Paperback 895: Flame / Joan Ellis (Midwood 61)

Paperback 895: Midwood 61 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Flame
Author: Joan Ellis
Cover artist: [Paul Rader]

Estimated value: $17-20

Best things about this cover:

• I don't know what you're about to do with the cigarette, lady, but please stop.
• She looks like if Lauren Bacall and Satan had a baby.
• I am on fire with burning ambition and a smouldering need for CHAIR.
• Font!
• Heels!
• Scare quotes!
• This book is, like, the reddest thing I own.
• I don't know if this is a Paul Rader cover, but it feels that way, so ... partial credit!

Best things about this back cover:

• HA ha, more scare quotes for all things "school"-related. We get it. It's a racket.
• They're pushing this "FLAME" motif a little hard.
• No cooked facts! Only raw! This is "Talent School," ladies!
• If not a band, Hardened Harlots is at least a roller derby team name.

Page 123~

"Let 'em get all hot and bothered. Do 'em good," he insisted, sliding her robe into a heap on the floor, and then the bikini pajamas she wore underneath.

Google image search of "bikini pajamas" yields mostly ... well, neither bikinis nor pajamas. Is "bikini pajamas" what hep cats used to call "underwear"?

~RP

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Paperback 464: Campus Kittens / Joan Ellis (Midwood 32-417)

Paperback 464: Midwood 32-417 (PBO, 1964) (CANADA)

Title: Campus Kittens
Author: Joan Ellis
Cover artist: Paul Rader

Yours for: [SOLD! 10/10/11]

Best things about this cover:

• The scintillating story of a buxom young redhead, her gravity-defying towel (or her extremely adhesive nipples), and her collection of remarkably life-like store mannequins.
• Seriously, there's no way that blonde is a living breathing human being.
• Shouldn't it be an "unblushing exposé"?—if it's blushing, then it's gonna be all coy and its sex scenes are going to be all vague and elliptical and annoying. "Blushing" is not "frank," is what I'm saying.
• "Our once-respectable collegiate sorority houses," ha ha. "In my day, we spent our days performing community service and singing songs that expressed pride in our alma mater. Nowadays, it's all cunnilingus this and cunnilingus that!"

Best things about this back cover:

• Spiteful sexual sprees are the best kind!
• What is the "worst possible moment" to be caught in a motel with a married man? You'd think any moment would be pretty bad.
• "Elementary education at the hands of her roommate" made me laugh. Yes, hands are elementary. Later, you might move on to tongue. Only the truly talented graduate to vagina. Hence Andrea's need for personal tutoring.

Page 123~

"Same place, you sexy little wench," he crooned [1]. "If you're still willing to go out with a decrepit old character like me." [2]

"Oh stop it," she laughed. Owen was one of the handsomest men she had ever encountered, and no older than a lot of movie stars [3]. "You'll make me bring along a pair of crutches if you keep up that talk." [4]

• [1] If you are trying to get laid, I suggest that you not croon anything, let alone that particular line.
• [2] This guy is like a bottomless pit of bad come-on lines.
• [3] This is an odd benchmark: "Why, you're no older than Edward G. Robinson or Joseph Cotten." "I'm only 41." "Shhh, I'm pretending our relationship is normal ..."
• [4] Why, so you can reenact scenes from "Double Indemnity?" I think you mean "wheelchair." He said "decrepit" and "old," not "suffering from a sprained ankle."

~RP

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