Paperback 1121: A Place To Meet / Mary Orr (Perma Books M-4257)

Paperback 1121: Perma Books M-4257 (1st ptg., 1962)

Title: A Place to Meet

Author: Mary Orr

Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5-8

[from Stomping Grounds bookstore, Geneva, NY (6/24/25)]

Best things about this cover: 

• Excellent title design motif. Really evokes an affair by evoking a hotel room of a bygone era (i.e. before key cards). But if I were Mary Orr, I'd be mad that they did not have a similarly eye-popping design for My Damned Name. I keep looking at this cover like [squinting] "who the hell wrote this?" They really bury her name in an avalanche of white text.
• Barye Phillips has not generally been among my favorite cover artists (there's something slightly sloppy / sketchy / incomplete / messy about his work, esp. for Gold Medal), but I kinda like this one. Their embrace—her ecstasy in particular—is really ... radiating. "When they came together ... it was nuclear!" (it's 1962, after all, so I thought a little Cuban Missile Crisis energy was in order)
• I did not know All About Eve was based on a book. Once again, the popularizers and adapters get the title right. Last time (Paperback 1120), it was the paperback changing the hardcover original title from The Long Chance to Long Shot (so much better), and here we see the movie-makers made the wise decision to ditch The Wisdom of Eve in favor of the much snappier title. Would that movie be the classic it is if it were titled The Wisdom of Eve?Honestly, I doubt it.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Wow, the key is much more menacing back here. Bigger, more skull-like, and with prominent jagged teeth. Perhaps this is a sign that the affair between ... what's her name and ... Miguel? Really? ... anyway, perhaps the key is a sign that the affair spells Danger!
• I like how she talks like a casting agent: "I've got this role that you might be perfect for..."
• Miguel: Filler of Voids
• It's kind of funny to describe your prospective affair as "The One." Like, wasn't your husband supposed to be "The One?"

Page 123~

And then, like a crash in the dark, the volcano of discontent had suddenly erupted the way it always had in past Vanzadorian history.

Now is the volcano of our discontent made glorious crashing by this son of ... Vanzador? That's your fictional Latin American country, Vanzador? I guess if the only two words you can think of are "Venezuela" and "matador," then sure, Vanzador. Anyway, I now that there is an actual place called Vanadzor—not a country in Latin America, but a city in Armenia. Don't say this blog never taught you anything.

~RP

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Paperback 1096: Red Harvest / Dashiell Hammett (Perma Books M-3043)

Paperback 1096: Perma Books M-3043 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Red Harvest

Author: Dashiell Hammett

Cover artist: Lou Marchetti

Condition: 8/10

Value: $25

Best things about this cover: 

• More like Red Housecoat! Just an amazing garment.
• "Say 'candy cane' again. I dare you. I double dare you, motherfucker. Say 'candy cane' one more goddamn time!"
• The geometry of this interaction is mesmerizing. The hand triangle! Her left hand and her right cross and his "fear hand"—so much intense hand drama. Plus that look of complete contempt on her face ... god bless you, Lou Marchetti, king among cover artists!

Best things about this back cover: 

• Not sure whose idea it was to put the "-DER" over the "WHO-" but it was not a good one.
• This is a fairly succinct and vivid account of a thing that actually happens in the book. It does make me want to read the book. Nothing fancy going on back here, but in terms of drumming up interest in the story, mission accomplished.
• I miss laudanum. And ice picks. Do people still do laudanum and kill with ice picks? Inebriation and murder were just *better* in the old days, man.

Page 123~

    "Reno and his mob were in the can. Reno was Yard's pup, but he didn't mind crossing up his head-man. He already had the idea that he was about ready to take the berg away from Lew." I turned to Reno and asked: "Isn't that it?"

    He looked at me woodenly and said: "You're telling it."

    I continued telling it. 

