Paperback 477: Uncle Tom's Children / Richard Wright (Penguin 647)

Paperback 477: Penguin 647 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Uncle Tom's Children
Author: Richard Wright
Cover artist: jonas

Yours for: $20

Best things about this cover:

• Kind of an abrupt shift from all the sexed-up lesbian stuff I've been trafficking in lately.
• Simple, gruesome, effective cover from "jonas," one of the most important early pb cover artists.
• Really digging the title font. Also, that dude's pocket square.

Best things about this back cover:

• Back cover from back when paperbacks still modeled their back covers after those on the insides of hardcover dust jackets. Very straitlaced and informative and decidedly non-sensational.
• The first recipient of the Spingarn medal was Ernest Everett Just (1915). Trivia!

Page 123~

There was silence. Then Hadley laughed, noiselessly.

Laughed noiselessly? You might want to check that he's not choking.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 165: Omnibook, August 1945 (incl. excerpt of "Black Boy" by Richard Wright)

Paperback 165: Omnibook, August 1945

• Includes: "Authorized abridgments of four best-selling books," including "Black Boy" by Richard Wright - plus a "Back of the Book" essay by Bennett Cerf
• Cover artist: Stefan Salter

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• He's cyanotic! Clear! Stat! Seven cc's of ... something (my 1990s "e.r." lingo has run out)
• This painting is eerie and gorgeous. That kid is scaring the hell out of me, though. He does not look happy. He looks like he wants his lunch money back.
• I don't know if Salter intended for the kid's collar (the open neck part) to sort of kind of look like an outline of Africa, but either way - awesome.
• I have a student who looks just like this kid. Well, he's just dark black, not blue, but that combination of menace and wonder in the eyes - the likeness is startling. Sadly, said student is currently in maximum security prison.

Best things about this back cover:

• Hey, Bennett Cerf - I may know him from such game shows as "What's My Line?"
• This article is actually really engaging - too bad it's "to be continued" inside the magazine (where you can't see it).
• The cartoons in the corners are fabulous.
• This article is reminding me that I have Terry Teachout's bio of Mencken still waiting for me, unread, on the bookshelf downstairs. I basically live my life surrounded by books that are staring at me, disgusted at my never having read them.

Page 123~

from "Coming Home," By Lester Cohen:

There was something about Stell, he thought, if she kissed you, if it was the real thing to her, the rest just came with it.

"The rest?" What? Her lungs? Her lunch?

~RP