From a Bright Purple Jacket

I continue to skim a book flap every day as part of my impressive plan to skim a book flap every day. Today's flap is from the bright purple jacket of a 1970s edition of the first volume of Edward Gibbon's DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Proclaims said flap: "eventually Gibbon 'hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and rhetorical declamation.'" Wow! I can't wait to start reading. Now here is a book flap that does not stoop to drawing in the reader, a complicated and heroic flap tormented by self-doubt!