I love how much Hammett loves hardboiled slang. Always got the tough-guy patter down pat. This is what makes Hammett so enthralling—a great ear for dialogue, which makes the whole criminal scene feel dramatic and authentic. 

~RP

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Paperback 1094: Mardios Beach / Oakley Hall (Perma Books M-4042)

 Paperback 1094: Perma Books M-4042 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Mardios Beach

Author: Oakley Hall

Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Condition: 8-9/10 (mild dings to the corners, else perfect)

Value: $15-20

Best things about this cover: 

• "Wilma!"
• "Stella!"
• He was a heel and worshiped only one god—SUSPENDERS!
• William Holden just woke up and wants to know where his goddamn shirt is!
• The lady looks sad and frightened, but actually she's just petting and gently whispering to a small mouse on her arm named Marvin. "I don't know why the mean man is yelling, Marvin. Maybe he's rehearsing a play. You want some cheese?"
• His left hand is so dramatic, perhaps because his right fingers are caught in the hinges of the door?

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Frank" alert! "Frank" alert. We have "Frank," I repeat, we have "Frank"! (And "Brutally frank" at that—that's the best kind of frank!)
• Now I'm wondering how louses (lice?) are typically made.
• From what I gather from this back-cover description, this is a novel about a guy who just punches people in the groin over and over. It's a hard life, but if you wanna be a louse, you gotta put in the work.

Page 123~

"All right. Quick! What's a woman's function?"

"Give up? The answer is: to Find My Damn Shirt! These suspenders are startin' to itch! Now open this door right now. Hey, is Marvin in there? You and Marvin better not be talkin' about me again ..."

~RP

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Paperback 1028: Footsteps in the Night / Dolores Hitchens (Permabook M-4261)

Paperback 1028: Perma Books M-4261 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: Footsteps in the Night
Author: Dolores Hitchens
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Condition: 8.5/10
Estimated value: $15

Best things about this cover:

• I have no idea what this book is about, but I love trying to work out what the hell is going on in this scene. Is she being stalked? Or is that just her husband wondering why the hell his drunk wife is wandering off in one shoe while holding the other shoe?
• Love her little fingernail-biting gesture. So perfectly pensive. "Hmmm ... now where did I leave my other shoe?" This is the shoe equivalent of losing your glasses because they are on top of your damned head.
• I'm not the biggest fan of Harry Bennett's art work—a little too sketchy/sloppy-looking for my tastes—but this scene is pretty evocative and intriguing. I just wish there were ... more of it. The '60s are a fast-moving tragedy for fully painted cover art. Canvas shrinks. Text takes over. I don't even like thinking about it.
• Dolores Hitchens is one of those writers I keep meaning to read but not reading. I think I read something of hers a while back and liked it. I just opened to a random page and this is the first thing my eyes hit: "Mrs. Holden's pouter-pigeon bosom strained the buttons of the blue quilted housecoat." OK, sure, I'm in.

Best things about this back cover:

• LOL text shaping. Actually, it's kind of perfect that her quizzical face is being used as the top end of a "?"
• This isn't the greatest back cover copy. There's no context for any of these names. You could just keep asking questions with random names and I'd be like "I ... don't know. Still don't know. Should I care? Who Are These People? What Is Happening In This Book?"
• Dronk! When you're not just drunk ...

Page 123~

"Cops are like this, as long as you admit what they want you to admit, they're okay. So I admit I was up there, in your house, and I left at such-and-such a time, and I got home at a certain hour and all that crap. You think they're going to lean on me, try to make me say what we were doing?"

Now I want to know what they were doing. According to an earlier paragraph on this page, it involved "hot yearnings." Hot shoeless yearnings, no doubt.

