Paperback 1123: Miss America / Daniel Stern (Popular Library G464)

Paperback 1123: Popular Library G464 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Miss America

Author: Daniel Stern

Cover artist: [Mitchell Hooks]

Condition: 8/10

Value: $20

Best things about this cover: 

• Now that's a redhead. That hair's so orange it's pink.
• Wow, this lady really likes stationery.   
• This is a movie tie-in. I've never heard of this movie. What's more, I cannot find any proof that this movie exists, or ever existed. Nothing by this name appears in Carroll Baker's filmography, and nothing she made in this general time period seems to have been based on this novel. I have no idea why they'd say there was a movie when there is no movie. I feel like I've uncovered a mystery. Possibly a very boring one, but still. Mystery!

Best things about this back cover: 

• OK, not to be that guy, but ... well, I am that guy, so ... it's The Beautiful and Damned, not The Beautiful and the Damned, dammit. This blurb is not up to the lofty editorial standards I expect from the ... [squints] ... Lansing State News.
• "Her most intimate statistics were common knowledge." What could her "most intimate statistics" be? What are anyone's "most intimate statistics?" Number of sex partners? Bra size? Cholesterol? 
• This back cover copy tells you precisely nothing except that there's some hot celebrity "goddess" and she ... has a life ... not covered by the press. You don't say!

Page 123~

Just before we rang the bell, Cathy turned to me and said, "I've got a confession to make. You know that first night, when you played those quartets? I came expecting to hear jazz quartets. I thought I'd fall down when you started taking out the string instruments."

String instruments!? Well, sure, that's enough to make anyone fall down. I'm writing this from the floor right now, and that's just from hearing about it.

~RP

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Paperback 1118: HUD / Larry McMurtry (Popular Library SP218)

 Paperback 1118: Popular Library SP218 (1st ptg, 1963)

Title: HUD

Author: Larry McMurtry

Cover artist: N/A

Condition: 7/10

Value: $15-20

Best things about this cover: 

• HUD stands for "HUge Dude"
• I love how defiantly HUD Paul Newman is. Like, "Yep, I'm HUD. Here I am. Cool as shit. Lean, handsome, ten feet tall. Perhaps you best run along..."
• Patricia Neal's exercise routine was, let's say, unorthodox
• Patricia Neal wins an Academy Award for Best Actress and *this* is how the book cover treats her? Like she tripped and fell over in the background of a Paul Newman photo shoot? Not cool.

Best things about this back cover: 

• The only thing sexier than dry HUD is ... Wet HUD!
• I hope he was not, in fact, "capable of rape." It's been a while since I've seen the movie, so I forget. (Looks like he attempts rape ... but the movie is mostly about foot-and-mouth disease in cattle—sexy!)
• "Exciting." The period somehow makes it sound less than exciting.

Page 123~

    "Hud, who is it, hon?" Lily said. She was in the back seat.

    "Oh, snakeshit," Hud said. "Run get that pickup an' point it this way, so we'll have light. I can't turn mine aroun' in this road. I may a run over him."

~RP

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Paperback 1112: The Off-Islanders / Nathaniel Benchley (Popular Library SP178)

 Paperback 1112: Popular Library SP178 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Off-Islanders

Author: Nathaniel Benchley

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 7/10

Value: $20 (the only copies I can find online are priced at $90, which is ridiculous)

Best things about this cover: 

• This looks zany in a very specifically '60s kind of way. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad submarine on a sandbar
• Alternate title: Big Day for Binos
• The shapely redhead with a run in her stockings really makes the cover. Bored with the boys and their boy games.

Best things about this back cover: 

• OK, that's the same picture from the front cover
• OK, that's the same blurb from the front. Someone's ... not trying
• "Capitalistic sandbar" is a bar I would drink at
• "Extra-marital shenanigans" OK fine you got me, I'll read you, you silly book

Page 123~

The first look at Polsky was always a shock, because he not only had no neck but also appeared to have no head; his features seemed to grow out of a slight lump midway between his shoulders. He seldom wore a cap, since the visor came so close to his collar as to all but cover his face, and on the occasions that required full-dress uniform he became dizzy from lack of fresh air.

