16 Comments
Jan 2, 2022Liked by Books on GIF

Happy New Year. Great review and I’ll have to find a clean copy. The comment on the inside about tearing off the cover was in many paperbacks. When booksellers did returns to publishers for unsold books, they only had to return the covers of paperbacks. The rest of the book was supposed to go in the trash. If you bought a book without the cover, it was “stripped” and the publisher and by extension, the author were not paid for it.

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I really hope it was the same copy stalking you. Happy New Year!

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CORRECTION: I have updated this review to indicate that the protagonist's friend is named Helmsley, NOT Hartley. I even double-checked the name as I was writing the review, but I guess I just have Hal Hartley on the brain today. Fitting, I guess, for a book with this title to have one of my own. Donna and I are usually very through, but this one got by us. Apologies!

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Jan 2, 2022·edited Jan 2, 2022Liked by Books on GIF

I've seen that "stripped book" thing before, in books I read as a kid in the late 90s and early 2000s. Wonder where it went, and whether ebooks are the reason publishers don't worry as much about naked books anymore.

If I had to say fate led me to any one book, I'd say it's the fantasy novel I'm currently writing, which I'm happy to talk about if anyone wants to hear about it.

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Jan 2, 2022Liked by Books on GIF

Most recently, I’d have to say “The Transit of Venus” by Shirley Hazzard. This came at me from multiple directions; I have a copy and will start it soon!

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read this in college and always wondered why more people hadn't heard of it. also can't figure out the f train logic, but i do love that i just read your little life review, on point, which also had an f train mention. long live the f train.

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Jun 12, 2022·edited Jun 12, 2022Liked by Books on GIF

I read this book during my senior year of high school and thought it made me the coolest person in our high school both because it was ~so obscure~ and because carrying it around my Texas public school landed me in detention. I was very wrong, but I’ve loved it ever since anyway. It’s a great story.

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So I read this book when I was 18 (in 2006) and it was everything I hoped it would be. A fucked up protagonist I didn't really like all that much but was fascinated by anyway, a dirtiness to the prose and descriptions that I hadn't encountered in my high school required reading, and a feeling of subversion while I read it. I haven't heard about it since then, and was delighted to come across this review of it.

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