~RP

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Paperback 1018: Top Hand / Dwight Bennett (Perma Books M-3023)

Paperback 1018: Perma Books M-3023 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: Top Hand
Author: Dwight Bennett
Cover artist: Robert Schulz

Condition: 7.5/10
Estimated value: $20-25

Best things about this cover:

• I love this cover. It's one of my favorite covers, and definitely one of the best western covers I own. The genre tends to be pretty, let's say, predictable in its images, and not exactly daring or unusual in its cover iconography or style. But here, the frame within the frame, the way the room simultaneously brightens to shocking orange and fades into sketchy monochrome, the non-triumphant, weary, wounded cowboy posture—it's all simple, elegant, gorgeous. Even the way his hand in the door jamb (i.e. his TOP HAND, GET IT!?) echoes the fallen hat in the opposite corner feels deliberate and precisely composed.
• OMG is this going to be some finely observed epic Joycean tale told covering every detail of a single day in this cowpoke's life, told entirely from the perspective of his left hand, because I hope so.
• OK, now I want the left hand to be an actual character, one with whom the cowboy regularly talks to and from whom he seeks advice. Señor Wences-like.

Best things about this back cover:

• Oh, cool, the Inter-Saloon Mud Wrestling and Pig Wrangling Championships, I've heard of this
• "What do you mean quits?" "Well, I didn't actually say 'quits,' so ..." 
• I feel like this back cover has taken all the wonderful mystery out of the front cover.

Page 123~

Joe pulled himself loose from his dark reflections.

This is frontier-speak for "logged off of twitter."

~RP

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Paperback 936: The Black Rose / Thomas B. Costain (Perma Books M-7501)

Paperback 936: Perma Books M-7501 (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: The Black Rose
Author: Thomas B. Costain
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: a few bucks

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Shirtless Barbers of Medieval England!
• This dude is totally thinking "m'lady."
• "Cut this lock. The one I'm pointing to. With my pointy digits that give my arm the appearance of an angry swan ... yes, that one."

Best things about this back cover:

• Ooh, side by side! That's the hottest kind of lying!
• Engaine, LOL. "Oh, are you having 'Engaine' trouble? Here, I can help you start your motor..."
• "Their love was as wrong as this putrid green color you're looking at right now!"

Page 123~

"And now, John-Put-Upon, will you be good enough to run downstairs and ask your grandfather and my friend to come up?"

Medieval bordellos could get a little freaky.

~RP

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Paperback 935: The Darkness and the Dawn / Thomas B. Costain (Perma Books M5029)

Paperback 935: Perma Book M5029 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Darkness and the Dawn
Author: Thomas B. Costain
Cover artist: Uncredited :(

Estimated value: $4-6

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• The correct answer is, "No, those Uggs do not make your thighs look fat, Mr. The Hun."
• I love how he has time for a mid-battle photo shoot. "I *am* smiling, you toad! Don't make me unsheath this!"
• If you're gonna dip your foot in the waters of Attila the Hun novels, you're gonna want to go with something from the "superlative" category.
• Thomas B. Costain turned out a bunch of mid-century historicals. His first novel was published at age 57!

Best things about this back cover:

• I don't think this back cover exactly nailed the landing, compass-metaphor-wise.
• I want a t-shirt that reads, simply, "HIGH COMPETENCE."
• I feel like there are a lot of ellipses here, and that there may be more to the Thomas Costain iceberg than this cover is allowing us to see.

Page 123~

Nicolan was taller than most of the other slaves and so was stationed in the rear rank, holding one of the cushions on which reposed a vial of true nard, a most aromatic perfume.

Please let loose the phrase "a vial of true nard" upon the land. Thank you.

~RP

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Paperback 932: The War Against the Rull / A.E. Van Vogt (Permabook M4263)

Paperback 932: Perma Books M-4263 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The War Against the Rull
Author: A. E. Van Vogt
Cover artist: Some Richard Powers knock-off artist (or possibly Richard Powers, who knows?)

