(no subject)

[42itous]

This puzzle by selinker (known in the National Puzzlers' League as Slik) appeared in the Saturday-evening puzzle extravaganza at this year's NPL convention.

Each group of nine books can be divided into three groups: one linked by their authors, one by titles, and the third by cover images. Each group of three is part of a four-member set; figure out what the fourth word or phrase is in each set.

Table 1:


Table 2:


Table 3:


Table 4:


Table 5:


I apologize that not all the covers are legible: I tried to find an appropriate balance between legibility and overfilling your screen. If you ask me nicely, I'll send you a higher-resolution version of any or all images.
There was more to the puzzle, but it had to do with tying these answers in to a meta-puzzle encompassing the whole evening, and I think that sorting the books was the fun part of this puzzle.

PLEASE please don't post spoilers in the comments! I haven't solved the whole puzzle yet (I'm still missing six answers), and other readers of this post will want to solve from scratch.

Comments

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Do we need to see more details for the covers of the cover books — whichever they might be — than we can get off the Amazon images?

[selinker.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. The "objects" in question are generally the most dominant element of the cover art or photo. You should be able to get most of them just from Martha's photos, and the names and titles from the list I posted above. If you overthink the puzzle, you can go down a lot of false roads.

Mike