~RP

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Paperback 1091: A Hasty Bunch / Robert McAlmon (Popular 445-04314)

 Paperback 1091: Popular 445-04314 (1st, ~1977)

Title: A Hasty Bunch    

Author: Robert McAlmon

Cover artist: [Uncredited]

Condition: 9

Value: $20

Best things about this cover: 

• Look, full disclosure, I have never done acid, but this is what I imagine the world looks like. Kind of a pleasant psychedelic jumble with rainbow streaks. Love the horizontal lines coming out the back of the main guy's head, and then running through the entire middle of the painting. Completely unnaturalistic and Of The Time (the '70s). My favorite figure is the guy on the far right, who looks kinda like if the Joker were a cruise director.
• The typewriter, equally great, but equally disorienting, in its own way. The keyboard makes sense to a point but somewhere east of the "F" key things start to buckle and by the time you get all the way to the right its a monstrous free-for-all. Oh, I'm not realizing that what I'm seeing is a hand hovering over the keys on the right side. Who Types Like That!?
• I got this book solely because of the cover. I didn't start out collecting anything from the '70s, but, well, time has passed (30 years next year since I started my collection), and the '70s are now fair game, especially when a book is in near-perfect condition and just sitting there on the $1 shelf.
• Sometime in the '70s, Southern Illinois UP reprinted some long out-of-print American books, and then ended up partnering with Popular Library here to release a number of them as mass-market paperbacks: their Lost American Fiction Series. This book is part of that series. There are 15 other books listed, with intriguing titles like THE PROFESSORS LIKE VODKA, CUBICAL CITY, and THEY DON'T DANCE MUCH. I am ... curious. This particular book has an afterword by writer Kay Boyle. Here's the full list of everything Southern Illinois Press brought back.
• I'm also curious about this cover artist, whom I love, and whose name I don't know. I believe he's also the artist on this early-'70s Bantam cover:

[You can see the resemblance, I hope. If you know who it is, kindly holler.]

And now the back cover...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Telling it how it really is and especially "sexual candor" are always big selling points for paperbacks. Not just truth, but (as the front cover says) "naked truth." What fun is the truth if it's wearing clothes. People want stuff that's sexily truthful. Hornily honest. In a word: frank. (I wish that word were somewhere on these book covers—my favorite cover copy euphemism; been a while since I've seen it)
• This book was originally published in 1922, and even then it was barely published at all: "Reprint of a Contact Press edition privately printed by the author in Dijon, 1922."
• This books is a collection of short stories by an ex-pat who apparently hung with Hemingway and Joyce. "Prophetic genius"? That is a big claim. Let's see what p. 123 has to say: 

Page 123~ (from "A Business Family")

"It doesn't do a place any good to have a person die in it. We ought to have insisted on her being taken to a sanatorium."

Mrs. Sturgeon runs the "Rest an Hour Kosher yearround hotel," and one of her guests, Mrs. Davis, has just done her the great disservice of dying in her establishment. Hugely inconvenient, the dead.

~RP

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Paperback 1080: Maharajah / Richard Cargoe (Popular Library 451)

Paperback 1080: Popular Library 451 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Maharajah

Author: Richard Cargoe

Cover artist: [Raymond Johnson]

Condition: 5/10 (intact, but with split spine)

