Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Self-help book cover: "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg"


As promised a couple of days ago...

  • Title: The Crack in the Cosmic Egg
  • Subtitle: "Challenging Constructs of Mind and Reality"
  • Cover blurb: "A startling breakthrough book — Essential for those who are seeking expanded ways to achieve creative living and learning"
  • Author: Joseph "Joe" Chilton Pearce (1926-2016)
  • Cover artist: Unknown. There are some initials in the corner, but they are partially obscured from wear. First letter might be an A.
  • Publisher: Pocket Books (fifth printing, October 1974)
  • Cover price: $1.50
  • Original publication year: 1971
  • Pages: 219
  • Format: Paperback
  • Provenance: Once owned by Ms. Joan E. Book of Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania. Purchased this year at The York Emporium.
  • Dedication: "To the memory of my wife Patricia Ann mother of our five"
  • First sentence on introduction: Almost a decade has passed since I first experienced the crack in my own cosmic egg, and made tentative attempts to translate it into communicable form.
  • First sentence of book: There is a relationship between what we think is out there in the world and what we experience as being out there.
  • Last sentence: So I find that my concern and love for life, my longing and desire, have sowed a wind within this orb of skull, and here in this spiraled fire I reap the whirlwind of all the worlds.
  • Random sentences from middle: Piaget observed that we are continually hatching an enormous number of false ideas, conceits, Utopias, mystical explanations, superstitions, and megalomanic fantasies. All of these disappear when brought into contact with other people.
  • Goodreads rating: 4.02 stars (out of 5.0)
  • Goodreads review excerpt: In 2016, Nicholas wrote: "I wasn't sure I'd made a good choice when I ordered this book, as I prefer my data empirical and this seemed to lean more towards the speculative. Coupled with the fact that it was written in the seventies, referenced Don Juan and held Sri Lankan firewalking to be the principle evidence in the flexibilty of reality, made me even more suspect of my own decision making process, but I proceeded to read it regardless. By the end of the first chapter my fears where not confirmed and I began to enjoy the book for what it is."
  • Amazon rating: 4.4 stars (out of 5.0)
  • Amazon review excerpt (slightly edited): In 2009, Elbert Clark wrote: "I reread this book after it had inspired me years ago to think in new directions. It still holds up brilliantly. I recently met the author, a feisty old gentleman, who apologized for the followup book to this work. He says it was essentially unproofed and unedited and explained how it got that way. The publisher simply ran with the first rough draft."

But wait, there's more...

Check out this nifty bookmark that was tucked away inside this paperback! It's from Bookarama, which had stores at the Westgate Mall in Bethlehem and the Hamilton Mall in Allentown.

The Westgate Mall, which opened in 1973, was sold last autumn to a joint venture led by Onyx Equities LLC and PCCP LLC.

The Hamilton Mall was an attempted re-envisioning, in the mid-1970s, of Allentown's downtown business district to lure shoppers who had fled to suburban shopping centers. It was never fully successful and faded out in the 1990s.

It appears the Bookarama stores were finished by the mid 1990s, too.

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