Paperback 1084: SBS T-254 (1st ptg, 1966)

Best things about this cover: 

Karen felt a little sick, reading the letter. She knew how her grandmother loathed television and how she clung to her old-fashioned monstrosity of a house. 

Paperback 852: Pocket Books 6093 (PBO, 1962)

Title: The Astronaut
Author: Hank Searls
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $5-10

Donation to the collection from The Second Reader Bookshop (Buffalo, NY)


Best things about this cover:

• It's the touching story of a lonely Stormtrooper and his inflatable girlfriend…
• If you're gonna fall to your death, may as well go out ogling bikini-clad blondes.
• This must be just before he captures her and puts her in a bottle and makes her wear pajamas all day long.
• The design here is actually spectacular. It's got that wackadoodle '60s vibe. Nice incorporation of the letter "O" into the spacesuit design. Stars in her eyes are a little cheesy / spot-on, but her little green bikini makes a nice visual impact, and the overall sun-drenchedness of the thing is a nice counterbalance to my mostly Dark cover collection.

Best things about this back cover:

• The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Literally.
• "You down with M.P.P.?" ("M.S. Ph.D.!")
• Whoa, "hanky-panky at the motel"!? Tell me more. Seriously, if it happens at motels, I need to know.
• Project Head? Really? No one batted an eyelash at that? OK, then, '60s, carry on …

Page 123~

Straight in front of him were the retro-rocket controls, welded immovably in place so that the chimp could not override ground control.

Chimps? It's got chimps? Talk about burying the lede…

~RP

P.S. Many thanks to John from The Second Reader Bookshop in Buffalo, NY, who reads my crossword blog and responded to my fund-raising drive there with a donation of books for here. Two more coming later this week.

P.P.S. John also sent me this postcard, which … well, if you all won't appreciate it, I don't know who will:


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Paperback 602: Signet P3221 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: The Body Lovers
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: photo cover (pictured: author Mickey Spillane himself)

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover: 

• In which Mike Hammer hunts down the monsters who designed this poor girl's wardrobe.
• The budget for this cover shoot appears to have been about six dollars. Give or take.
• Somewhat unfortunate that, in this pose, it looks like Hammer was caught on the verge of violating a corpse. Talk about your "Body Lovers!"
• This is flawless, unread copy.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ooh, I actually like the tricolor effect.
• Underground orgy cults are the best kind of orgy cults. All the other orgy cults are too mainstream.
• Next time someone claims to be a V.I.P. ... now you know.
• Is that Buffalo News blurb praise or horrified observation? "Moose bondage!? Dear lord!"

Page 123~

"Just so you can't say we're not covering every route I'll see what Interpol has on Ali Duval and have them pick up anybody in a fez who isn't a shriner."

Exotic headwear enthusiasts, beware.

~RP

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Paperback 589: Beacon B394 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Summer Widow
Author: Florence Stonebraker
Cover artist: Al Rossi

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover: 

• "First the pelicans, now this!? Damn you, oil spill!!!," raged Steve.
• "Your abdomen, it's so hot ... like ... like warm asphalt ... seriously, what the f*&^ is this?"
• The black Sharpie assault on this woman's torso may be the single lamest act of censorship on record.
• Florence Stonebraker ... she sounds like a real ... stonebreaker.
• Every girl's gotta have a pair of beach heels. Or just one beach heel, I guess.

Best things about this back cover:

• Time On Her Hands / Men On Her Mind / Sand On Her Butt
• Oh, "tucked." That says "*tucked* away at a summer resort ..." How disappointing.
• "What followed was ironical and bitter" is a sentence you should work into every story you tell for the rest of your life. It's a lapel-grabber.

Page 123~

She tried to fight. But what was the use in trying to fight an avalanche of insensate lust?

The guitar moaned. 

She screamed ...

Never mind the seeming impossibility of "insensate lust," I can't help thinking about what this monstrous woman is doing to that poor, poor guitar.

