Ever begin a book and feel as though you arrived late, that it started without you?  This one's already open at the cover.  From Love and Death in the American Novel by Leslie A. Fiedler.

From Yet Icebound Rivers Flow by Miervaldis Birze.

There's no going back.  Plus, note that the sticker on the book cover constitutes a red nose.  From Once a Clown, Always a Clown by De Wolf Hopper, 1927.

From Pegasus Re-Saddled by H. Cholmondeley Pennell, 1877.

Great chapter title: "In Which I Salute the Statue of God and a Psychic Expert Explores My Brain and Finds Nothing."  From City of Endless Night by Milo Hastings, 1920.

Before House of Dark Shadows (1970) there was the House of White Shadows (1903)

There have been some setbacks in the ensuing years, but back in 1949 Science And Religion Agree! by Milton Jenkins Jones.

The hypnotic suggestions of this book cover really did get us to look inside.  From Hypnotism As It Is by Xenophon LaMotte Sage, 1900.

It's a phenomeon we see time and again on title pages.  Note that those two names, Louise Jamison and James M. Gleeson, are the same!  "Jamison" and "James M." are obviously both James-based.  "Louise" and "Gleeson" are both dominated by the "ees" sound.  And both last names end in "son."  Shift one syllable in the illustrator's name, and you have "Glees James M. Son," which tidily echoes "Louise Jamison."  We regularly see collaborator names that mirror one another, as if people choose their workmates based upon such affinities.

From The Real Fairy Folk by Louise Jamison and illustrated by James M. Gleeson, 1912.

We double-checked, and there's actually nothing funny about being on the wrong side of eighteen.

That's a handy pointer at the bottom, directing potential readers to the flyleaf.  From The Thing At Their Heels by Harrington Hext, 1923.

From Pilot Bails Out, written and illustrated by Don Blanding, 1943.

What a great title for a collection of short stories, and we love that "breathed" is stressed.  From It Breathed Down My Neck by John Pudney, 1946.

That point at which anything, just anything, is worthy of a huzzah: Hurrah For Anything by Kenneth Patchen.

Two years before the debut of Pac-Man, we had this cover of the Biology Teachers' Handbook (1978).

Core values.  "Remember to wash your hands before you read this book."  From Short Stories for Little Folks by Catherine Bryce, 1910.

We did a search for a story with multifaceted characters, lots of background, and dramatic turns that truly capture the human experience ... and we found The Autobiography of a Crystal [multifaceted, to a flaw!] in the Formation of the Solar System [now there's some background!] From the Incremation of the Sphere of Equity in the Heavens [too few authors make an effort with the incremation of the sphere of equity in the heavens, if you ask us]—the Fall of Lucifer [sensationalist, yes, but always fun]—Dissolving of Chaos and Beginning of This Resurrection, Commonly Called the Creation of Heaven and Earth, To the Expulsion of Adam From Eden by Cyrus George Dunn, 1876.

From Fires of Driftwood by Isabel Mackay, 1922.

From The Mummy of Birchen Bower by Harry Ludlum, 1966.