Showing posts with label Vintage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vintage. Show all posts

Friday, April 24, 2009

Paperback 223: The Case of the Midwife Toad / Arthur Koestler (Vintage Books V-823)

Paperback 223: Vintage Books V-823 (1st ptg, 1973)

Title: The Case of the Midwife Toad
Author: Arthur Koestler
Cover artist: [Thomas] Upshur

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

  • Puffy toad font - mesmerizing
  • Mystical Toad Overlord - will he kill us all or lead us to the promised land?
  • His (her?) right eye is so disturbing in its protruding bulbousness

Best things about this back cover:
  • Wow. Absolutely nothing.
  • If you're not going to use all the space on the back cover, at least make the font bigger so people can read the text more easily. Or at least format the text in a compelling way. Sheesh.
  • "Perhaps only he could have written it" - this kind of statement never makes any sense to me. Koestler did write it. Why would you sit around wondering who *could have* written something? Like the world was sitting around thinking "Oh, who will write 'The Case of the Midwife Toad?'" No one knew the world needed this book before he wrote it.
Page 123~

Did Kammerer breed water-mating Alytes with hereditary nuptial pads, and did the critical specimen show the pads before it was tampered with?


Intrigue!

~RP