Paperback 1050: Bogus Lover / Hy Silver (Newsstand Library U136)

Paperback 1050: Newsstand Library U136 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Bogus Lover
Author: Hy (ho?) Silver
Cover artist: Robert Bonfils

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $15

Best things about this cover:

• I love her girl-about-town, devil-may care look. I'm not sure who's throwing bras and mannequin heads at her, but she doesn't seem fazed.
• That blue is exquisite.
• They've certainly, uh, made sure to emphasize her torso profile. The extensive boob shadow is kinda overkill. It's like, yeah, we see. They're lovely.
• The valentine on the mannequin's face is so freaky. What is even happening here!?

Best things about this back cover:

• Argh, too much text!
• I'm pretty sure that "crunched" is the wrong word for what casting couches do when you put your lustful weight on them, but admittedly this isn't really my bailiwick. Maybe someone got sloppy with corn chips?
• "Hey boss, how many 'm's in Peggy's "'Mmmmmmmm?'" "That depends. Is she lustful?" "Oh, yes, sir. Very." "Then ... Eight!" "But, sir, that's ... that's two more than we've ever done. Are you su—" "I'M TRYIN' TO SELL BOOKS HERE, MAN, JUST DO IT!" (/scene)
• Wait. Peggy? Then who's Wanda? We lost gentle Wanda somewhere between paragraphs two and three. Oh, the boss is not gonna be happy about this...

Page 123~

"I guess we're both stupid," he said as he started the engine.

Real talk.

~RP

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Paperback 931: Soft & Savage Puzzie McKill / David Lynn (Ember Library EL390)

Paperback 931: Ember Library EL390 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Soft & Savage Puzzie McKill
Author: David Lynn
Cover artist: Uncredited (Robert Bonfils)

Estimated value: $20,000 (I made this figure up, but it feels right)

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Normally Doug brings me a small bagful of sleaze paperbacks whenever I see him at crossword puzzle tournaments. This time, he brought just one. The One.
• It only now (literally right now) occurs to me that "Puzzie" may be some ham-fisted way of attempting to conjure up "Pussy." Let me assure you, in a hotel lobby full of crossword puzzle enthusiasts, that association didn't land At All. I just figured that outdoor group BDSM was her *second* hobby.
• Her eyes, man. Her. Eyes. "When Irish eyes are BORING A HOLE IN YOUR JUNK!"
• One of the things that actually bothers me about this cover is that Cagey McRageface should really be able to slip out of that bamboo structure. He looks more like an angry go-go dancer than a captive sex whatever he is.
• To repeat, the title of this book is [deep breath] "Soft & Savage Puzzie McKill"—because "Puzzie McKill" would've been too ambiguous.

Best things about this back cover:

• Whoa oh here she comes! Watch out, boy, she'll cut you up. Whoa oh here she comes! She's a Manhater.
• "Mark Davidson" is not a name that can hang with Puzzie McKill. Doesn't quite evoke ... anything.
• Ew to "Trail of lust." Clean-up on aisle puzz.

Page 123~ (hold on to your hats)

A slow smile of malicious glee crept over Puzzie's face as she looked at Mark, her hands resting on top of the Killer's bald head as the man nudged and tugged about in the nest of golden fleece.

I felt like I had a handle on this sentence at the beginning, but then... things fall apart. Let's just say the "nest of golden fleece" is Exactly What You Think It Is. "Tugged about"? Not a verb phrase I'd want anywhere near my golden fleece.

~RP

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Paperback 906: Amorous Dietitian / Mary Shomette Gooch (Novel Library U171)

Paperback 906: Novel Library U171 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Amorous Dietitian
Author: Mary Shomette Gooch
Cover artist: [I know his name but it's eluding me right now...] [Is it Robert Bonfils?]