Estimated value: a few bucks, ish

[part of the newly established Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• This is pretty lazy as scif fi covers go. Feels like it was made on some kind of assembly line where they just slap down hackeneyed visuals without much thought. "Floating orb of some kind ... dude in space suit ... maybe a few other smaller dudes ... wacky '60s font ... paint splatter to suggest some kind of, I don't know, flare? ... And, done!"
• The Rull had eyes in their knees and wore elaborately decorated space woolens, so war was kind of inevitable. 
• I am tempted to read this book, as I have been tempted to read several of these prolific but largely forgotten popular fiction writers (I'm in the middle of a Mary Roberts Rinehart book right now! It's super-fun!). Thanks to Pop Sensation reader and librarian extraordinaire Laura Braunstein for sending me a buncha beat up paperbacks that only a mother or vintage paperback enthusiast could love! More to come.

Best things about this back cover:

• "... or are you just happy to see me?"
• So ... they're Cylons. Or Pod People. Or latent zombies. Got it.
• That is the most nauseating question mark ever produced.

Page 123~ 

With Diddy in tow, the two Rulls came to Cross 2. The Way itself was Cross 1.

Thus setting up an epic '90s space-rap battle. My money's on The Way.

~RP

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Paperback 925: The Thin Man / Dashiell Hammett (Perma Books M4202)

Paperback 925: Perma Books M4202 (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: The Thin Man
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Estimated value: $15-20 (perfect, square, bright)

Best things about this cover:

• Nick looks like I feel these days. "Fuck all this. Where's the bar?"
• The color shading on this is all kinds of weird. Conventional figurative art that looks like it's been cut out of a magazine by an 8-year-old and then glued into the white rectangle.
• Joey Backwards chair is explaining certain anatomical facts about himself to Millie Sweetgams, much to her amusement.
• ASTA!

 Best things about this back cover:

• Bah. Same.
• Cover is cropped weird. Very close to lopping off lettering on the left.
• "When you were wrestling with Mimi [!?] didn't you get excited." "Oh, a little." Man, between front and back covers, you'd think "The Thin Man" were subtitled "All About Boners."

Page 123~

"Good God, no! She hates men more than any woman I've ever known who wasn't a Lesbian."

Sorry, fans of movie-Nick. Didn't mean to startle you with book-Nick's dickishness. Mix a cocktail and drink until you forget you ever read the above quote.

~RP

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Paperback 909: Music out of Dixie / Harold Sinclair (PermaBooks P203)

Paperback 909: Perma Books P203 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Music out of Dixie
Author: Harold Sinclair
Cover artist: Uncredited :(

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• "Well you ain't no John Tesh, I know that."
• There are 31 flavors of Disappointment on that woman's face.
• I like this painting a lot. Perfectly positioned burning cigarette is a nice touch.
• I love his shirt. I want his shirt. I also want to wear a sleeve garter for no good reason.

Best things about this back cover:

• Dade Tarrant! LOL, sure, that's a plausible name, why not?
• I hope his business cards read: "Dade Tarrant / Slum-Bred Pianist"
• Raffish! Is that like "rakish"? [looks word up...] Hey, look at that: first synonym. So I *kinda* knew what it meant...

Page 123~

"Oh, Jesus lover, let's don't have that routine at this time o' day. I can't take it."

This expresses a sentiment I feel on a regular basis.

~RP

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Paperback 901: The Queen's Awards / Ed. Ellery Queen (Perma Books M-3015)

Paperback 901: Perma Books M-3015 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Queen's Awards
Editor: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: William George

Estimated value: $10-14

Best things about this cover:

• Hunting Che Fear Hand Strangulation Revolutionary Ponytail! I love this story!
• Those frames are a bit ... ornate. That said, I'd kill for a real-life version of Strangulation in Red, frame and all.
• Ellery Queen was a pseudonym for these guys. Also the name of the main character in their novels.

Best things about this back cover:

• I give the opening alliterative salvo a C-.
• "Anyway you like your murders..." is a phrase that bespeaks a certain Coliseum-esque savagery in the typical mystery story audience.
• Eleazar Lipsky wrote the story that was the basis of the film noir classic "Kiss of Death" (1947).

