Meta tales from academe
This just might be the exceptional book which should be judged by its cover. Consisting of a shelf of books, each bears the title First Novel and the author, Nicholas Royle, with various signs of spine wear. Two of the books tilt away from each other into a V where a dinky car and toy plane are shoved.
It represents a lot of what is going on in the book where the central character, Paul Kinder, a novelist and creative writing lecturer, is obsessed with first novels of real-life novelists.
