On a Book, Just Purchased
The book is in library binding, specifically a “Plasti-Kleer Fold-On Standard Book Jacket Cover” from Bro-Dart Industries. The jacket illustration shows a falcon diving, photographs of a nude woman trapped in its beak. Artist Honi Werner has taken inspiration from the epigraph from a poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, but the dedication concludes with a contrary sentiment: “The center can hold, and does.” Inside, the binder’s board is clothed in heavy paper of pale cadet blue over black buckram, the title, author and publisher in gold on the spine. Deciphering the colophon tells me it’s first edition, third printing, despite a handwritten note in pencil on the front endpaper indicating the book is from the second printing, 1983. The list of works numbers 12, one co-credited to the author’s wife, and concludes with the present work. Published when the author was alive, it stands one-quarter through his œuvre. In the author photo by Kathleen Krueger, he’s brawny in a San Lorenzo sports jersey, arms crossed, looking more like a high school football coach tired of ineptitude than a celebrated quill-driver. The book is The Widening Gyre by American detective novelist Robert B. Parker, and I just brought it home.
Note: I wrote this for Medium.com. If you are reading this on another platform, it has been pirated. I quit the Medium Partner Program, so I’m not doing this for money. It is nice, however, to know someone’s reading, so please clap or comment to let me know somebody’s out there. Gladius adhuc lucet.