Page 123~ [From "The Stroke of Thirteen" by Lillian de la Torre ("as told by James Boswell, August 1780") (!?!?!)]

"The ingenious Captain Donellan," replied Dr. Johnson, "is a disciple of Linnaeus. He grows the oriental poppy. With that cord-handled claw by his tent he sacrifices the capsule of the poppy, as I have been told they do it in the East Indies where he served. He collects the gum that forms. To put a name to it, it is opium. I smelled opium in the affair when I was informed that Allan MacDonald had been hearing 'sounds colored crimson,' as drugged men may do."

18th-century drug-induced synesthesia! Who saw that coming?

~RP

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Paperback 875: Live and Let Die / Ian Fleming (Perma Books M-3048)

Paperback 875: Perma Books M-3048 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Live and Let Die
Author: Ian Fleming
Cover artist: James Meese

Estimated value: $75-100

Best things about this cover:

• The world's most ruthless diving coach doesn't want to hear your bullshit about the Chinese judge having it in for you.
• "Scrooge McDuck had to go on vacation. You deal with me now."
• You'd think with all those gold coins, he could afford a nicer office. Something less in-a-cave.
• Just in case you didn't notice: this cover is all kinds of fabulous.

Best things about this back cover:

• Tee-Hee. No, I'm not laughing, that's his name. His name is Tee-Hee. Tee-Hee. OK, now I'm laughing. Keep up!
• No reaction shot from Bond. I assume he just stiff-upper-lipped it, then bagged a leggy stewardess/assassin, then had a martini.
• "Take Mr. Bond to Central Perk … introduce him to Ross and Phoebe. You're job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA, Mr. Bond."

Page 123~

Soon they were over Miami and the monster chump-traps of the eastern seaboard, their arteries ablaze with neon.

Monster chump-traps! Nice phrase, Mr. Fleming.

~RP

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Paperback 850: Famous Sheriffs and Western Outlaws / William MacLeod Raine (Perma Books P18)

Paperback 850: Perma Books P18 (1st ptg, circa 1948)

Title: Famous Sheriffs and Western Outlaws
Author: William MacLeod Raine
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $15-20


Best things about this cover:

• What are "Things you'd find in the most cliché depiction of a saloon"?
• Hardbound paperback. Because "Perma"nence. Permabooks is retrospectively adorable.
• So the guy shoots his gun then lays it gently down on the table and walks away. Seems … implausible.
• I like the aural juxtaposition (!) of "cloud" and "rain" in this dude's name.

Best things about this back cover:

• "BOOKS*TO*KEEP." It kills me that your core concept is that paperbacks should come in a hardbound version for preservation purposes … and then several years later, you still have the same name, but the hardbound versions: gone.
• This company is dedicated to stretching the meaning of "permanent" as far as possible before it snaps.
• The problem with the PERMAgloss, as any paperback collector knows, is that "perma" part is a damn lie. Shit peels off like crazy. Here, it's just pulling from the surface slightly, creating weird puddle-like patterns that I'm not sure you can even see on the scans.

Page 123~

But they did not leave wholly unavenged.

~RP

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Paperback 818: Freud: His Dream and Sex Theories / Joseph Jastrow (Perma Books M4134)

Paperback 818: Perma Books 4134 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: Freud: His Dream and Sex Theories
Author: Joseph Jastrow
Cover design: Charles Skaggs

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• I know. It's terrible, right? It's easily the worst, i.e. the most boring, cover in my entire collection. I think. It's up there, anyway.
• I sort of like the background pattern, in a wallpaper or possibly denim pants kind of way.
• "The Stuff of Dreams" made me laugh. Yes, sex dreams can lead to "stuff." For sure. Especially if you are a young man.

