Paperback 105: The Ipcress File / Len Deighton (Panther 026193)

Paperback 105: Panther 026193 (14th or so ptg, circa 1971)

Title: The Ipcress File
Author: Len Deighton
Cover artist: Photo cover

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Simplicity - B&W still photo that is the epitome of mid-century hard-boiled cool. Espresso vs. Smith & Wesson - Paper Clips vs. Bullets. Such great, simple balancing of iconic images. Gives you a sense of the Where and What and even the Who of the story before you've even opened the book. Details are incredibly precise. You can even read the "Gauloise" on the cigarette and the "Wesson" on the barrel of the gun. This book is from outside my collecting window (i.e. post-1969), but when I saw it at my local University book sale, I had to have it. If I ever publish a book, I want it to look like this, no matter what it's about.
• LEN Deighton is a frequent crossword puzzle answer
• The paper clips are somehow charming the hell out of me

Best things about this back cover:

• Stamp!
• A near complete lack of punctuation, including standard blurb quotation marks. No exclamation points, commas ... figure it out for yourself, reader!
• Quaint passive voice construction in the last sentence. So British (Panther is a British imprint, in case you didn't know)

PAGE 123~

Wriggling away from the legs of the tower, black smooth cables and corrugated pipelines rested along each other like a Chinese apothecary's box of snakes.

~RP

Perky

So I'm at a super-crunchy cafe on the Ithaca Commons yesterday. I get a bowl of vegan chili and a piece of orange cake and a cup of coffee and I head upstairs to sit and eat and drink and finish reading the essay for my writing group, which is meeting later that night. At some point I look over at my cup of coffee and notice that the little cardboard sleeve (that keeps me from burning my hand) looks like this:

If I had had coffee in my mouth, I would have done a great spit take. First thought: "Since when did 'Gentlemen's Clubs' start advertising on coffee cup sleeves!?" [actually, first thought = "nice rack(s)"] Then I turned the cup around and saw this:


"Daily Grind," get it? Get it? Yeah. Cute. I especially love "U.S. Patent Pending." I know that when I'm buying a bra, the first thing I want to know is, "What's the patent status on this baby? Is it pending? 'Cause that's how I like my patents: pending." My boobs, however, should not be pending too much - not if I'm wearing a bra. Or so I imagine.

rp