SOLVED. Is it completely impossible to tell what book Christina Ricci is reading in this picture? [s]

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Not impossible, but difficult. When was the photo taken?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

So: a very fat book, probably about 2 inches thick, cover is mostly black, with a whitish-grayish colored lozenge shape about halfway down.

It almost looks like the title could be printed in a very dark red/maroon above the lozenge, although it's hard to know if those are letters or just photographic noise.

[inaword]

the line of white lettering near the top could also be something like 'on the New York Times best seller list', or something to that effect

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Impressed by: her thigh (so shapely) - also love the outfit.

Not impressed by: the cigarette

[Ayshe]

All I found is that her outfit is quite similar to what she is wearing at LAX airport Jan 28th 2013.
But there is no book visible in the pictures I looked at.

[bb.]

Not sure if this helps but here's a link to some of Christina's favorite books...
http://www.oprah.com/book/Before-40-J...

[Michele]

Oh, now this is going to drive me NUTS because it looks really familiar to me. The dark red lettering could be the title or it could be the author's name, if he's somebody major like Stephen King.

Pretty sure it's fiction -- non-fiction isn't usually that big.

So, who writes big fat doorstops? Stephen King, Neal Stephenson, Tad Williams... I googled those guys and don't see anything that matches so far.

I wonder if it could be an omnibus edition of a trilogy, like LOTR or something?

[caracal-eyes]

Hmm...doesn't look so much like a "lozenge" to me as it does a diamond shape. Considering that she appears to be at an airport, I suppose it's likely to be an airport book, so likely it would be a fairly new release or some fairly recent best-seller at the time. In fact, it looks like it could say something like "#1 New York Times Bestseller" along the top.

Oh--I did an image search, and here if you scroll down it looks like she's at JFK in New York, Feb. 3 2013.

[Amanda]

Closest I could get visually is Crank by Ellen Hopkins: http://25.media.tumblr.com/d2c8c22325...

Doesn't quite fit that white slash at the end, though.

Because it's a paperback, and the NYT Bestseller slug is on it, it was probably on the NYT list well before the photo was taken.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

caracal-eyes wrote: "Hmm...doesn't look so much like a "lozenge" to me as it does a diamond shape. Considering that she appears to be at an airport, I suppose it's likely to be an airport book, so likely it would be a ..."

A lozenge is a diamond shape.

[SparksofEmber]

Original post by Smithy deleted. In fact, entire profile was deleted. Here's the referenced picture. http://postimg.org/image/ou5fs7ln3/

Grr!!!

[Michele]

Awwwww. I wonder why? It was such an interesting question!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

The thread can still be left open, if others are deeply curious.

[Ingo]

I have followed that and the source of the picture is this website:
In the middle of the page: Lands at JFK in New York - 3 February 2013. There are few pictures, but none show the book clearer. If clicked, you get a bigger version of the picture.

I looked at quite a few covers, and while there are a few in black, it is very distinctive. The title and author name is not on top nor in the middle, and none too big. My first guess was Dark Places or one of the other two by her, but they have the author name on top.

Given that a minimum page count can be guessed (I would say 500 at least) and the guessing of the line "A New York Times Bestseller" there should be enough information there. I went through a few older NYT-Bestseller-Lists, but they do not show the cover there.

The guess of "A New York Times Bestseller" could be wrong, though, but cutting that part from the picture and moving it makes me fairly certain that it is something like this on top (and a lot of book titles are much shorter and bigger printed on the cover).

[SparksofEmber]

And I checked this listopia Great Books with BLACK covers and this listopia Books With Black And White Covers Or Something Close and Books With A Cover That Has A Black Background.

[Julia]

Hm... Dark Places is nowhere near that long though -- this looks more like 600-700 pages or longer. The big bricks with black covers I can think of are Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but I'd expect the author's name to be more visible or clearer. I wonder if it's an ARC so no final cover or maybe a classic?

[Christie]

I'm wondering if there is something written in a color like purple maybe, that because of the angle it doesn't show in the picture? The first thing I thought was, the white part looks like crumpled up paper or something to me...

