57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 42

Title: Road to Folly (Popular Library 60-2158, 1st thus, [1967])
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $3

• Least sexy threesome of all time
• "Me and my pet hourglass and this photo of my mom gotta stay under this net on account of the tse-tses..."
• "Good telling!" — "I say, old chap, good telling, pip pip etc."

• Pardon my French, but Jennifer Reid sounds like a fucking idiot who deserves whatever she gets.

Page 123~

"She's better this morning, thanks, Boston. How are you?"
"Po'ly, miss, thank you. You lookin' mighty peaked yo'self, Miss Jenny."

Yeah, I don't want to read this.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 41

Title: Catch a Killer (PB 940, 1st ptg, '53)
Author: Ursula Curtiss
Cover artist: James Meese

Yours for: $5

• "Don't go in there! My Beanie Baby collection is in there! NO ONE GOES IN THERE!"
• When Jim asks for "lemon," you better give him lemon and not fucking canary if you want to live to see another day.
• "Murder? Again? But we had murder yesterday, and the day before that. I'm sick of murder. I want fishsticks."
• I'm worried about her fingers.
• Fear hand!

• OK, this is the worst reprise of a front cover Ever. Now he just looks like a staggering drunk who's got a door glued to his palm.
• "Jap!" How racist earthy!
  
• It is a little known fact that kangaroo babies are hatched from gigantic red spheres.

Page 123~

Sentry turned his head fractionally so that he met Cy's eyes, steady, probing, in a waiting face that now held no easy good humor at all.

I wish there were a "Horrible Adverb" contest I could enter "fractionally" in. Yeesh.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 40

Title: Out of the Dark (Ace G-557, ca. 1965)
Author: Ursula Curtiss
Cover artist: Schinella (?!) [he couldn't decide betw. "scintilla" and "shinola," so split the difference...]

Yours for: $5

• Looks like someone got angry and took it out on lavender.
• So ... a headless snow queen in a purple fur coat / dress is preparing to bowl the freshly severed head of a pretty blonde down some unseen runway, while Peter Falk looks on ...
• God, that hand. It's gonna haunt me.

• That militaristic font simply doesn't work in hot pink.
• "[Ring ... Ring...] ... Uh, hi boss, about that "Outta the Dark" novel: we can't think of nothin' to say so we found this quote from some guy named Boucher and we're just gonna fill up the back cover with that, OK? ... Yeah, he summarizes the book and everything. We don't gotta do nothin'. ... awesome. Thanks [click]."

Page 123~

Erect, even majestic with his flowing hair, Sip set out blindly for his sister's house.

To recap: this book has a character named "Sip." He apparently looks like Fabio.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 39

Title: The Deadly Climate — Pocket Books 1077 (1st ptg, 1955)
Author: Ursula Curtiss
Cover artist: James Meese

Yours for: $5

• "Dear god, no! That pillow's not hypoallergmmphrrrmmmph!"
• This is some damn great cover art and design. Great action, great use of white space, and possibly the biggest eyeballs I've ever seen on a cover girl. Amazing.

• "Two steps less?" Not "fewer?"
• "Unbelieving eyes stared back at her. No one wanted to believe..." Yeah, that's generally what UNBELIEVING means, Shakespeare.
• What the hell is "Shock — exposure" supposed to mean? Is that like "Stop! ... Hammertime!"?

Page 123~

Trunz took a sharp curve and inquired elaborately, "Want the siren?"

Does "elaborate" have a definition I'm not aware of? One that means The Exact Opposite of "elaborate," maybe?

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 38

Title: Postmark Murder (Dell 955, 1st ptg, 1957)
Author: Mignon G. Eberhart
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $5

• Bigfoot finds draft of wife's letter to mystery man named "Conrad." Clad in his best suit and class ring, he sets out for revenge.

• Somebody forgot to adjust-left
• This is about the worst front/back cover work I've seen in one of my books. I know nothing about the book and have no desire to read it.

Page 123~

"Oh," Mrs. Grelly gasped. "Oh—" A fleshy, ringed hand came out from the enveloping folds of her coat. She clutched the policeman's arm and went away unsteadily. Lieutenant Peabody came back to Laura.

I assume the hand was her own. It's hard to tell.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 37

Title: Wolf in Man's Clothing (Dell 136 — 1st ptg, 1947)
Author: Mignon G. Eberhart
Cover artist: [Gerald Gregg]

Yours for: $20

• So ... it's about a nurse with giant bloody hands who sticks needles in her head. Interesting.
• Where the wolf?
• Love love love the little Dell mystery eye-in-the-keyhole logo.

• This book's got a hypo cover, with all its original permagloss, *and* it's a mapback? Book sale jackpot!
• "You know what my favorite part of the book was? ... Fork."
• "Balifold" must be either a castle that has sunk into the earth or ... a minaret construction plant.

Page 123~

I put my finger on it and he looked at it, his face as inexpressive as a Red Indian's.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Books 35 and 36

Last two non-fiction (-ish) books from my library sale haul. They make a nice pair, I think.

Title: Jefferson: A Great American's Life and Ideas (Mentor 70 — 2nd ptg, Dec. 1952)
Author: Saul K. Padover
Cover artist: Jonas

Yours for: $5

• Love the way "Abridged" is used as a major selling point — "Finally, our most important Founding Father, in a dose you can manage!"
• Floating Head of Thomas Jefferson backed by the Floating Declaration of Independence. My Most Powerful, Floatingest cover ever.
• "This planting season, why not outfit your team with Dr. E. J. Samuelson's newly patented Invisible Oxen Rigging! Amaze your friends as your oxen appear to pull your plow by sheer force of mind alone ..."

• "Living Words ... written on dead sheep."

Page 123~

For Aaron Burr was not famous for virtue or steadfastness of character, and the idea of such a man's occupying the presidential chair was disturbing to responsible men.

Title: Masters of Deceit (Pocket Books 75099 — 22nd ptg!?!?!, 1966)
Author: J. Edgar Hoover
Cover artist: Ben Feder (designer)

Yours for: $10

• "The Communists Will Spray Our Most Precious Documents with Ketchup, Make No Mistake!"

• "Hello, Frederick's of Hollywood? This is, uh, Edwina Hooverston ..."
• Blurbed his own book. Clever.

Page 123~

Five minutes later, a fourth person, a woman in a dark coat, arrives. Everything is quiet: no loud voices, no cars parked in front, no reason for the neighbors to suspect that a Communist Party meeting is in progress.

This book is really a fantastic window into Cold War paranoia. I might actually read it.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 33 and 34

Title: Roosevelt and Hopkins (in two volumes!) (Bantam nn, October 1950)
Author: Robert E. Sherwood
Cover artist: photos

Yours for: $8 (for the two)

• "Oh, Hopkins, how I think of you when you're away ..."
  
• I bought these because a. I don't have much non-fiction / history / biography in my collection, and b. I had noooooooooo idea how a two-volume biography of a president of the U.S. could be (half-) dedicated to a Man I Had Never Heard Of. Hopkins!? Gerard Manley is the only Hopkins I know. Oh, and Johns.
• Harry Hopkins was an important adviser to FDR — one of the architects of the New Deal (acc. to Wikipedia).

Vol 2:

• What the hell has FDR got on his shoulder? His wife's hat?

• Major props to FDR for being the only one of the three world leaders in this photo who doesn't look like a total asshole.

Page 123~

After he became Secretary of State, Marshall told me that he believed that his appointment as Chief of Staff in 1939 had been primarily due to Harry Hopkins.

In return, Marshall had to give Hopkins his first-born child.

~RP

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