Paperback 584: The Delicate Ape / Dorothy B. Hughes (Pocket Books 422)

Paperback 584: Pocket Books 422 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: The Delicate Ape
Author: Dorothy B. Hughes
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• I have not read this book, but I dearly hope that this cover is some kind of surreal metaphor and not an actual scene from the book. 
• Who would pick this book up based on its cover? "Hmmm, I've always been curious about apes who are also sexual sadists and aesthetes ... I guess I'll give this a try."
• Love the flag motif against the camouflage background. It's like some horribly ill-conceived army recruitment poster. (Upon closer inspection, it's actually a camo-colored map of the world)

Best things about this back cover:

• Well, if you want to know what this book is about, that first paragraph really isn't going to help you much.
• I think the cover is a depiction of "a seductive force in evil hands." 
• I assume the information he has, the information everyone wants, is data on the disastrous consequences of a flower diet in the ape population.

Page 123~

"He's an old man. Something could happen."

"These opportune events do not often occur." Watkins scooped a spoon of ice cream. 

Spy's gotta eat.

~RP

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Paperback 561: GI Rights and Army Justice: The Draftee's Guide to Military Life and Law / Robert S. Rivkin (Grove B-258)

Paperback 561: Grove B-258 (1st ptg, 1970)

Title: GI Rights and Army Justice: The Draftee's Guide to Military Life and Law
Author: Robert S. Rivkin
Cover artist: Jules Feiffer

Yours for: $11
Best things about this cover:

• I hope the resolution on this image is good enough for you to see the G.I. being crushed by the title. Huddled up and anxious. What a great Vietnam-era, counterculture book this is.
• Love the Red White and Blue *on black* color scheme—it essentially says "your country is great because it has laws that will protect you even though your country is doing Terrible things in southeast Asia."
• Jules Feiffer! I probably got this book just because the art was by him.
• Grove Press fought really important legal battles against censorship in the '50s and '60s after publishing banned books like "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and "Tropic of Cancer," among others. For more info, see the entertaining 2008 documentary "Obscene."

Best things about this back cover:

• A.C.L.U.—the renegade publisher's best friend.
• "Minus Its Couth" is a strange, fantastic phrase.
• The black cat logo is so super-awesome that I want it on a t-shirt, like, right now.

Page 123~

However, treason may be committed only in time of a declared war and must involve something more than merely expression.

~RP

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Paperback 545: The Marauders / Michael McGann (Jove 10150-8)

Paperback 545: Jove 10150-8 (PBO, 1989)

Title: The Marauders
Author: Michael McGann
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6

Best things about this cover:

• Countdown to a gay porn movie shoot in 5, 4, 3 ...
• Russell Crowe, Joe Piscopo, Some Weasel Face, Eric Roberts, Lorenzo Lamas, and ... That Bald Asian Guy are ... The Marauders!
• If you think those guns aren't cock substitutes, just check out how bachelor #3 is holding his. He's stroking its balls / presenting it to you on a platter / begging you to admire it.
• "We used to have shirts, but our bodies were so hot they just burned away. Now all we wear is this fire-retardant kevlar stuff. Marauders!"
• I want one of these patches to sew onto my ... I'm gonna say 'underwear.'
• "From the Creators [plural] of The Guardians" ... and yet it's written by Michael McGann [singular]. One shape-shifting, multiple-personalitied, gun- and gay-porn-loving guy.
• After a nuclear war, wouldn't these guys be a little ... anti-climactic, actually.

Best things about this back cover:

• Nothing.
• KGB Chairman, ha ha! Good call, 1989. Way to predict the fyooture.
• "There's a first time for everything—especially death" is an unintentionally great line. Pearls of wisdom, compliments of ... The Marauders!

Page 123~

The two men walked out of the car. Jack looked over his shoulder. "Buddha? Can you loan me your rifle for a moment?"

In case you were wondering what they were gonna call That Bald Asian Guy. Now you know.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]