~RP

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Paperback 503: Pocket Books 4514 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $10

• Among my favorite McGinnis covers. I love that he's got the gorgeous woman in a discernible context—great sense of setting and mood. Love her "what the fuck do you want?" stare, and her glasses, and the texture and angles of the wooden walkway, and her hair, to say nothing of the sun-shaped title.
• If you look at her ass (and why not?), it looks like this woman's bikini was originally somewhat larger, and pink, and then it was changed to skimpier, and black. Good choice. Love the little side-tie.
• Never was too sure what was supposed to be conveyed by that arrow inside the author's initials. "Perry Mason goes down ... to the beach? gets down ... to business? takes the elevator down ... to the cafeteria?"

• More arrows, pointing in random directions. "Perry Mason goes around ... the block to the deli?"
• Down to the penny. Back when pennies mattered, dagnabbit!
• OMG, is Perry Mason the killer!? I have to read this! (is what no one reading the back cover would say)

Paul put the receiver to his ear, said, "Yes. Hello," then listened for a moment, said, "The deuce!" then turned to Perry Mason.

"Okay, Perry," he said, "the fat's in the fire."

"What?"

Even mild-mannered Perry Mason found Paul's refusal to communicate in anything but old-time exclamations and idiomatic phrases exasperating.


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Paperback 440: Dell 483 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: What a Body!
Author: Alan Green
Cover artist: Gil Darling

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy ... oh, it's just a gun."
• "Hey, easy ... gimme that back. That's my special novelty lighter I got for being second-best regional sales manager in Pensacola."
• "OK, hon, you hold real still ... I'm gonna practice my ninja moves on you now. First, I crouch in plain sight, in broad daylight, in a sky blue suit. Next ..."

Best things about this back cover:

• Well, it's legendary, and you can see why.
• I can't even snark this. It comes pre-snarked.
• The best part about this chart is the arbitrary numbers. I mean, is there really an 11% chance I'll be able to place my date in my overcoat pocket? One in ten of my dating prospects is roughly the size of a ferret? That number seems awfully high.
• Was there ever a time where that woman looked appealing? Her boobs are non-existent, which is fine—no reason every woman should be busting out of her clothes—but she also has this odd growth on her head and she appears to have just strangled some poor scraggly bird. She looks like she's on her way to a funeral, or to worship Satan.

Page 123~

Prune-juice fancier that he was, he went on sipping staring into the hypnotic depths of the swimming-pool.

That is surely the only time in the history civilization that that particular opening clause has been used. And for the record, that sentence is punctuated *precisely* as it appears in the book, however unbelievable that may seem.

~RP

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Paperback 340: Saber Books SA-106 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Youth Against Obscenity
Author: Sharron Michelle as told to [!!!?] Rex Nevins
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• All this female flesh and I'm somehow obsessed with the driftwood (!?)
• These ... I'm gonna say 'triplets' ... have very nice bodies but scary alien faces.
• Love the cross-legged guy—just havin' a cig, checkin' out the view...
• "As told to" is perhaps the richest, awesomest thing about this cover. "Mmm, authenticish."

Best things about this back cover:

• If you made it through that second sentence (let alone the whole description) with even a fingernail still clinging to the main idea, you're a better (wo)man than I am.
• How is this description simultaneously massively detailed and exceedingly vague?: Crusading against "something?" Selling photos to "a segment of the public?"
• "Of whom..." It's like an earnest 14-yr-old wrote this.

It should be said that there are hand-written / cursive marginalia all over this book—2nd page has the beginnings of a detailed synopsis (breaks off mid-sentence [!?]) and first page has one-line rating: "VVVG perhaps the best of my 30 books"—seriously, this book's owner Really liked this book. Like the person who wrote the back cover copy, this book's owner also comes across as an earnest 14-yr-old.

Page 123~

Danny looked at Betty again, only this time his eyes took in her hair, breasts, legs, and buttocks, all at once.

It's an well-seasoned leerer who can take in breasts *and* buttocks "at once."

~RP

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