Best things about this back cover:

• I see your boring, Front Cover, and I raise you five borings.
• Even "an appreciation" is boring. We get it, you're legit psych, not phony porn-psych. Ease up on the Big For Legitimacy.
• Scholars are "dispassionate." Only the best pulp novels are "frank."

Page 123~

It is safe to predict that neither in education, nor in the family or social relations shall we return to a pre-Freudian era.

This is, by far, the most exciting sentence on this page. WHO BOUGHT THIS? Men trying desperately to kill their 4+-hour boners?!

~RP

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Paperback 809: Tidewater / Clifford Dowdey (Perma Books P143)

Paperback 809: Perma Books P143 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Tidewater
Author: Clifford Dowdey
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• "She was river scum…" I like a cover that gets right to the point.
• Ha ha, I'm enjoying speculating about her "something."
• Wow, that's a pretty high class of "scum" they got there in Tidewater. She must've got hosed down good. Only thing disgusting about her is her freakish arachnoid hand.

Best things about this back cover:

• "It was something that had to be done"—way to use the passive voice to get your sex on, Libby.
• Protracted deshabillitation scene gets thumbs up from this reviewer.
• Caffey… yeah, I'm not buying that as a guy's name. Caffey is a woman in my mind now. Sorry, nothing I can do, that's just the way it is.

Page 123~

To be with them more, he did his drinking, with Jeff Bunting as a companion, in the Pitch Bottom bars where the small planters went.

The olde-timey gay code of the river folk was pretty elaborate.

~RP

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Paperback 788: Bell Timson / Marguerite Steen (Perma Books P110)

Paperback 788: Perma Books P110 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Bell Timson
Author: Marguerite Steen
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• She is what I'd call "WASP-hot," though she does look a bit like she's been modeled out of Play-Doh, and those are really more flippers than hands.
• Something about her dimensions are just … off.
• This cover does not say "illicit business." It says "some lady, probably a lady named 'Bell Timson'."
• "The Sun Is My Undoing"—damn, that was gonna be the title of my autobiography! I'll have to go with my second choice, "Beyond the Pale."

Best things about this back cover:

• You said it, sister.
• "Ten years too long" made me legit laugh.
• If you named your kids Kay and Jo, you could refer them collectively as KayJo. Like, all the time. I would.
• Who is Bob and how does that relate to Bell's being a (I'm guessing) hooker? I'm really, really hoping that Jo discovers her fiancé once slept with her mom. That would at least be interesting.

Page 123~

"She was supposed to have 'touched pitch' and therefore been contaminated; you know what villagers are." Mr. Somervell laughed shortly.

~RP

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Paperback 786: The Celebrity / Laura Z. Hobson (Perma Books P190)

Paperback 786: Perma Books P190 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Celebrity
Author: Laura Z. Hobson
Cover artist: Owen Kampen

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• That is some grade-A bitch-glance. Not that she's a bitch, but that she appears to be thinking, "Pfft, bitches" and/or "Bitch, please. Fawning high school groupies ain't shit."
• And the winner of "Best Middle Initial" goes to …
• Surely the greatest painterly representation of folding chairs since Monet's "Folding Chairs sûr le Pont D'Argenteuil"

Best things about this back cover:

• Thornton Johns—Folding chair magnate!
• I don't know if his wife was a "loud-mouthed bitch," but those other questions don't seem very rhetorical. "Was he living with Jill Goodwyn?" Well, he either was or he wasn't. "Was he 6'2"!? Or 5'11", as his license indicated? READ AND FIND OUT!"
• Damn, "blunt" just isn't "frank." I like "blunt." But mainly it makes me miss "frank."

Page 123~

A larger life, a larger Thornton Johns. The persisting fear that something might again reduce him to the lesser Thornton Johns was a nightmare, to put it politely, of amputation.

I.e. plastic surgeons gave him a substantial penis extension and he was *not* giving it back.

