mail to me and it needs no embellishment. Whenever I see a snarkworthy cover, I whip out my cellphone and snap a picture. Boobs, pointed ears, big hair, mismatched shinguards, sword, bow, things dangling from "the great unknown", dragons, and what? Not to let teenage boys have all of the fun, here's wank fodder for the mature-ish woman. It's not just smut, it's expensive, big fancy paperback smut.
Trash So my Mom (the ever-popular commenter Maughtamom, for those of you who need obvious things pointed out, which I know is none of my super-smart and super-cool readers so this whole aside has been pointless) looks over to the sidebar at the random books from my Library Thing account and keeps asking me why I read such crap. And I've written the preceding two sentences (which may possibly be the longest sentences ever seen on this blog) because I find myself reading the book How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls by Zoey Dean.
Why yes, that is the plot of every chick lit EVER now that The Devil Wears Prada has shown us how it's done. And I'm pretty sure that Zoey Dean doesn't actually exist (the author bio is scanty, there's no picture, and the book is copywritten by Alloy Entertainment which has its own nice little graphicon and a swanky address in New York). But I know you didn't come here to get a literary review, you came here to see stupid covers, so here ya go: I find it odd that we no longer need a chick on the cover of our chick lit, simply a shiny bikini and lots of bling. Never fear, although there is not actually a strappy high heeled shoe on the front cover there is one on the spine. For a second I though we'd forgotten the most important part of the cover. In case you're wondering, it took way too many people to design this cover; although I'm not sure if one should credit the cover designers listed on the back cover (the grammatically weird 3 Good, Poor Girls) or the gots-t0-be-a-pseudonym "book designer" listed on the inside page, Fearn Cutler de Vicq. Perhaps "book designer" is what they're calling ghostwriters now? Oh, and Phoebe and Burnsie have informed me that since I mentioned their hairballs earlier I must post more pictures for their faithful fans. So for those of you who come here NOT for the funny book covers but for the gratuitous dog pictures, here you go.
Chicken Shit So I'm constantly jotting down notes to myself of titles and authors of books whose covers make me laugh. Sometimes I revisit these little scraps of paper eons later and wonder what the hell I was thinking. Today I found a scrap of paper that said: Jeff Long The Descent PREGNANT CHICKEN DEVIL Yup.
LONGARM fans, but without the gratuitous sex and violence. Other titles: The Train and the Tunnel The Toad and the Hole The Plug and the Socket The Banana and the Hairy Clam Help me out here!
From the Readers Okay, so people seem to think that I was waaaaay off in the last post. After seeing this cover, submitted by Amy, all I have a taste for is braaaaaaaaaains!
Faithful reader Jenna tells me that she saw someone furtively reading this book on the train. It reminded me of when I used to read ...
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