Value: $6-10

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• At first it looks like he's scratching his chin as he's contemplating his next move, but then you look closer and realize he is nibbling. On a grape. And cupping a whole bunch of grapes in his other hand. And she's like "Yes, you like nibbling on my grapes ... there is much more fruit where that came from ... but I'm going to hold it over here out of view ... I know you are hungry for my fruit, but I will not simply give you the fruit; you are going to have to work for my fruit? I withhold the fruit until you are good and hungry. You are hungry, yes?" Fruit doing a Lot of work on this cover.  
• Dude's eyes are intense, predatory, vaguely insane. They are almost enough to distract you from the bright white shaving brush growing out of his forehead. Almost.
• I love these covers where intense desire is conveyed in a backward glance that totally defies the laws of physics (no way she can see him even peripherally from that angle) but still *feels* smolderingly real.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, Orientalism. How I don't really miss you. The "exotic" natives doing their carnal things in fancy garb, served up for westerners to gawk at. Like the fruit on the front cover, "exotic" is doing a lot of work here (as well as on the front cover!)
• I see how "INTRIGUE IN INDIA" might seem to have some inherent alliterative appeal, but it's really rather dull.
• Tbh I'm kinda invested in the storyline now. Team Tegra, for sure. That Halim guy seems like a jerk I would not like to have a beer with.

Page 123~

They are blackmailing us into a state of perpetual fear. I keep remembering how the tiger clawed off the monkey's limbs one by one. They may murder one person each day—every day they may murder a little closer to the throne. Have you thought of that?

Have I thought of what? I'm still thinking about the monkey. Is he OK? Did he get revenge? You can't just start a tiger/monkey story and then abandon it like that, man. You gotta see it through. Now bring me some fruit and start over.

~RP

P.S. the cover artist is Raymond Johnson. This exact painting was on the cover of Illustration #77, which contains a big article on Johnson:

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Paperback 1031: The Great Mail Robbery / Clarence Budington Kelland (Popular Library 432)

Paperback 1031: Popular Library 432 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Great Mail Robbery
Author: Clarence Budington Kelland
Cover artist: [Earle Bergey]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• "Cheese it, fellas! It's Miss Smokestack 1952!"
• Mr. Freaked Out Impossible-Over-the-Shoulder-Glance in the extreme foreground there is pretty special.
• There is a lot happening in this manframe (n: a framelike structure composed primarily of man parts). There's shocked bighead, Li'l Cap'n Fearhand, and then Gunhand (he handles the guns). The lady does have a manic look—and she's radiating some kind of toxic emissions—but her body language says Bored Tween. Weird.
• They Made A Living Out Of Death = C-minus pun irony

Best things about this back cover:

• HIS!
• Inca! 
• "This side of Hell," LOL. What's on the other side of Hell? A Wendy's?
• "Suddenly there wasn't any robe." So she's some kind of ecdysiast-magician? Must be confusing for poor Will Scarlet.
• This book should be called "Will Scarlet and the Starlet." Or "The Great Female Disrobery."

Page 123~

He had been immersed but a few minutes when his telephone rang irritatingly. He forced himself to get up and, dripping and shivering, walked to the table beside his bed where the telephone stood.
"Hello," he said impatiently.
"This," said a voice, "is Jahala Vidmar."

"... said a voice" is about as pure an example of needless wordery as you're ever gonna see. Made me laugh out loud and completely forget the horrific adverb abuse that preceded it.

~RP

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Paperback 866: African Poison Murders / Elspeth Huxley (Popular Library 100)

Paperback 866: Popular Library 100 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: African Poison Murders
Author: Elspeth Huxley
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $12-17

Best things about this cover:

• "Here, African. Put this on. That's better." Hashtag racist.
• Actually, maybe the green guy is a sick European. He looks like a 17th-century actor who has eaten some bad mutton.
• If you stare too long at that foreshortened thumb, you will begin to get queasy. It's… not right. Kind of like the relationship between green head and blue body. Not right at all.

Best things about this back cover:

• Read that second sentence as "Feces were smashed." Was briefly intrigued.
• A "native boy" wrapped in "baling wire." Hmm. That's a bit on the nose, as Slave-Trade metaphors go.
• This book should've been called "Leopard Trap!" That, or "All's Veld That Ends Veld."

Page 123~

"It is the way of Europeans," the house-boy said philosophically.