Estimated value: $INFINITY (no copies listed at abebooks)

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• "O god you smell like onions [smack smack smack] that's so hot [slurp]..."
• Tony Curtis *is* ... The Dietitian *in* ... "Some Like It Hot (& Sour)!"
• This is possibly the dumbest concept in the history of sex fiction. "We've done the whole doctors/nurses thing ... where can we go? ..." "Uh ... truck-driving?" "Really? Truck-driving? DO TRUCK DRIVERS WEAR WHITE LAB COATS, BOB? DO THEY!? How's anyone gonna get properly aroused without white lab coats, you idiot!"
• Nice inner side-boob, which I think used to be called "cleavage."
• What kind of antiseptic seraglio is this? Between our breath-smellers in the foreground and the butt-grabbers in the background, there doesn't appear to be much dietitianing happening up in here.

Best things about this back cover:

• First sentence = instant LOL. You can "grin" words now?
• Ladies and gentlemen, meet your newest dietitian: Clete.
• Mmm, breasts in the raw. Pretty sure I saw that on a Brooklyn bar menu.
• Jesus, does this woman have any body parts that aren't breasts?
• "She was a woman and clean." One of the all-time great mic-drop lines. Biblical in its epicness and crypticness. All other writers can suck it. There's a new word sheriff in town.

Page 123~

Warren Grant turned, looked at her, then grinned and sauntered over. His eyes rested on her jutting breasts for a moment, then lifted to her face.

Mary Shomette Gooch graduated summa cum laude from the Grin & Boob School of Writingticians.

~RP

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Paperback 690: Go Down, Aaron / Chris Davidson (Ember Library EL376)

Paperback 690: Ember Library EL376 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Go Down, Aaron
Author: Chris Davidson
Cover artist: Uncredited [Robert Bonfils]

Yours for: Not For Sale, partly 'cause I just wanna keep it, partly because I'd feel guilty profiting in any way from this thing (probably worth something north of a C-note)


Best things about this cover:

• The title is ... amazing. I mean, if you can ignore completely the horrible Nazi / gay erotic nexus for, like, one second, you have to appreciate the wordplay involved in that title. Changing "Moses" to Aaron ... punning on the phrase "Go Down" ... playing "Third Sex" off of "Third Reich" ... seriously great.
• The painting is also fantastic in its composition. I mean, again, horrible, but just the way the naked man is framed by the Nazi's legs, the way the Nazi's crotch is illuminated / represented by steel bars, the details on the uniform (belt, gun, trousers, whip (?), boots ...). And all in an unusual Green. Jaw-dropping.
• This is among the most flat-out outrageous books in my collection. It takes "Sleaze" to 11. It's also in astonishing condition. I'd rate it 9/10, condition-wise.

Best things about this back cover:

• Yuck.
• What's the difference between a "deviate" and a "deviant"?
• I'm trying to imagine finding any of this arousing. Not judging, though. Different strokes, as it were.

Page 123~

"The Master requests your presence in the study, sir," the servant informed Aaron.

Hmmm, this is a kind of prison I'm not familiar with.

~RP

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Paperback 453: So Strange Our Love / Joseph Heron (Newsstand Library U159)

Paperback 453: Newsstand Library U159 (PBO, 1961)

Title: So Strange Our Love
Author: Joseph Heron
Cover artist: Uncredited [Robert Bonfils]

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• First impression: yeah, that's pretty strange.
• Honey, you're gonna have to move that thing a little closer to his face. From the squinting, I'd say dude is clearly too nearsighted to appreciate it from that distance. At this rate, he's never going to put his Eiffel Tower anywhere near your frenzied river, let alone your secret and turbulent rapids.
• Wow, "forked" is a word that really kills the mood.

Best things about this back cover:

• OK, I get it, only Mireille. Stop shouting at me.
• "forked" : front cover :: "nostrils" : back cover
• "Pointed" — man, talk about your adventures in bad word choice.
• "... under the touch of his fingers her nipple swelled" — I wonder if that looked anything like this picture we've seen before.
  