~RP

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Paperback 711: The Velvet Doublet / James Street (Perma Books M-4005)

Paperback 711: Perma Books M-4005 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: The Velvet Doublet
Author: James Street
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• "Hey! Can you grab that velvet doublet!? ... There! ... No, there! It's right ... [sigh] Damn, I'm gonna have to jump in..."
• Just what you've been waiting for: an accidental belated Columbus Day tribute!
• I do love a cover with animated hands—they really do add emotional dimension to a painting.

Best things about this back cover:

• My second-favorite word on this cover is "Lepe" and my first-favorite is "wenched"!
• I'll take "MARAELA" for all her potential power as a crossword answer.
• Screw the doublet, kid. You want the doubloon. DOUBLOON! Ask Columbus. He'll know.

Page 123~

Acros beamed the lordliness of his trade as he showed me the tiller and let me feel it and pointed up to a small opening in the quarter-deck and through this I saw a speck of sky and a bit of sail, and nothing more.

The first half of this sentence *really* reads like sea-porn.

~RP

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Paperback 596: A Handy Illustrated Guide to Basketball / ed. Sam Nisenson (Perma Books 47)

Paperback 596: Perma Books P47 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: A Handy Illustrated Guide to Basketball

Edited by: Sam Nisenson

Cover artist: Uncredited [Really!?!? it's an "illustrated" guide and the illustrator gets no credit? Come on...]

Yours for: $7

Best things about this cover:

• This is from that weird phase in Perma's history where they were releasing paperbacks in hardback form. Paperback-sized, but with stiff boards.
• I like how "spectators" and "fans" are different entities. Like there's this class of watcher out there who's like "I'm gonna watch this sport I don't like."
• Would've been inconvenient to buy paperbacks in Canada. 39 cents!? Just make it 40. Don't make me carry a penny or a loonie or nuknuk or whatever they call their currency around.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mmmm, scintillating description of the object I'm holding in my hand. Tell me more about the "wear-resistant finish"...
• This back cover copy has me wondering about the meaning of the word "permanent."
• "Books to Keep"—because their earlier motto, "Books to Burn," proved disappointing, sales- (and lawsuit-) wise.

Hell yeah ILLUSTRATIONS. 

[If you want to play basketball, the first thing you should know is: middle-aged men *will* want to rassle you.]

[Pretend the basketball is your penis, stick out your weird man-breasts, and then ... sure, yeah, great, do that]

[Use the basketball as a conduit for your psychic powers]

[This is how you show another player you like him]
Page 123~

The ball becomes alive, or goes into play, when it leaves the hand of an official on a toss for a jump ball, or is placed at the disposal of a free thrower, or when it touches a player in the court after a throw-in from out of bounds. 

The ball becomes alive! Now that would add an interesting twist to the game. "Ouch! It bit me! Hey, ref ..."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 583: Rape of Honor / Willi Heinrich (Permabook M-4247)

Paperback 583: Permabook M-4247 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: Rape of Honor
Author: Willi Heinrich
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• Rape of Honor! It's like regular rape, except not at all like regular rape and made up by some emasculated douchebag.
• Like I want to read a book about rape by a guy named "Willi."
• If you killed the color Pink and left it to rot in the woods for a week, it would look like this.
• Willi Heinrich is also the author of "Crack of Doom." Willi needs a new translator (his current translator, fyi, is Sigrid Rock)

Best things about this back cover:

• "Yes, I know. I'm even less sexy up close."
• Sartre *wishes* he wrote dialogue this bewildering / existential.
• I assume that when she flings her gown open, she reveals that she's wearing her lucky Tweety Bird t-shirt.

Page 123~

Rupert stared aghast at her indifferent face. "You're married to the father of your husband?"

Seriously, Willi, fire Sigrid, 'cause this shit makes no sense.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Bonus picture—a preview of forthcoming Pop Sensation books (all pulled out of a bookstore in Ithaca yesterday)