I've been around long enough to have at least two pictures of "mysterious" books that Johnny has read. I think this is ok to make a new thread, so that if you have a picture that has Johnny reading something and want to know what it's title is, then possibly post it here.

I hope it's an OK idea, Karen.

So my first book/question :

What is he reading? July 2007





(I say it's preparation for Shantaram)
But I want to read the same book he's reading!

What is he reading?

There's one more older photo, with him and a blue (light blue and dark blue) covered book. I also want to know what that book is.

Here's one I know:
What is he reading? Spring 2007
Answer: Johnny re-reading Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

There were several pics of him reading "The Bounty" by Caroline Alexander and that book had shades of blue.

Oh, that's it! THANKS! I feel SO much better now! :lol:

LOL Glad that I could help! B)

I'm curious... did we ever figure out what Johnny was reading?

Nope, not to best of my knowledge.

Who of us are tenacious Cancers? :)
I was just trying to figure this out the past two days!

Th front bottom looks like a title and year ?maybe. :blink:

I think the front top is a parrot on a perch, facing left.
Then it's facing a sort of flat oval stand with a large round ring on it.
:blink:

His last book was Tim Robin's ...parrot says "People of ze whurl, relax"..
I could see Johnny being crazy enough to try to get a parrot to say that !


Unfortunately, I can't make the image any clearer, and you'll have to zoom in yourself.

The spine looks like a person sitting in a chair, legs to their left , hands stretched up.
Which leads me to thinking it's a book to prepare for Shantaram , simply because he read Bounty during Pirates. Therefore it looks like a person sitting on a cushion cross legged, arms stretched up. Yoga.? :blink:

It could even be a parrot perched inside a ring for all I know! As a continuation of Tim Robin's book, and the parrot idea.




If Johnny would come out of hiding, we wouldn't have this problem! :shistle

Well the JDR slueths are at it again. One day someone will figure this mystery out. BTW, I am one of the tenacious cancers on here. B)

Nicci :angel

Your eyes are obviously a whole lot younger than mine. I'm not making out a thing!!

Unfortunately, when I put the image onto Word to resize it, when I copy it back onto a photo page, I'm losing the color, but the back side of the 'bird' top right deffinately has some parrot-like green to it.




:banghead The name on the front looks like it's in script, not typed.

and a little larger, but lost the color again.



This is the best I can do. :blink: Does anyone else want to take a go at it? I'm done with all my options. :thud

You see a bird? Inamorata has a bird on the cover. A raven or a crow if I remember right.
Joanie

It does, Joanie, but I just looked it up on Amazon and the bird is down in the center of the front jacket. The figure on Johnny's book is closer to the top. It doesn't look like there's a jacket on his book---maybe it's an older one.

The mystery deepens.....

Rose

Key words to consider:

Burgundy Cloth Binding
Gold Lettering
Gilt Lettering
Book Spine
First Edition
English Language

Parrot.

Inamorata's bird is facing the other direction.
I couldn't find a photo of the First Edition Binding, without the dust cover.
Gotta ask a book seller.

I know NOTHING about this. :blink:
The only things I do know is that it's worth trying to figure out. :crossfingers

Dunno....I'd guess to say it's not an OLD book.
It looks like it's in good to excellent condition.
My guess is printed fairly recently. (2000~) ?
It will probably end up being Van's book! :thud

OK, someone please tell me I'm going insane. But I'm going to throw this new idea out there and see where it leads anyways.

Now I see an alien face on the front cover.
It's looking sort of down and right, towards Johnny's middle finger. Round pink lips, and two dark circular eyes. Tall head,round, and goldish. :blink:





Anyone else see that? :shistle

What can I say, I saw it the first time close to Halloween, taking another stab at it, I still see the same 'alien' again.

(Where the parrot's feet were, is the nose bone to separate the eyes.)

We do know how Johnny likes to dabble in ghosts etc...

Gee, I don't see anything there. :unsure:

Aliens anyone? :blink: I'm just killing myself laughing. This is so hard!

Yup, I see it. Aliens? Well why not?

Oh no, not the book again. :P One of these days someone will find out.

Nicci :angel

Okay here's what I see and I only had one glass of wine with dinner!
:P
If you take a magnifying glass, and look up and down the spine you will see...demonic looking creatures except for the guy at the top. He's smiling? :blink:
Also that image you framed, I can definitely see a face, arched eyebrows, something sticking out of the middle of his forehead. Maybe a horn. :blink:
Bottom of the book, the writing appears to be CAF? FE??D. :blink:

Perhaps this needs to be in the category of questions unanswered. ;)

I'm with you on this Karen.

Nicci :angel

LOL...I am grateful for moderators allowing us to sleuth. LOL... :shistle

I'm with you Rose.
The BINDING is extraordinary. It must be a custom binding. The top looks kind of karmic yoga thing. Near the bottom, now that you mention it I remember seeing that the first time I set eyes on the book. It seems to be a blackish devil type figure. The very bottom of it also looks like some sort of serpent head! Yikes!