"You gotta read a lot of Kant to deal with these motherfuckers," he added.

~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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Paperback 824: Bullet Proof / Amber Dean (Popular Library SP294)

Paperback 824: Popular Library SP294 (1st ptg, 1964)

Title: Bullet Proof
Author: Amber Dean
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Wow, turns out you can do A Lot with a fairly monochromatic palette. This is fantastic.
• For a simple cover, it's amazingly suspenseful. Great use of light, especially on her face. Her face is the key—the craning around and the look of wide-eyed horror really sell the idea that something terrible is just on its way, just out of view.
• The creepiness of the bondage is amplified ten-fold by the simple, naked mattress. How can a cover be so elegant and so sleazy at the same time?

Best things about this back cover:

• I still hate this logo. It does not look like "CRIME." It looks a poorly executed fertility statue.
• "Virginia Kirkus calls it 'non-stop'"—that made me LOL: "Seriously, it wouldn't stop. I as like 'Stop! Why won't this story stop!?' But it just kept going!"
• "Readable!"—these just get better and better. "… in that it was made out of recognizable words, which were arranged in vaguely grammatical patterns…"

Page 123~

"It was their job, Hallie. Police have to learn how to destroy human dignity, or they'd never break through the really calloused, the hardened."

I'm just gonna leave that there.

~RP

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Paperback 799: Zingers from the Hollywood Squares / ed. Gail Sicilia (Popular Library 00221)

Paperback 799: Popular Library 00221 (PBO, 1974)

Title: Zingers from The Hollywood Squares
Editor: Gail Sicilia
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• The pink.
• Blue orange pink yellow. You could do whatever the fuck you wanted with color in the mid-70s as long as it was bright. Or earth toned. Or avocado.
• Lamont!
• I know who all these people are (ugh, old). Except the dude in the upper left, and possibly the 'fro'd guy underneath him, who looks like Jackie Mason, but can't really be Jackie Mason. Nope, it's Marty Allen. I have no idea who he is. His hair is righteous.

Best things about this back cover:

• Paul Lynde with the gay joke FTW!!!!
• Rosemarie looks like Amy Sedaris in "Strangers with Candy."
• What the hell kind of hat is that, Charley?

Page 123~

19. You have just scolded your gorilla for being a bad boy. Might he stick out his tongue at you to show his anger?

Paul Lynde: Was that his tongue?

Paul Lynde with the gorilla dong joke FTW!!

~RP

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Paperback 739: Main Line / Livingston Biddle, Jr. (Popular Library 402)

Paperback 739: Popular Library 402 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Main Line
Author: Livingston Biddle, Jr.
Cover artist: Barton

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Slouchy guy's expression is priceless. I can almost hear him going "Pfft. Dames. Whaddyagonnado?"
• I love the action in this painting, but her face doesn't look quite … attached. Almost like she's holding a face-mask up to her real face as she runs.
• This painting has amazing street-level details. The cracks in the sidewalk, the guys on the stoop, the red awning, the hot dog / Italian ice vendor. It's a cool action street shot unlike almost anything I've seen on my paperback covers.

Best things about this back cover:

• The '50s, when things you might say to a cabbie were considered erotic.
• "Uh, I said 'Take me to a hotel,' not 'Take me to a shabby downtown hotel.'"
• I like how they are going to have one of those so-called, quote unquote "one-night stands." Oh, the saucy lingo.

Page 123~

"That's true … I can't offer Cassandra security in the terms you outline—but I honestly believe I can make her happy."
"You have found a place to take my daughter?"
"Yes."
"Where is it?"

This is an awfully dark game of 20 questions.

~RP

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Paperback 729: Something's Got to Give / Marion Hargrove (Popular Library 222)

Paperback 729: Popular Library 222 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Something's Got To Give
Author: Marion Hargrove
Cover artist: familiar but Uncredited [Earle Bergey]

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Boobs. FUN. Boobs are FUN. I get it now.
• Damn, that's pretty sexy for radio.
• A Lady Lay Abed Too Long … and so she conceived twins? With captain Pipey McChinless there?
• Those Children-of-the-Corn twins will haunt your dreams.
• Question smoke! Nice.
• She is flipping you off.

