This looks like the 1980s version of 1960s psychedelia. It reminds me of an XTC album cover. But it actually dates to the 1970s, when some art director attempted to package and make timely a 1930s novel through a visual style that was already ten years out of date. I still like it though--it looks like Sgt. Pepper's sitting room. I also like how the colors have been faded in the sun.

As for the book itself, it has far too many characters. One chapter alone introduces about seven of them, each one getting a neat little introductory sketch. The characters are gently satirized for the way in which they cling gravely to trivial things. I like to read it on the can, so it will probably take several months worth of shits to finish the thing, during which I will certainly lose track of what's going on. But dimly understood English drollery may be just thing to loosen the bowels. (I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.)

I read Waugh's The Loved One when I was about 13. A blurb on the back said it was possibly the funniest book in the English language. I didn't think it was funny at all, but figured that was because its funniness was on a much higher level than I could possibly grasp.

PREVIOUS FABULOUS COVERS OF THE WEEK:

The Face of the Ancient Orient

What comes in a box?

The Age of Reason

The Coming of the French Revolution

Andre the Courier

Hide-Out

Brideshead Revisited

The Golden Book Sherlock Holmes

Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery, vol. 5

God's Smuggler

Mixology

The Score

The Frazer Acquittal

Wife or Death

Wild Game Cookbook

Crime Patrol No.9

Boy's Choice

The Value of Fairness

Cancelled Japanese Stamps

The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues

Scoop

Barchester Towers

Fathers and Sons

Evil Genius

Early Man in the New World

Camp Craft

The Man in the Net

7 Types of Ambiguity

Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust

The Idea, a novel told in woodcuts

The Simple Art of Murder

History Begins at Sumer, featuring the typography of Edward Gorey

Marvel Spectacular featuring the art of Jack Kirby

The Age of Analysis

Metropolis: An American City in Photographs

Engineering is Like This

The Ponder Heart

Don Martin Digs Deeper

The Golden Book Encyclopedia of Natural Science (Volume 9, Kinglets to Meteor)

The Mountlake Terrace High School 1964 yearbook

Take a Letter: A Cyclopedia of Business & Social Correspondence

The Vice Lords: Warriors of the Street

Islam and The Golden Home and High School Encyclopedia

Munakata