Paperback 955: The Way It Is / Curt Flood (Pocket Books 78188)

Paperback 955: Pocket Books 78188 (1st ptg, 1972)

Title: The Way It Is
Author: Curt Flood
Cover artist: photo cover

Estimated value: $20-30
Condition: 7/10

Best things about this cover:

• We now interrupt this cover to bring you the telekinetic powers of Curt Flood!
• It's like Curt willed the ball to stop with his mind. "If you want the game to start again, I have some ... demands."
• Curt Flood with the rarely seen Self-Photobomb!
• This cover seems both ill-conceived (you're blocking the shot!) and genius (Curt Flood will not be denied!)
• Vida Blue's intro is good. Also, Vida Blue is one of the greatest baseball names of all time.

Best things about this back cover:

• Man, people are throwing a lot of shade at Jim Bouton.
• Back when a "sensitive, artistic black man" was apparently some kind of wonder to the NYT...
• Miguel Cabrera's breakfast costs $100,000. All ballplayers should tithe to the Church of St. Flood.

Page 123~

Having established the plan unilaterally, without bargaining of any kind, they felt free to modify it at will. Above all, they felt free to keep the TV and radio money for themselves. This disturbed the players.

~RP

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Paperback 855: The Remarkable Kennedys / Joe McCarthy (Popular Giant PC 850)

Paperback 855: Popular Giant PC 850 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Remarkable Kennedys
Author: Joe McCarthy
Cover artist: photo cover

Estimated value: $5-8


Best things about this cover:

• That remarkable hair. He's actually holding a nail in his left hand, and he's about to drive it into the desk with his head.
• Remarkably, this book was published in February 1960, well before JFK was president. It is a slim little piece of Americana/Propaganda.
• Not *that* Joe McCarthy (I assume).

Best things about this back cover: 

• John Folksy Kennedy.
• Wow, Eunice was a tall drink of water.
• The unreadable subtitle on that Robert F. Kennedy book is "The McClellan Committee's Crusade Against Jimmy Hoffa and Corrupt Labor Unions"

Page 123~

"He did well, but he would have done much better if he had somebody with him who knew the score instead of all those crew-cut college boys in their silk suits," one veteran says.

"Crew-College Boys In Their Silk Suits" sounds like a niche-market pin-up calendar.

~RP

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Other Books, Other Covers: The Pulp Jungle / Frank Gruber (Sherbourne Press, 1967)

Title: The Pulp Jungle
Author: Frank Gruber
Cover artist: ["Jacket Design by Czeslaw Z. Banasiewicz"]

Estimated value: $40




Anecdotes from the pulp trenches. Invaluable. Dude knew everyone and wrote for everyone and comes across as a sane, no-nonsense, hard-working guy. Great portrait of a man trying to make it as a professional writer (mysteries and westerns) through the Depression and beyond. Main lesson: work harder. Write more. Write now. Write everything. Oh, and be honest. He's big on decency and honesty, even when the world around you is full of liars and chiselers. He's Marlowe-esque, that way.

Page 123~

We were just making talk. I was forty years old in 1944, not likely to be drafted, and Steve had varicose veins. So we encouraged Heinie and he talked about his novel. The next morning, cold sober, he would come in and shudder.

"What the hell was that nonsense we were talking about yesterday? Me go over to Italy? I'm fifty-two years old, I've got no business in a shooting war."

I don't know who Heinie Faust is, but several pages earlier, Gruber says of him: "Heinie was the most prolific writer of all time. He was also the biggest boozer I have ever known."

~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 433: Sintown, U.S.A. / ed. Noah Sarlat (Lion Books 106)

Paperback 433: Lion Books 106 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Sintown, U.S.A.
Editor: Noah Sarlat
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

• Fresno! (my hometown—I bought this book for that reason alone)
• I still don't know where "Bergen" is. Sweden?
• She's a tough, sexy dame ... from the neck down. From the neck up, she is a wasted, miscoiffed mess.
• I'm guessing what we're seeing here is one of them there "Sucker Traps..."

Best things about this back cover:

• "You will not see wealthy dowagers with lorgnettes sipping wine and nibbling on cheese in their opera boxes"
• My guess is that if the reader has bothered to flip the book over to read the back cover, he already suspects that it's not about the genteel habits of the urban elite. The book is called "Sintown, U.S.A." for god's sake.
• I like how this book goes beyond the mere assertion of the existence of a thriving underground vice economy to the more provocative claim that said "muck and misery and seaminess" are the "bedrock" of Anytown, U.S.A. "Can't have museums without hookers aplenty. That's nature's law."
• 20,000 seems an awfully arbitrary number.
• I've never been to Yourtown. Mytown, sure. But not Yourtown.