Best things about this back cover:

• OK, that opening line is Great: "It happened in bed…"
• More Popular Library Nothingness. Ugh.
• Audiences *love* "babies screaming in neglect." Don't you miss the days when paternal incompetence was charming?

Page 123~

"He couldn't have been too hungry," I pointed out, "if he left one of the peas on his plate."

Enjoy your future eating disorder, kid.

~RP

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Paperback 728: Duel in the Sun / Niven Busch (Popular Library 102)

Paperback 728: Popular Library 102 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: Duel in the Sun
Author: Niven Busch
Cover artist: photo cover (mostly)

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Jennifer Jones manages to make armpit-sniffing look pretty sexy.
• Joseph Cotten does not look "lusty." He looks "lank" and "weird." (Upon further review, that looks more like Peck than Cotten)
• This hybrid photo/graphic cover is strange, though it does convey "sun-drenched" pretty well.
• I believe this was a controversial film in terms of its tawdriness. Ah, here we go—per wikipedia: "The film received poor reviews, however, and was highly controversial due to its sexual content and to Selznick's real-life relationship with Jones, which broke up both of their marriages."

Best things about this back cover:

• Just … nothing. 
• Wait, I take that back. "Lewt McCanles" is a pretty great/awful name.
• Also, that's pretty high praise from Cain. 

Page 123~

They rode for a couple of hours after dark and when they camped Coz wouldn't let Lewt light a fire. They were uncomfortable that night—thirsty and sore, and Lewt felt sick and couldn't eat the jerky Coz had brought along. 

I'm sure there is some very thick sexual tension here — if only I could understand all this coded language.

~RP

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Paperback 681: Sweet and Deadly / Verne Chute (Popular Library 443)

Paperback 681: Popular Library 443 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Sweet and Deadly
Author: Verne Chute
Cover artist: [A. Leslie Ross]

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• So Many Great Things that I'm kind of paralyzed. I saw this last weekend at a bookshop in Ithaca and snapped it up without even looking at the price. I think this is one of my 20 favorite covers of all time.
• So Much Action. The cover would be worth it for her alone—the baddest-looking Girl With a Gun in my collection—but we get Smashed Face McTireIron thrown into the bargain as well. How many ways were they planning on killing that poor blond guy?
• Suicide doors!
• Double Fear Hand! Or is he just dancing because she said so?
• The art here balances pure hard-boiled action with a soft, luminous delicacy. Love.

Best things about this back cover:

• That's what they all say.
• Wow, that's some pretty overt gropiness there at the beginning.
• "What did you say your name was? 'Methane?'" "It's MEL Thane, doll. Don't you forget it." "I already have."
• If that blond guy is Mel, I am *super* glad she shot him.

Page 123~

Mel's match lighting a cigarette made a harsh sound. "I've got a sort of client who's being blackmailed. He managed to steal a few things out of a blackmail mob's file . . ."

Ew, Mel is the *detective* in this story? Oh well, my desire that he get shot stands.

~RP

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Paperback 670: Sangaree / Frank G. Slaughter (Popular Library G100)

Paperback 670: Popular Library G100 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Sangaree
Author: Frank G. Slaughter
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: Not for Sale (gift to the collection from Laurie Gagne)


Best things about this cover:

• Before the gas engine, water-skiing was a tedious sport, full of failure and shirtlessness.
• I've seen this artist's work before. I feel like there are at least a small handful of covers from this period that feature variations on this exact scene—nude female swimmer, boobs buoyant but modest, being looked down upon by startled/probably aroused man. Don't recall ever seeing this hand gesture before, though. "Yo, Sangaree! Little help?"
• Perspective here seems off. She'd have to be 6-10 feet back in the water, but that rope looks about 18 inches long.
• "Sangaree! Sangarah! Sangaree! Sangara-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha..."

