Paperback 521: The Man With the Golden Gun / Ian Fleming (Signet P2735)

Paperback 521: Signet P2735 (1st ptg, 1966)

Title: The Man with the Golden Gun
Author: Ian Fleming
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• James Bond subdues the 50-Foot Woman ... with sexy results.
• Damn the '60s, with their "words" crowding out all the luscious artistry. I can't believe the great Barye Phillips' work has been reduced (literally and metaphorically) to this. It's like his art is being chewed by the bloody fangs of the words, while also being attacked by a golden word-buzzsaw.
• Her ass is so hot it's literally steaming.

Best things about this back cover:

• NOTHING!
• Ah, "bordello," you seldom-used, beautiful word.
• "Aided by his sex-galore confederate" is a brilliant phrase, I'll give the copy writer that.

Page 123~

Amused by his thoughts, Bond's right hand came out of his pocket and lit a cigarette for him, quietly and obediently. It had stopped going off chasing rabbits on its own.

I'm kind of stuck on how a "hand" gets "amused."

~RP

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Paperback 520: Tales of the South Pacific / James A. Michener (Pocket Books 516)

Paperback 520: Pocket Books 516 (16th-18th ptg, 1950)

Title: Tales of the South Pacific
Author: James A. Michener
Cover artist: Harvey Kidder

Yours for: $5


Best things about this cover:

• "I ... uh ... I forget why I came in here."
• "My eyes are up here" doesn't really work when you're topless.
• I liked the Kangaroo better when it had a joey in its pouch. This "book boner" incarnation is disturbing.

Best things about this back cover:

• Whoa, someone's got a military fetish. I'm looking at you, K.C. Clapp.
• "Balinese lasses" is not the kind of phrase you are likely to see ... ever. Unless there are Balinese in Ireland.
• "Bali laughs" is so terrible I literally laughed.

Page 123~

As in a trance, Cable sucked in his breath audibly. The girl smiled, and at that moment Cable heard a hissing noise. He turned around, frightened. But it was only bloody Mary. She had her peach-basket hat in her left hand. Stains of betel juice were drenching the ravines of her mouth, which was grinning, broadly. Her broken teeth showed through, black, black as night. She winked her right eye heavily and asked, "You like?" Then she turned and fled down the path.

Ah, natives. So droll. So quaint. So exotic. Just a moment of local color before our hero has sex with an underage prostitute ... who is a virgin ... who will cry immediately after. You know, the way men do. "The regrets and moral questionings would come later."

~RP

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Paperback 519: Liza of Lambeth / W. Somerset Maugham (Avon 139)

Paperback 519: Avon 139 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Liza of Lambeth
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $7

Best things about this cover:

• Liza of Lamboobs!
• Vincent Van Gogh positions himself for optimal boob viewing. "Sunflowers, Shmunflowers. I'm painting these!"
• Vincent Van Gogh, Incompetent Vampire!
• I remember these swirly popsicle thingies that mom used to buy. I associate them with that one time I was so sick (1981) that I couldn't keep much down. Anyway, popsicle color + memory of barfing = where the background of this painting takes my brain.

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare-Head!
• We've seen all this before.

Page 123~

"I never 'ad any money from anyone."
"Don't talk ter me; I know yer did. Yer dirty bitch. You oughter be ashimed of yerself tikin' a married man from 'is family, an' 'im old enough ter be yer father."

This whole scene is like a Cockney Jerry Springer episode.

~RP

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Paperback 518: Red Harvest / Dashiell Hammett (Pocket Books 241)

Paperback 518: Pocket Books 241 (1st ptg, 1943)

Title: Red Harvest
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: H. Lawrence Hoffman

Yours for: $17

Best things about this cover:

• A classic hard-boiled novel. This one's been well read, but is still solid. Pleasantly aged. Late-night, nearly-empty bus station quality.
• That's a pretty awful hand. And the smoke looks like a poop parsnip. And the blood is orange. I still like it.
• Haven't read this in a Long while. Might be time.

Best things about this back cover:

• "A BLOODY HUMORESQUE" = gold! Like you'd Ever see a word like "humoresque" on a piece of popular fiction now. 
• Ellipsis ... much?
• "Choice underworld vernacular" pretty much says it all about what makes the best hard-boiled writing so delectable.
• "A harvest of ill-grown crimson weeds!"
• Wait, those are quotes??? Had they not yet figured out the standard for blurb presentation yet in 1943? "What if we just throw all these sentences down in a jumble, separate them with ellipses, then just list the names of the quotation authors in a heap at the end. Readers will love that."

Page 123~

"Now hop to it," I said. "And don't kid yourself that there's any law in Poisonville except what you make for yourself."

Hardboiled philosophy has rarely been so clearly, succinctly, perfectly expressed.

