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Credit...Yana Paskova for The New York Times

By Sadie Stein

Dear readers,

“Never judge a book by its contents,” quipped a wag in a porkpie hat as we both regarded the cover of an aging paperback guide to vitamins, for sale on a Broadway sidewalk. I smiled politely; I found the remark asinine; I resolved to work it into conversation as soon as possible.

The following two finds are books I picked up on the basis of their flap copy — and might not have otherwise. I debated writing about both of them.

—Sadie

“Forbidden Colors,”by Yukio Mishima

Fiction, 1951

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“‘Forbidden Colors’ is a moving tale of frustrated love and revenge,” the flap tells readers. “Drawn to homosexuality after a loveless marriage, Yuichi is locked into the powerful grasp of an aging writer who uses him for revenge on the women who have wronged him. Yuichi’s own search for love takes him through the bleak, demoralized streets of postwar Japan, through parks of assignation, gay bars and parties, and into the lives of fallen aristocrats, black marketeers and male prostitutes.”

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