Page 123~

Many a respected Bergen citizen with a kingsize "monkey riding on his back" is in hock up to his ears.

As any Swede can tell you, it costs a lot of money to care for back-riding monkeys, especially the big ones.

~RP

P.S. Bergen, it turns out, is in Norway. Also, New Jersey.

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Paperback 398: Sinful Cities of the Western World / Hendrik De Leeuw (Pyramid 27)

Paperback 398: Pyramid Books 27 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Sinful Cities of the Western World
Author: Hendrik de Leeuw
Cover artist: Frederick Meyer

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

• Touchdown! The Giantesses win again! Suck it, Lilliputians!
• Few people know that the Aurora Borealis is actually caused by a giant radioactive woman named Aurora. Here she is in the little Canadian fishing village where she grew up (before being bitten by that spider...).
• I love how nonchalant the little people are: "Ugh, her again. What a drama queen."

Best things about this back cover:

• Look at you, Hartford Courant, working the paradox angle. Look out, big city papers, there's a new kid on the blurb block, and he's hungry!
• The U.N. had a committee on "White Slavery???"
• Berlin, why must you be excessive in your sadism and homosexuality? Why can't you just be moderately sadistic and homosexual, like Luxembourg?
• Memo to copywriter re: last line—"arouse" and "alert" are not synonyms. So unless you really mean to encourage people to engage in the "horrible barter of human flesh," maybe a rewrite's in order.

Page 123~

Even the breath of the woman in my arms, as we danced again, was honey flavored.

"Hey, buddy, why do you keep licking the air around my head? ... well, you sound like a dog, so cut it out or I ain't dancin' with you no more."

~RP

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Paperback 380: I Kid You Not / Jack Paar (Giant Cardinal 103)

Paperback 380: Giant Cardinal GC-103 (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: I Kid You Not
Author: Jack Paar
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• It is the all-important time of 5:03. No, wait, that must be 12:24 (a.m.). That is the longest hour hand I've ever seen.
  
• There are few things about this picture that do *not* say serial killer. I think he got that pinky ring off his last victim.
• I know Jack Paar from such places as crossword puzzles. That is the only way that I know Jack Paar. I kid you not.

Best things about this back cover:

• A guy this wacky surely deserves a more colorful back cover layout—more colors, a wobbly font, something...
• Are the U-turns in the first paragraph literal or metaphorical?
• I can't wait to read about his feud with Mickey Rooney.
• Why would someone put a filter-tip on a firecracker? "Paradox put to paper"? Some young copywriter was bucking for a promotion. I pray he (or she) did not receive it.

Page 123~

The two young giraffes, which stood about ten feet high, had scarcely teetered down the gangplank on their spindly legs when government inspectors pounced on them.

Well this book has taken an odd turn.

~RP

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Paperback 379: How To Win Friends and Influence People / Dale Carnegie (PB 68)

Paperback 378: Pocket Books 68 (26th ptg, 1944)

Title: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Author: Dale Carnegie
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• LOVE the individualized book count number up top (in red). You can see that my copy (beat to hell) is the 26th printing–first printing was just three years earlier.
• This guy looks like a tool. A smug tool. Also, how are his glasses staying on his face?

Best things about this back cover:

• Sorry about the (considerable) soilage.
• This book apparently succeeded by preying on people's (massive) insecurities. There should be some caveat somewhere indicating exceptions for people who are just plain assholes. No amount of book is gonna get that out.
• I love how unrepentantly practical this book is—as if success were simply a recipe.

Also, time, or perhaps a small rodent, has eaten away the corners of the book, giving them a jagged yet neatly rounded appearance.

Page 123~

While we have been waiting for you, Mr. Eastman, I have been admiring your office. I wouldn't mind working myself if I had a room like this to work in. You know I am in the interior-woodworking business myself, and I never saw a more beautiful office in all my life.

This is evidently from the section on Advanced Ass-Kissing.

~RP

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Paperback 374: The Making of Star Trek / Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry (Ballantine 73004)

Paperback 374: Ballantine Books 73004 (PBO, 1968)

Title: The Making of Star Trek
Authors: Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry
Cover artist: photos

Yours for: [SOLD! 12-5-10]


Best things about this cover:

• If I were a Star Trek fan, I would be geeking out so hard over this very cool paperback original
• That Enterprise is absurdly model-kit-looking in this photo. Maybe that's the point? "How it works!—we make cheap-ass models and use trick photography, suckers."
• Further, "How it works"? I like how it implies that the tech is real.
• Those are two handsome spacemen.