~RP

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Paperback 517: The best of ROCKY and the complete ROCKY II / Fotonovel Publications (nn)

Paperback 517: Fotonovel nn (1st ptg, 1979)

Title: The Best of 'Rocky' and the Complete 'Rocky II' 
Author: Uncredited
Cover artist: Movie still

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Here we see Rocky moments before he is eaten alive by a hungry pack of extras from "Free to Be You and Me"
• You can pay in Pounds Sterling or American Dollars. "Special Edition!"
• I like the Rocky figure inside the "Y" of Rocky II, though it looks less like a boxer than a guy wearing oven mitts being held up at gunpoint.

Best things about this back cover:

• "At last!"—something no one ever said about a Fotonovel.
• "ROCKY II picks up where ROCKY leaves us"—what a novel concept in sequelry!
• How does he get his right-bottom lip to do that!? It's freaky. Stroke-ish.

Page 123~ (there are no page #s, so I'm just guessing here)

I don't think Adrian is frightened so much as ashamed. It's one thing to get knocked down, and quite another to cower and present your junk to the camera in such a self-abasing fashion.

~RP

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Paperback 516: The Conscience of a Conservative / Barry Goldwater (MacFadden Capitol Hill Book SP1)

Paperback 516: Macfadden Capitol Hill SP 1 (21st ptg, 1964)

Title: The Conscience of a Conservative
Author: Senator Barry Goldwater
Cover artist: Photo cover

Yours for: $25

Best things about this cover:

• Barry Goldwater cares not about your desire to see scantily-clad women and poorly-written taglines! 
• One of the most important books in the history of American conservatism. This edition was published in January of the year Goldwater ran for president. It's in phenomenal, barely- or unread shape. (some scuffing on back)
• I think MacFadden Books created their "Capitol Hill" book line just for this book (note the number: SP1)

Best things about this back cover:

• Well, I'll give him one thing: as back covers go, it doesn't get much more Conservative than this.

Page 123~ (*this* should be Hot...)

We may not make foreign peoples love us (no nation has ever succeeded in that) but we can make them respect us.

"Dad, they're Canadian, and I'm sure they'll return your barbecue tongs if you just ask. Jeez."

~RP

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Paperback 515: The Sexually Promiscuous Female / Benjamin Morse, M.D. (Monarch MB 535)

Paperback 515: Monarch Books MB 535 (PBO, 1963)

Title: The Sexually Promiscuous Female
Author: Dr. Benjamin Morse, M.D.
Cover artist: Photo cover

Yours for: Not for Sale (gift to the collection from Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• I don't know who this woman is, but ... we would like to announce that we are in love.
• Sorry, Dr. Morse, your "alarming" report is not quelling my desire to go on a cross-country crime jag with Tina here.
• Love the uneven lettering! This is what happens when you shout "PROMISCUOUS" as you leap from a moving train, which you have robbed because you are on a cross-country crime jag with Tina.
• Sexy sunglasses. Gorgeous gams. Casual footwear. All the trademarks of the modern-day whore.
• She'd be in her late-70s today. So if I'm gonna find her, I better act quick.
• Dr. Morse is (according to the title page) also author of "The Lesbian," which I believe had the famous subtitle: "Or So I Imagine"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Frigidity"?! Oh, come ON!
• "Penetrating"!? Really? Phrasing!
• I love how this book's all "beware this trend" when no one, and I mean no one, buying this book is going to see "The Promiscuous Female" as a problem. More like "... and I can find her ... where? You know, to, er, talk her out of her, uh ... lifestyle. Yeah. That's what I'll do. So what's her number?"

Page 123~

A period of unpaid promiscuity, with all its attendant minor heartbreaks, soon conditions the girl to the point where she wants to strike back at the men who have taken advantage of her.

So ... like a promiscuity internship? Nice. Where does one get ... those?

~RP

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Paperback 514: Restless Women / John Falcone (Wizard 408)

Paperback 514: Wizard 408 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Restless Women
Author: John Falcone
Cover artist: Uncredited [awfully Gene Bilbrew-esque]

Yours for: Not for Sale (Gift to the Collection from Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• What is it with the seriously ugly dudes on these covers lately. Looks like someone put a rubber mask on that guy and then punched him in the face til he died.
• He's dead, lady. He doesn't care about your stupid seashell fan.
• So they've brought a mattress and a ... turkey? game hen? ... to the beach?
• Top woman's body is insane. Looks more like braided challah than human flesh.
• Looks like half of your "four-woman harem" has gone missing already, buddy. You kind of suck at this. Maybe you should wake up. Oh, right, you're dead.

Best things about this back cover:

• Magenta woman stands under giant magenta feather / waterfall. No one knows why.
• If you never thought there was such a thing as "appositive abuse," check out that third paragraph.
• "Nocturnal nude swim" = when technical writers are hired to write porn.

Page 123~

But as Lola went on, he made a conscious effort to shut it out of his mind. This kind of drivel could spoil a man's breakfast. He motioned to the waiter for more coffee. Lola kept droning on. If she was an actress, he was a giraffe.

If the front cover illustration is anything to go on, I'm buying "giraffe" before I'm buying "Movie hero" who juggles "four demanding sex machines at once." I mean, have you tried juggling sex machines?! Very slippery.

~RP

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