Tom McMahon

Reusable Cover Art in Historical Novels: A Gallery

Reusable Cover Art in Historical Novels: A Gallery

Forever Amber

Forever Amber

The Wikipedia summary:

Forever Amber tells the story of orphaned Amber St. Clare, who makes her way up through the ranks of 17th century English society by sleeping with and/or marrying successively richer and more important men, while keeping her love for the one man she could never have. The novel includes portrayals of Restoration fashion, politics, and public disasters, including the plague and the Great Fire of London.

While many reviewers "praised the story for its relevance, comparing Amber's fortitude during the plague and fire to that of the women who held hearth and home together through the blitzes of World War II", others condemned it for its blatant sexual references. Fourteen U.S. states banned the book as pornography. The first was Massachusetts, whose attorney general cited 70 references to sexual intercourse, 39 illegitimate pregnancies, 7 abortions, and "10 descriptions of women undressing in front of men" as reasons for banning the novel. Winsor denied that her book was particularly daring, and said that she had no interest in explicit scenes. "I wrote only two sexy passages," she remarked, "and my publishers took both of them out. They put in ellipsis instead. In those days, you know, you could solve everything with an ellipsis."

Despite its banning, Forever Amber was the best selling US novel of the 1940s. It sold over 100,000 copies in its first week of release, and went on to sell over three million copies.

And from a 2002 re-appraisal by Elaine Showalter:

The novel came out in England in 1945. While English women were weeping over Celia Johnson's stoic portrayal of sexual renunciation in Brief Encounter they were also bonding over the bawdy, upwardly-mobile Amber St Clare. Forever Amber was published at a time of social upheaval in Britain, the beginnings of the welfare state and the erosion of an ethic of social and marital deference. Divorce petitions skyrocketed during the war, rising from 9,970 in 1938 to 24,857 in 1945. Moreover, Winsor's readers, the majority of them women, identified with Amber's calamitous life and admired her fortitude in times of hardship. The great fire of London would have seemed familiar to those who had had lived through the blitz. The random nature of plague would ring true for those who had lived with the constant fear of buzzbombs and V2 rockets.

In its day Forever Amber was a standard reference in popular culture, such as in this scene from The Jack Benny Program:

Old Man: I just finished reading a sad book.

Jack Benny: What was it?

Old Man: Forever Amber

Jack Benny: Forever Amber? That’s not a sad book.

Old Man: It is when you’re my age, Bub!

And for another racy book see Robert McHenry's post on the Britannica Blog on the 50th anniversary of the banning of Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Q: My School Yearbook Has Gotten Wet. Can It Be Restored?

The answer from bookrestoration.net

A: Almost always, the answer will be, “no! “ The reason being that it is printed on clay-coated paper. Clay-coated paper is ideal for the printing of photographs or anything where a crisp sharp image is desired. That’s why it is used in magazines and other publication containing a lot of photographs. National Geographic, for example.

The downside of using clay-coated paper is that the clay coating is soluble in water. When it gets wet the dissolved coating mixes somewhat with that on the facing page. When dry, it usually forms a permanent bond. Even when it doesn’t, the ink from one page, floating as it were on the dissolved clay, often mixes with that on the facing page.

Clay coated paper also contains a great deal less paper fibers than does regular paper. Its lack of substance is made up for by the coating. When it gets wet and the coating dissolves the sheet beneath the coating becomes exceedingly weak. In no time it begins to pulp. Thereby making early rescue futile.

Because of its fine printing surface, clay-coated paper is likely here to stay when it comes to yearbooks. You’ll just have make sure it never gets wet.

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: Plastic Man Comic Books On DVD

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: Plastic Man Comic Books On DVD

So enough with the highbrow stuff, time for a little recreation. For those of you unfamiliar with Plastic Man, here's the Wikipedia summary:

originally published by Quality Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. Created by writer-artist Jack Cole, he first appeared in Police Comics #1 (August 1941). One of Quality Comics' signature characters during the Golden Age of Comic Books, Plastic Man can stretch his body into any imaginable form. His adventures were known for their quirky, offbeat structure and surreal slapstick humor. When Quality Comics was shut down in 1956, DC Comics acquired many of its characters, integrating Plastic Man into the mainstream DC universe. The character has starred in several short-lived DC series, as well as a Saturday morning cartoon series in the early 1980s, and as a recurring character on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Although the character's revival has never been a commercial hit, Plastic Man has been a favorite character of many modern comic book creators, including writer Grant Morrison, who included him in his 1990s revival of the Justice League; Art Spiegelman, who profiled Cole for The New Yorker magazine; painter Alex Ross, who has frequently included him in covers and stories depicting the Justice League; and Frank Miller, who included him in the Justice League in the comics All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again.

Don't confuse Plastic Man with Elongated Man. Again, a bit of the Wikipedia summary:

The Elongated Man (Randolph "Ralph" Dibny) is a fictional comic book superhero in the DC universe. He is a reserve member of the Justice League. His first appearance was The Flash vol. 1, #112 (May 12, 1960).[1] He was partially created by Julius Schwartz, who noted he only created the character because he didn't realize DC Comics had acquired Plastic Man in 1956.

Don't you just love big companies? There's something eternal about the way they operate.

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: LIFE Magazine on CD-ROM

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: LIFE Magazine on CD-ROM

Mostly it's just the covers from 1936 to 1972, which is perfect.

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: National Geographic Magazines on CD-ROM

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: National Geographic Magazines on CD-ROM

What I'm trying to do with this project is to re-create a week at Grandma and Grandpa's house. You know, browsing through their old magazines, listening to their old records, playing with their old toys and games. 

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: Classics Illustrated Comics on DVD

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: Classics Illustrated Comics on DVD

Available at http://www.a-zcomics.com/ or their eBay Store for a little over $10.

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: Old-Time Radio

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: Old-Time Radio

Did you know you can buy the entire collection of CBS RMT for about $20? And if you don't have any OTR shows, you could buy the Old Time Radio Ultimate Collection for about $30. 

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: 16,000 Famous Paintings on DVD

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: 16,000 Famous Paintings on DVD

About 4 gigabytes worth. I hadn't planned to use that much space for art, but it seems a good way to showcase the big 10-inch color display. And when do you ever browse through art anyway? Without the Viewpad, you'd need a ton of coffee-table books.

My Viewsonic Viewpad 100 eBook Project: The Amazon Kindle 2 Library Book CD with 2800 Great eBooks

The Viewsonic Viewpad 100 has a terrific, bright TFT display that makes reading a pleasure. But what to read? Although you could download a bunch of books from Project Gutenberg, a much easier way would be to order The Amazon Kindle 2 Library Book CD with 2800 Great eBooks off of eBay. While the Kindle reads the prc format books, so does the free Mobipocket Reader I've loaded onto the Viewpad. Cool, eh? And with the Kindle craze, that means there's all sorts of CD-ROMs with prc format public domain ebooks available. 

I didn't count the number of books to see if they really added up to 2800, but it seems like enough to me. So that's 600 megabytes out of 16 gigabytes used. How to use the rest? Stay tuned . . .