First novel in the Rabbi Small mystery series...

I love the design of this cover... its color, typography, general pulpy style. It was a good book, too, though the ending completely came out of left field.

Girls just like unicorns, I guess

I never thought I was... or would be... the kind of girl who liked unicorns. But one day, I looked at my life and I realized, I am. I always have been. Ever since I was little... I've loved unicorns.

And how could I have been so blind to it?? It was always unicorns this, unicorns that. Lisa Frank puzzles in hallucinatory rainbow colors... The Last Unicorn book and film (Peter S. Beagle, 1968 and 1982 respectively)... this book by the brilliant Bruce Coville, a kid's anthology ("Treasury") of unicorn stories... the list goes on, probably.

The cover depicted above on the right is one of my favorite adult, scholarly books ever. It's basically a unicorn bible. And it's wonderful. I wish I could remember who the devil I loaned it to. A man, I think. A big man. I only have a vague image in my mind. Blast.

All the scans that follow come from the book on the right.

Courtship in 1812

"I do, indeed, sometimes think of you, but I will not say how often, lest I raise your vanity" -- a certain lady wisely wrote to her suitor. I admire her circumspection.

(From this wonderful book, The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of a Literary Family, which almost does not have enough colons in its title.)

The Thorn Birds

I can't seem to put this book down for more than a few hours at a time... and the rest of the day is spent devouring it.

Art nouveau woodcuts

To return to a previously touched-upon theme...

These are from a wonderful book, Art Nouveau Bing Paris Style 1900... In fact, one of the best, most treasured art books I have. Mostly it has photographs of interiors (B&W for the most part, with a few in color), vases, jewelry, cups, etc.

Turn-of-the-century, beautiful ladies

Gouche medium. In French, "Elégantes sur la Plage." Also from the book that I call Art Nouveau Bing.

Ladies on a Beach by Georges de Feure (1900)

This reminds me a lot of the work by Yoshitaka Amano... who did the character designs for the Final Fantasy video games, I believe, as well as... was it called The Sandman? -- written by Neil Gaiman? 

These women look like they just came waltzing out of the sea, onto the beach... It's so magical, like some kind of strange dream...