Best things about this back cover:

• Me? How far will *I* go? I'll need some context. Also possibly some liquor.
• Translation–"taunted him with her nakedness" = "was naked"; "taking" = "raping" (see picture).
• Opening intro / teaser page: "I'LL HAVE YOU NOW!" ... "Toby Kent, starved these long months for even the sight of a woman, undid the straining bodice of the wench's gown. Beneath it, as he had guessed, was nothing but the magnificently-breasted body of the girl who called herself Dolly Lake." I was going to use "buoyantly-boobed" earlier, but "magnificently-breasted" is so much classier.

Page 123~

"The next ball," said Gabriel casually, "will be just two inches lower. Will you back up now or take it up your snout?"

The greatness of this line really depends upon the kind of "ball" you're imagining.

~RP

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Paperback 636: You Can't See Around Corners / Jon Cleary (Popular Library 497)

Paperback 636: Popular Library 497 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: You Can't See Around Corners
Author: Jon Cleary
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• Furious that Steve doubted her ability to see around corners, Beverly grabbed Steve's tie and then plunged her left hand into the back of his skull.
• I'm assuming that's Frankie McCoy back there on the park bench, 'cause I have a hard time seeing this awkward earnest pinhead as a "hoodlum." Looks more like a teaching assistant.
• I am a big fan of her dress, and of the idea that she is about to throw him to the ground, Judo-style.

Best things about this back cover:

• Double Fear Hand!
• Why did he give his money to horses? They're notoriously bad investors and lack opposable thumbs with which to hold money.
• It's like that dude's having a hard time deciding who to shiv: the giant leprechaun or the blue-haired 8th-grader.

Page 123~

She faced him and he got a good look at her. He was glad he had come over: she had not spoken, had not accepted him, yet he was already seeing beyond the dance hall, seeing what might come later, tasting her potentialities. She was blonde but Nature had been aided; her eyes were frank and with long lashes, the best feature in her round, slightly plump face; she was tall and big and high-breasted, her body alive and strong, earthily sexual in the tight green dress. The night should be interesting.

First, "frank"!

Second, if you ever want to kill a mood, or add a creepy vibe to any situation, just use the phrase "tasting her potentialities."

~RP

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Paperback 567: The Whipping Boy / S.E. Pfoutz (Popular Library 821)

Paperback 567: Popular Library 821 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: The Whipping Boy
Author: S.E. Pfoutz
Cover artist: that guy that did a lot of Popular Library covers in the '50s ... always wore a shirt ...

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• The tragic stair-falling scene from Mickey Spillane's final novel: "Mike Hammer: The Big Knee Replacement"
• Meanwhile, in the background: "I'd like to cross your color line, baby." "I ... don't know what that means. Please leave." "Oh, alright. Hey, do you think I'm OK to drive? Here, smell my breath, haaaaaaaaaaaah..."
• I feel like the author's name is some kind of code I'm supposed to break.
• This is the most unracial racial cover ever. "Did we say 'color line'? We meant big, bold primary colors—the blue THE, the red WHIPPING ... it's about a boy who likes to make whipped cream. Why do you have to make everything about race?"

Best things about this back cover:

• "I ... I can't decide. Do I stay with midget Vulcan or run off with black Jerry Seinfeld?"
• "A talented young Negro," HA ha. "Wow, you are really good at being Negro."
• Why would you go with "piercingly honest" when "frank" is so much more concise? "Frank" novels should just call themselves "frank" and quit hiding behind these flowery euphemisms. This message brought to you by Proud Frank Americans for Frankness. Thank you.

Page 123~

"Don't get funny with me, lover boy," said the creature, leering. "I know your kind from way back."