And there's a name on the bottom of the cover. With a date. I think it's scripted like old fashioned hand writing...starts with a 'C or L' and the last name might start with 'R'. I'll look for my magnifying glass. Nice idea!

I'm trying to proceed in a logical fashion, from the binding top to bottom, then the cover top to bottom. (Just incase y'all think I've gone insane, there is method to the madness.)

--------- Some research -------------

Before looking under a magnifying glass:
Today I researched English Book Bindings about Aliens with no particular success. Maybe it's something to do with the time he played the bookseller ... Ninth Gate or something. Dr. Who ? Esoteric, gothic, or even the Rex Mundi type storyline.
Where IS Detective Aberline when we need him !!!
Hiding under a blanket, me thinks.
Does anyone live close to a small local antique book shop that they can ask?

Ahhhh.... the joy of the hunt. Makes me want to go out and buy a High Definition computer monitor, and the software to go with it. I even asked my friend's husband, who happens to be a police officer if he had access to a super CSI police investigation computer....unfortunately he didn't . LOL.
When I get frustrated with this, I remember the massive size of the camera's zoom lens that took this photo! :blink:

----------------------- The Visuals Game ----------

OK, I'm coming back here and entering more:
With the magnifying glass there's ALOT MORE. I see no fewer than 5 faces (maybe 6...a ganesha might be #2 from the top) down the spine. And at least one by the side of his hand, above the name/date, it has a hat on it's head, body goes out to the right, like a caterpillar (probably a clothed monkey)..from the head, green,blue,purple...Bottom left of it, I see purple letters 'AR' then mabye a 'V' and possibly another 'A'..block capitals.
Maybe it's some Indian folk tale. Alice in Wonderland?!? Nah...
OK, I'm going to try to draw what I see, and scan it in when I'm finished.

The design on the front is also very intricate, full of tricky images/words, and it has COLOR (aquamarine blue-green, blue, purple) , so the book isn't THAT old. Something I couldn't see at all before. The plot thickens. No more parrots, that's for sure. Today, I say it's a book of animal Fairy Tales from some culture.

The animals start of big, with some sort of master, and get smaller as you go down. I'm guessing that "alien" is also supposed to represent an animal. A jungle book of sorts?

------------------------- The Name Game --------------

The monkey like thing with a hat on it's head: The hat could be a face, and the legs part could be the first/last name, with date under it (mentioned previously)

C*dgh S***
C*lgy Sp**
------ Gp**

Then comes the date ? 676 ? To the left I'm seeing a music note kind of dark red.

Then under that are the block letters
My guess on the block letters is CAS...? cAg...? and I think they get smaller across the page.
CARAVAN ? Animal Caravan? Indian Caravan? Gypsy Caravan? ROFL...
CASbah ? Casanova ? LOL...
Gan...? Ganesha ... A ganesh fairy tale with other animals in it?

-------------------- Thoughts ------------

What do you think?
Can't blame a girl for trying! There IS an answer out there, and probably not seen on the internet.

Slowly but surely. Now this GONZO-chick needs a drink type of glass now, and rest my :blink: .

Honest. I'm not insane...yet. I'l just keep editing this post for the next couple of days as things come to me. But I think this is about it unless I spend a little more time on the Name area. Then I'll give up for a while again. Without a HD monitor, or someone recognizing the country origins of the animals, maybe give up forever, go to a movie and watch ST instead. ST is about the only good thing happening right now (Now that's a scary thought!) , unless we get some ST press junket photos today. I don't want to look at the strike information unless I have to. I find this sleuthing much more fascinating. ;)

Edit to add:
This is called the "pareidolia" phenomenon. - Brain perceives a visual stimulus as being significant. IE: Seeing the 'man on the moon', etc...
*Heh* ~ at least I know I'm not going crazy. It's just my eyes playing tricks on me!

A little more brainstorming and a couple of logical based questions about the title. This will take a bit of time on your part.
Please answer the questions if you can,
then I'll try and research some anwers.

We know now:
It's a kids related book.
Mostly about jungle type animals.
Perhaps story or musical in theme.
May be English/ French.
There are about 3 words, and one possible date on the book cover.


Preparations you'll need to do:
Using your best software ,
zoom in on the name as much as possible.
Use light and dark contrasting etc.
Get your best image.
Use a magnifying glass if you have one.
(I have one but am having trouble transferring it from photo bucket to here.
If you want to use mine it's here:Here

For each word
(First name, Last name, and the colored block letters at bottom of book)
please try to answer the following questions if you can.

1) First word or second word or the block letters at the bottom of the book ?
2) How many letters in the word ?
3) Word possibly begins with the letter ____ .
4) With each letter, decide if it's:
tall, short, below, or both above and below the base line.

If you give me the above ideas, On paper, I will list the English abc variables under each letter space, and see if I can make words out of them, then search the net for the word. (you can do this too of course, but I'm volunteering to help in the search.)

Let's :crossfingers for some results.

Again, I think it's time that this goes into the category of questions still unanswered. :captainjack