There’s a book club that meets at the abandoned Bass Pro Shop down in the Hamhandling District of town, and I’ve always been interested in joining them, because they claim to only read books that have pictures of Hondas on their covers. I thought they were kidding, until they agreed to let me join one of their meetings. They hazed me by holding me down and dumping an entire Honda Acty Lifter bed full of old paperbacks on me.
Once I crawled out of the pile of books, which had that rich, redolent old book smell, I was handed the book they were currently reading, a 2021 novel by Stephen King I’d not heard of, called Later.
The book was a best seller in 2021, and is a sort of crime/horror thing about someone who can see and talk to dead people’s ghosts, like that movie with that kid and Bruce Willis, whom you likely know from his album, The Return of Bruno.
But they were right about one thing: that book cover sure does have a Honda on it:
Not just a Honda, but an interesting Honda, an early Civic – it looks like a ’73 – that seems to be a JDM version, based on the turn signals integrated into the bumper:
The wing mirrors are gone, but that bumper seems to have been unique to non-American markets, which is odd considering the book takes place in New York City.
We’re off to an interesting start here! I asked what other books have Hondas on the cover, and they pointed me to the three other books they’ve read so far, some of which I was familiar with, but never realized they had Hondas on the cover.
First, there’s the Bell Jar. I’ve actually managed to avoid reading Sylvia Plath’s only novel, a story of a young woman and her battle with depression. It was written in 1966, but wasn’t published in America until 1971. In 1978, in a half-hearted attempt to get more male readers, the third edition of the novel included a cover updated with a line illustration of a Honda Prelude from the rear, taken without permission from a Honda service manual. Note the rear wiper!
These editions are actually more common than you’d think! Check your local used bookstore and I bet you’ll find one.
Margret Atwood’s powerful dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, originally had a cover that included the front clip of a Honda Accord for the first US printing. The intent of the car in the art was intended to provide more scale to the scene, but was later removed from subsequent editions because it made the composition feel too claustrophobic.
The earliest Honda on a book cover was on Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, set in late 1960s Tokyo, a period of student protests and a lot of pushback against established traditions and mores. In keeping with the time and place, an early Honda T360 truck appears in reflection on the suggested glasses of the woman’s face on the cover.
The T360 was Honda’s first actual four-wheeled automobile, and was built from 1963 to 1967, beating Honda’s S500 sports car to market by only four months.
I’m very curious to see if they can find other books with Hondas on the cover! Also, it’s possible I made up three of these. See if you can tell which one is real!
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