~RP

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Paperback 502: Onionhead / Weldon Hill (Popular Library SP13)

Paperback 502: Popular Library SP13 (1st ptg, 1958)

Title: Onionhead
Author: Weldon Hill
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• This book is all about this guy's insatiable appetite. He likes to eat. Hence "onion." And "head."
• "Oh, Onionhead, you're so ... ribald."
• When the S.F. paper calls your book about a girl-crazy sailor the "gayest novel in years," you might have a marketing problem on your hands.
• Mitchell Hooks is a highly underrated coverartist. His stuff is generally sketchier and more whimsical than the work of the more famous Great Girl Artists, but I always find it very engaging. Love the rough black line work. Also, LOVE the redhead's outfit.

Best things about this back cover:

• On the cover, the girls thought Onionhead was in the Navy. Here, they learn he was in the Coast Guard.
• FOOD OR SEX? They're really pushing this appetite parallel a lot. Unless this book culminates in Onionhead eating large plates of pasta and various desserts off the naked bodies of gorgeous young ladies, I'm going to be very disappointed.
• Again: Ribald! For her pleasure.

Page 123~

Al began browsing among the supplies, getting oriented. He noticed a recipe for muffins on a bag of cornmeal, and got a brilliant idea. He had to learn how to cook, so he ought to practice, learn by experience, trial and error. He would make some goddam muffins.

I want an apron depicting the front cover art and the caption: "He would make some goddam muffins." I would wear it every day.

~RP

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Paperback 385: Rage to Love / Frank Tilsley (Popular Giant G143)

Paperback 385: Popular Giant G143 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Rage to Love
Author: Frank Tilsley
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• That tagline does not match this picture, but I guess "He Waited Patiently For The Mailman" isn't quite as exciting.
• I suppose there are sluttier poses than that one, but ... not many, I'd guess.
• I'm gonna downgrade that pose rating from "slutty" to "slatternly," with a dose of "wasted"
• The question isn't really "why that pose?" but "why that pose *there*, with her elbows on the sink basin??" "You like this, huh baby? Dirty dishes, dirty girl, right, baby? ... Baby? ... oh for chrissake it's Sunday, the mailman's not coming!"

Best things about this back cover:

• "I can hear your liver!"
• "And I love origami!"

Page 123~

He closed his eyes, opened them again. Stall after stall, with beans, and trucks behind them, unloading: box after box—of beans. There must be as many beans in East Row here alone as Jimmy had bought in the rest of the market!

I submit that this book should be retitled "He Dreams Of Beans." That would explain her expression of contempt on the front cover.

~RP

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Paperback 342: I Fear You Not / Ben Kerr (Popular Library 763)

Paperback 342: Popular Library 763 (PBO, 1956)

Title: I Fear You Not
Author: Ben Kerr (pseud. of William Ard)
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: Not For Sale

Best things about this cover:

• "C'mon, this is prime lady flesh. At $4.95 / lb. ... you're not gonna get a better price than that!"
• "Take My Wife... seriously, take her, she's drivin' me and my pal Barney here nuts!"
• "Hi, Steve? I'm just calling you from my bubble bath to tell you that I fear you not, OK? OK, bye."
• *He Bought Cops The Way He Bought Women ... With A Nice Dinner And A Little Sweet Talk*
• "Down I Go," HA ha.
• The exclamation point motif (continued, in spades, on the back cover) is Exquisite.

Best things about this back cover:

• Poor Rita: "Ok, I've got on a sweater, parka, overcoat, headscarf ... so how 'bout now?" "Nope, sorry, you still look naked." "Damn it!" "Maybe tweed will work. Try tweed."
• Poor Paul: It's hard to come out to your mom, on the phone, in the '50s.
• Poor Gloria: She just looks really, really stupid.

Page 123~

He watched dispassionately as her shadowy figure gathered up clothes and put them on. It was a lithe young figure, a pleasure to watch in motion, but its bloom was aborning."

Easy on the thesaurus work there, Yeats. "Aborning?!" As in "Your writing is 'aborning' me to tears?"

~RP

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