Paperback 911: Darkness at Noon / Arthur Koestler (Signet 671)

Paperback 911: Signet 671 (2nd ptg, 1950)

Title: Darkness at Noon
Author: Arthur Koestler
Cover artist: [jonas?]

Estimated value: $7-10

Best things about this cover:

• This looks like me at roughly 9:30am on the days I don't teach. Minus the cigarette, I mean. Ladies ... liquor ... mystery dude in a hat ... these are where my thoughts wander.
• This is a classic, but I haven't read it. I am surprised to find it is about a lazy dude fantasizing about Parisian booze and broads.
• It's a prison novel, but this doesn't really evoke prison. Faint hints of "brick" in the walls, but that robe looks too comfy for prisonwear.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, the era of the author-smoking photo. So ... debonair.
• But also so tiny, what the hell's with the picture shrinkage?
• That cover copy does not offer much in the way of breathing room. Yikes.

Page 123~

Woe to the fool and the aesthete who only ask how and not why.

This is in the middle of a dense philosophical section that is all italics and also a bummer.

~RP

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Paperback 844: Death Before Bedtime / Edgar Box (Signet 1093)

Paperback 844: Signet 1093 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Death Before Bedtime
Author: Edgar Box (Gore Vidal)
Cover artist: [Samuel] Cherry

Estimated value: $15-20


Best things about this cover:

• "If I can't have this hideous table lamp, no one can!" (I'm currently Ob Sessed with the table lamps of crime fiction / film noir / crime TV)
• "Stop right there! Now, tell me … do these heels go with this embroidered bathrobe? Answer me, punk!"
• Nice leg extension. You rarely see such poise in someone scrambling to protect herself from an intruder. Old school.
• Edgar Box is Gore Vidal. I've been meaning to read Vidal's Box stuff for a while. Maybe this Christmas …

Best things about this back cover:

• Hey, his secretary can't help her spinal deformity, you assholes.
• I hope "The woman he kept a secret" is an imaginary friend.
• "The buddy who hated him" is just a great stand-alone phrase.

Page 123~

She flushed, confused. "I … I was mistaken then. I was under the impression you thought Johnson was in some way involved."

Lydia was always the first to volunteer … if Johnson was involved.

~RP

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Paperback 634: Moment of Untruth / Ed Lacy (Lancer Books 73-554)

Paperback 634: Lancer Books 73-554 (2nd ptg ?, 1967)

Title: Moment of Untruth
Author: Ed Lacy
Cover artist: illegible [underneath and perpendicular to guy's right arm] [Al Parker?]

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• This is seriously the dumbest-looking cover hero I've seen in a while. Looks like he's wearing a shorty terrycloth robe. Also, like he's carrying a giant woman's purse while not wearing pants. 
• "We need to play on the phrase 'Moment of Truth'..." "Oooh, I have an idea ..."
• There's "earth tones" ... and then there's feces. And we're *right* on the border here. 
• Not sure I like what he's doing to that poor girl with that gun. 
• I call ellipsis abuse.
• That woman needs to Dominate this cover. What the hell were the designers thinking?
• "Mexico: Come for the Food and the Fun, Stay for the Taut Immediacy"

Best things about this back cover:

• TOUIE! That is a name I can get behind.
• "He was a Negro, and at age forty he knew exactly what that meant." Unfortunately, I have no idea exactly what that means.
• Copywriting has apparently been given over to some randomizing algorithm. "Random assertion ... Random plot point ... ELLIPSIS!"

Page 123~

"Ask, does a woman pilot this second plane with the two engines?" I said, feeling the excitement well up within me.

When the kid translated, the godmother shook her head, seemed to indicate  a woman by pointing to her own flat breasts.

This may be the most implausible breast-related action I've ever heard of. I'm trying to imagine this happening in a way that isn't entirely comical and/or enigmatic. I mean, it's a yes/no question, why in the world would she point to her own breasts? It's a redundant, ridiculous move.

~RP

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Paperback 631: The Jerk / adapted by Carl Gottlieb

Paperback 631: Warner Books 92-626 (PBO, 1979)

Title: The Jerk
Author: intro and text adaptation by Carl Gottlieb
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• So I own this for some reason.
• It's not a novelization so much as a movie still picture book. Every page has a shot from the movie and some accompanying text. I know, I'm really selling it.
• I always hated those little paddle ball game thingies.

Best things about this back cover:

• Peter Sellers-esque photo spread.
• I didn't know a book could "star" someone.
• Steve Martin's stand-up was a revelation to me (via my dad) when I was a kid.

Page 123~


Carl Reiner, ladies & gentlemen. Carl Reiner.

~RP

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