• I'm trying to find the part in that last paragraph where they actually start fucking. Not entirely clear. If I read it literally, it's like she gets him in some kind of wrestling hold with her legs, and he's cool with that, but then she starts writhing and ululating and speaking in tongues. No wonder he's keeping his distance on the front cover.

Page 123~

She picked up a pack of cigarettes from the table and lit one. "And yet if Johny had been a man, you wouldn't mind it," she said. "When you thought she was a man, you didn't."

If Johny had been a man, he'd have figured out how to spell his name properly. By the way, dude's name is Ken and he's just discovered that MIREILLE! sleeps with girls. Or girl, at any rate.

~RP

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Paperback 350: Strumpets' Jungle / Sloane Britain & Any Man's Plaything / Rubel (Dollar Double 951)

Paperback 350: Dollar Double 951 (1st ptg / 1st ptg, 1962)

Title: Strumpets' Jungle // Any Man's Plaything
Authors: Sloane Britain // Rubel (HA ha, one name, like Collette, or Ludacris)
Cover artists: Robert Bonfils // Robert Bonfils

Yours for: $40


Best things about the "Strumpets' Jungle" cover:

• One of the craziest covers I own. First of all, full frontal female nudity? They cover the nipples with a narrow tree branch, but leave the crotch wide open!? Is the dark patch hair? Or does she shave and that's just a shadow? These tree lesbians are wild!
  
• Second, tree lesbians?
• I find this cover incredibly creepy, as it reminds me of nothing so much as the crucifixion. There's Jesus lesbian, and then Thief #1 lesbian over there, and then ... I guess the Thief #2 lesbian is off-screen. Really horrifying. Or else they are being eaten by tree creatures (Ents?) who really love voluptuous lesbians. Or else this is some sylvan lesbian sex rite that my lesbian friends have somehow never told me about.
• I'm no ecosystem expert, but that doesn't look like a "jungle."
• And in case you didn't know, "3rd Sex" = homosex...ual

Best things about the "Any Man's Plaything" cover:

• She is antithesis of women on the other cover, as she is wearing panties *and* concealing her pubic region with her hands.
• There's nothing very "shocking" looking about this cover. Pretty girl in her underwear, not letting you peek at her crotch. Only the shoes suggest she has anything on her mind besides shutting the door on you and getting some rest. All I know about her is that she has very good balance.

Page 123 of "Strumpets' Jungle"~

"Paula, I don't understand. What were they ...?"
"Never mind that for now," I said. "We've got to get to our classrooms."

~RP

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Paperback 310: Four O'Clock on Friday / Philip Storey (Novel Library U177)

Paperback 310: Novel Library U177 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Four O'Clock on Friday
Author: Philip Storey
Cover artist: Robert Bonfils

Yours for: $22


Best things about this cover:

• Oddly unmoving for a peek-a-boo nightie cover.
• "I like to paint with my hands — much more sensual than painting with rollers or brushes. I call this color 'The Blood of My Latest Victim.'"
• "Pretend you're shopping..." — sorry, but your role-playing skills need some work.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Tits!" — ha ha. Klassy.
• I love how the plot description basically alleviates us from the burden of reading for the plot, thus freeing us up to scan quickly for the "part-lesbian" (?!) scenes.
• I also love how the cover copy seems hell-bent on debasing the word "hero" as much as possible. Starting with "The hero is a personnel manager..."
• "This, however, is not complicated enough" — I'm gonna disagree with you there, partner — though the "weird brother" plot does have, uh, novelty on its side.

Page 123~

"You could have knocked me over to hear Celia had been married to Fred all along. You knew it? Oh yes, darling, I can see it in your handsome face. Don't be made at me, love, I'll never talk."

It would be hard to express to you how poorly this book is written without also boring you to death. Also, I think "Don't be mad at me, love, I'll never talk" should have been the tagline of this book.

~RP

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