Paperback 1165: What D'Ya Know For Sure? / Len Zinberg (Avon T-093)

Paperback 1165: Avon T-093 (3rd ptg, 1955)

Title: What D'Ya Know For Sure?

Author: Len Zinberg

Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Condition: 3/10

Value: $2?

Best things about this cover: 

• "Who's got one thumb and no idea how to control his emotions? This guy!"
• "Did you run over my book with your car and then try to tape it back together? Did You!?" (this may be the worst-condition still-fully-intact book in my collection)
• Poor lady. She's got extreme "Sir, this is an Arby's" face.
• Avon first published this book as Strange Desires, and yeah, she definitely looks like she wants nothing to do with his strange desires.
• Not a big fan of the implied domestic violence here, but that dude's expression is an all-timer.

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Here is the Hollywood of WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN—the writing quality of WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN, sorry, we don't got none of that."
• Side effects of reading this book may include frantic bedlam of the underside ...
• "Full of awareness" LOL wot? "After reading this book, I am aware ... that it sucks."

Page 123~

Joe was busy changing into a sport shirt. His body was hog-fat with age.

Side effects of aging may include hog-fat ...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]

Paperback 384: The Golden Sorrow / Theodore Pratt (Red Seal 16)

Paperback 384: Red Seal 16 (PBO, 1952)

Title: The Golden Sorrow
Author: Theodore Pratt
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• After the Golden Shower comes ... The Golden Sorrow—you can really feel her shame
• His sidelong glance is awesome
• "Uh, everything's cool, right honey? ... Look, I know you think pinky rings are tacky, but you don't have to be so histrionic about it."
• Are those cufflinks or rotten Nilla Wafers?

Best things about this back cover:

• Is this paperback cover copy or a sad tenth-grader's unpublished poetry?
• "Cocotte?"
• "Handsome!?!?!"

Page 123~

"You're a heel, Danny, a stinking heel on the make. You're only for Danny Rattigan." Her eyes flashed. "You are not worthy of the theatre. Oh, yes, you'll probably be a big success in Hollywood—if you can stand looking at yourself in the mirror. Now get out of here—get out!" [end of chapter]

If you write a phrase like "stinking heel on the make," I submit that you have overestimated your facility with idiomatic expressions. On the other hand, "You are not worthy of the theatre!" is T-shirt worthy.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Glick!

R.I.P. Budd Schulberg (1914-2009)

Here's a British paperback of Schulberg's best-known (and probably best) novel:

[A hot cover of a hot book, sent to me by a reader with a good eye and good taste]

Click here to see Budd Schulberg's The Disenchanted ("Pop Sensation" Paperback 246)

~RP