Thursday 19 March 2009

book formats and sex

Everyone I know (EVERYONE) loves paperbacks in A Format (old, smaller paperbacks now only used for detective stories, as far as I can tell). Why are all books in B Format; which started off being for posher literary books; so is that it? Is it because when B Formats started getting the literary big dogs, any author who was A Formatted complained about not being taken seriously?

Also: they fit in pockets better.

No Exit Press has had various great cover designs (in A Format) for the brilliant Lawrence Block. I don't really like the current ones, but life is like that. Here is a site with a collection of covers for The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian. The one from my favourite set is much disliked by the site-owner, but life is like that too. (It is the one with the black and white photo and a pink base. I also like the similar Spanish one with a yellow base.)

Here is a bit of fun Block from The Burglar in the Library - Bernie Rhodenbarr is a sort of meta-Marlowe, especially in this book, which is about a valuable Marlowe book dedicated personally to Dashiell Hammett, and when I first read a Rhodenbarr I worried his sort-of-tough-guy voice in the body of a non-tough-guy was just the wrong side of arch, but now I think it is the right side. I don't really know what changed my mind:
'I'd best be off. I don't suppose you've seen my panties, have you?'
'Not since you took them off. At that point I lost interest in them.'
She hopped out of bed and looked for them, and I looked at her. This was an agreeable task, because she looked absolutely splendid. She was about five-six or -seven, and quite slender, but by no means angular. Curves everywhere, but they were all gentle curves with no hairpin turns; if she's been a road, you wouldn't have to downshift or, God forbid, hit the brake pedal. Her hair was the color of tupelo honey, and her skin was the color of cream and her eyes were the color of an Alpine Lake. The first time I laid eyes on her I'd been struck by her beauty, and she looked a hundred times better now. Because she'd had clothes on then, and now she didn't, and I'll tell you, it makes a difference.'

I love how he writes about sex. And almost anything else.