Meet the Authors

This is Brian Bird:

That is the dust jacket photo of Brian from his 1958 book, Skiffle - The Story of Folk Song with a Jazz Beat.

Not only does Brian lack confidence in this photo, he seems almost apologetic, as if to say, "I'm very sorry I wrote this book. Please don't waste your time."

Brian lacks the confidence and intellectual prowess exhibited by so many other authors on their dust jacket pics. I want to share with you my favorites, and I'm going to make this my first blog post that I add to as time goes on. If you find some you like on your own feel free to share them with me and I'll add them.

First, in the category of pondering intellectual, I give you Sylvester Stallone. You probably didn't know he was an accomplished writer, but here he is on the back cover of his novel, Paradise Alley, slaving over his IBM Selectric and suffering for his art:

Next, in the category of remarkable displays of arrogance, here is artist Peter Max, who poses with his 1985 Apple Macintosh masterwork creations that surely no four year old will ever be able to replicate.

Nobody can match adventure novelist Sax Rohmer for unabashed arrogance. Here he is on the back cover of The Bride of Fu Manchu. Any author can pose in his library, sitting on his desk, smoking his pipe with slicked back hair. But it takes real chutzpah to do it in a silver lamè robe.

Barth David Schwartz contemplates his three names, three prestigious universities and a rewarding career as a Pasolini scholar (thanks Tracy):

Say it ain't so!

Madeline Brandeis is gonna kick your ass for reading her series of children's books:

Literary giant Davis Tuck had no time to abandon his muse and take off the raincoat when he posed for his masterpiece, The NEW Complete ENGLISH SETTER:



Fredric Brown can write about science...and smoke:

Here is British mystery writer, Edmund Crispin. The dust jacket lists French Film as one of his "antipathies."

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He is William A. Allbaugh III, author of a not-important book about a Confederate arms depot in Tyler, Texas.   

Pomposity? Check.

Rebel flag cuff links? Check.

NRA provenance? Check.