Best things about this back cover:

• A "biography" of a TV show! Printed while said show was still on the air. Pretty visionary / ballsy.
• Seriously, this back cover isn't lying. This book is Thick and chock full of photos, internal memos, a miniature episode guide, and a chapter entitled "Whither Star Trek?"! Oh, and whoever owned this book originally was a megageek, as there are tiny clipped-out TV Guide epsiode summaries taped and/or paperclipped into the episode guide section. Also, this section is annotated in some kind of code.

Page 123~

When the first screening was over, the general reaction from the people in the room was, "This is the most fantastic thing we've ever seen."

~RP

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Paperback 333: Fighting Generals / Phil Hirsch (Pyramid G496)

Paperback 333: Pyramid G496 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Fighting Generals
Editor: Phil Hirsch
Cover artist: Mel Crair

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Well, insofar as you can describe the "best things" about Nazis ... I'd say that is some fine portraiture. I love the expression on Rommel's face. He looks a bit like Colonel Klink. Accident?
• How many insignias does one man need?
• This title is superlame. I can't wait for the sequel, "Peaceful Generals." That, or "Fleeing Generals"

Best things about this back cover:

• Hmmm. Design on this is pretty nice. Staggered photos, staggered descriptions, on a two-tone back ground. Kind of evokes the stripes on a flag. Kind of evokes chaos.
• Of course the Russian sounds the worst. Hello, 1960! Fuck you, Commies!

Page 123~

The stooped old man looked harmless—but Hitler's killers knew he was a deadly threat to the Nazi empire!

This may be the first time my "Page 123" has been an above-the-chapter-title teaser. Dynamic!

~RP

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2 books handed to me at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament: Book 2

Title: Consultation Room (Pocket 654, 1st ptg, 1949)
Author: Frederic Loom, M.D.
Cover artist: Stanley Meltzoff

Yours for: not for sale

• "What's the matter, doctor? Do my boobs ... frighten you?" "Er, I'll just put the stethoscope ... uh ... here, or ..." "Be a man!"
• "Normally, patients sit down for this exam. Also, normally they don't wear wedding dresses to the exam."
• This book should be called "What the Gigantic Brass Door Handle Knows"
• "My world has revolved around sex as a pivot" — "... as a pivot"?? That's redundant *and* stupid.
• "Frank!" I love when paperbacks get "frank." That means people are gonna do it in some non-marital and possibly non-missionary way.

• Clifton Fadiman shows off his mad (mad mad mad) blurbing skills, while the Dayton News tries, and fails, to make up an adjective.
• "From the young wife to the woman of 50" — All the way to 50!? Way to push the envelope, guys.
• "Frank!"

Page 123~

"Don't do it!" she cried when she could speak coherently. "Please let me have my baby now. I don't want to have a Brazilian soldier!"

"Brazilian soldier" being, of course, code for some fairly serious pre-delivery waxing.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 32

Title: Inside the John Birch Society (Gold Medal d1141, PBO, 1961)
Author: Gene Grove
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: $7

• Because nothing says "Happy New Year" like the John Birch Society
• Can you be shrouded in non-secrecy? Shrouded in fame? Redundant, I say, to thee, Mr. Grove.
• Look out! Commie! ... sorry, false alarm. This Welch guy's just got me all spooked.

• I'm kind of with him on the republic vs. democracy thing.
• That part about Eisenhower is the real departure-from-planet-earth moment for the Birchers (hmm, similarity to "Birthers" — Coincidence? Or Conspiracy!? ... since "Birchers" isn't a word anyone uses, I'll say "Coincidence").
• Someone sent me a "news" article about the dangers of the H1N1 vaccine, only ... it was from the John Birch Society's website. Said person was mortally and rightly embarrassed when I pointed this out.

Page 123~

In charging during a 1961 speaking tour that some 7,000 Protestant clergymen are Communists or "Comsymps," Welch was parroting the charges of one of his closest associates, J.B. Matthews.

"Comsymps"! Why didn't that catch on? Let's bring it back for '010! Happy New Year, Comsymps!

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 24

Title: Down to Eternity (Gold Medal s550, 1956)
Author: Richard O'Connor
Cover artist: I think that's Charles Binger's signature

Yours for: $5

• "Efxcuse me, sfir, you're pholding my head afwittle tight..."
• "Does this life jacket smell clean to you, Mary!? Well does it!? Whoa, is that an iceberg?"
• Next time you really want to annoy a woman, accuse her of riding the "P.M.S. Titanic" (that's what that life jacket says, right?)
• This book was reviewed in the New York Times (found this page trying to hunt down the date of this book, which appears to lack a proper title and publishing info page)

• Easy on the bloated hyperbole, junior.
• Oh, R.M.S. Titanic ... yeah, that makes more sense.

Page 123~

Still clad in his dressing gown, he bustled around the boat deck and undoubtedly made a great nuisance of himself.

~RP

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