Throughout Twin Peaks, Special Agent Dale Cooper shares his fascination about the country of Tibet. He shares the history of Tibet in Episode 1002 while preparing to throw rocks at bottles. After being shot in Episode 2001, he tells Diane that wishes the Dalai Lama could return to Tibet from exile. Finally, he shares even more history about Tibet while enjoying breakfast with Agent Albert Rosenfield in Episode 2002. So it’s no surprise that Cooper would be reading about the country while on assignment in Twin Peaks. After years of searching, I finally found a copy of the book that Cooper reads in the latter half of Season 2.
We first see Cooper’s book in Episode 2014 at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department. It was the second image above that lead me on a search down a rather deep rabbit hole.
On a hunch, I search eBay.com for “Tibet Book” on March 24, 2019. There were 6,894 results returned. So I set off, looking page by page for a cover that appeared to match.
Finally, after looking at approximately 4,800 images, I found it on page 24 … almost. The book appeared similar – black cover with red border and white text – but it wasn’t an exact match. Yet this was a major clue as to the book’s origin.
Using the book’s title I found on eBay, I uncovered the original – Tibet: A Complete Guide by by Elisabeth B. Booz – which was published in 1986 by Passport Books in Chicago, IL .
Sadly, I also uncovered an obituary for the author who died peacefully on October 31, 2016 at the age of 91. According to this site:
“Since 1986 a devoted member of the Society of Women Geographers, Ben was stalwart in promoting the exploration of the world by women, herself producing in-depth guides to New Zealand and Tibet. With sketchbook and paintbrush in hand, she traveled for pleasure to many wonderful distant places, including Kyrgyzstan, Inner Mongolia, Tasmania, Gotland, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Iceland and the Orkney Islands.”
So this had to be the same author of Cooper’s book.
Additional searching on the internet for “Elisabeth Booz” and “Tibet” turned up an image of the back cover.
We get a brief look at the back cover when Cooper is at the Double R Diner just before meeting Annie in Episode 2017.
I mentioned I almost found an exact match. Multiple searches continue to return images of a third edition from March 1991. Notice the red ribbon on the front corner which doesn’t appear on the book in the episode.
The book Cooper has in the series could be a second edition printing. While the images on the book’s cover above mostly appear to match, the colors look slightly off (e.g. the first square appears more orange; second is more blue, etc.). It could also be the other way around – Cooper has a first edition and I found an image of the second edition printing.
Either way, I’m 99.9% confident this is the book.
The book only appears in Episodes 2014, 2016 and 2017. I’m assuming the upside down book on the nightstand next to the duck in Episode 2022 is the same book but we don’t get a good look.