I thought of , but unless it's the whole series in one book it's too thick to be that.

Here's the cover for the Wake Trilogy , but I can't tell if it's a boxed set of three or a three book in one deal.

Or maybe , but I don't think it's that either, and I don't think this one would be that long.

[Michele]

Julia wrote: "The big bricks with black covers I can think of are Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell..."

Those are the ones I thought of but I couldn't find a cover matching what's shown here.

[Brenda]

It looks like this edition of Just Kids by Patty Smith which is on the above list of Chrisina's favourite books.

[SparksofEmber]

No, the picture on Just Kids is perpendicular with the edges of the book, but the cover on her book has something diamond-ish shaped.

[Brenda]

oh yes, you are right SparksofEmber - Just Kids cannot be correct either.

[Ingo]

Also there is the page count, as per Goodreads it is 280 pages, while the book Christina Ricci is carrying looks to me to be well over 500 pages.

[Ingo]

And I still think that there should be a list for that like
FROM books SELECT
binding: ( paperback OR softcover )
pagecount: OVER 500
cover-colour: black
publishing-date: before 20130203

With cover displayed, I would quite like to go through a list like that.
If there where too many hits, it should be possible to guess the publishing date, say ( 1998 to 2013 ).
( SQL from foggy memory )
I looked into worldcat, but did not find the right statements.

[bb.]

Well, there's the other option of contacting Christina's management: http://www.fanmail.biz/576.html

Hahah.

[Michele]

Ingo wrote: "And I still think that there should be a list for that..."

I tried mocking up the cover design in Paint and then doing a google image search, but I just got a ton of vampire books >:P

[Ingo]

Actually, a Google search showed a few results (like 38,000,000)
Facebook (nothing for me as I am not a member) and Bookbrowse (3 hits for non-members, more members-only).
The Google search.
And one result is this shelf on Goodreads:
More than 500 pages, remeber, while the cover-art is shown, it might not be the right one. I will check the list if any book comes to mind to check further, as there are nearly 500 books on the shelf it might take a while. Maybe some other interested could also look into it (or someone with a facebook and/or Bookbrowse login).

And while I can understand that a search for a mock-up-image will show a vampire book I do not think, the book is a vampire book, just my gut feeling...

[Ingo]

Checked two of the Goodreads shelfs, but found nothing. Took a lot less time, than I thought. Mostly I spent time looking at books I knew and wanted to read again.

[[deleted user]]

Ingo wrote: "Mostly I spent time looking at books I knew and wanted to read again."

LOL

[Kirstin]

I think it looks like this Black House by Stephen King. I kept thinking it looked like a half moon on the cover.

[[deleted user]]

Kirstin wrote: "I think it looks like this book..."

*clapping*

[Michele]

Kirstin wrote: "I think it looks like this Black House by Stephen King."

Oh, I bet that's it! I was thinking it was a big trade pb, but a mass-market pb would look about that thick, especially if it's sort of being squeezed. Well done!!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Good work! I think we can call this solved.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

The correct cover has been shelved on the group bookshelves. However because of the way the linking in the header works, you can only link to the most popular edition of the book, which is why the wrong cover appears at the top of the thread.

[Ingo]

Great find, in hindsight I played with color saturation and gamma etc. (Graphic Converter 9 for Mac, a swiss-army-knife for such tasks), but the red on the title is just a hint, nearly impossible to see, only to guess if you know it is there.
Congratulations - and sadly no book for me, I find the few books I started overlong and boring, but that is just me.

[Moloch]

Good job, I was following this thread with curiosity!

Lobstergirl wrote: "The correct cover has been shelved on the group bookshelves. However because of the way the linking in the header works, you can only link to the most popular edition of the book, which is why the..."

Lobstergirl, I think you can link the thread to the correct edition using the ISBN

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Lobstergirl, I think you can link the thread to the correct edition using the ISBN

Logic would suggest you can do this, but I tried it. The box at the top only takes title/author. It's set up to autocomplete only.

[Moloch]

I don't know, I do that in my group: sometimes I have to delete the last digit and re-enter it, and then it finally shows the right edition underneath