Paperback 510: Strange Thirsts / Michael Norday (Beacon Books B662X)

Paperback 510: Beacon Books B662X (2nd ptg, 1963)

Title: Strange Thirsts
Author: Michael Norday
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: Not for sale (donation to the collection from Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• This book, and the next few I'll feature on this blog, are all gifts from my friend Doug Peterson. He brings me new books almost every time I see him, and my recent trip to Brooklyn was no exception. My wife had to accept this particular round of gifts, as I was out of commission with vicious food poisoning, but I'm sure he (and everyone) knows how grateful I am.
• I guess I've seen one too many of these semi-suggestive lesbian covers, because the only thing I can see are the blonde's crazy leprechaun shoes. I hope those are for "the annual college play," because if she's wearing those on the street, people are going to chase her and demand to know where she keeps her gold.
• I hope "Strange Thirsts" refers to the blonde's irresistible compulsion to drink the brunette's bath water.
• I like my lesbian paperbacks to be somewhat more provocative than this. Hardly any flesh, even. A couple of tiny slivers of cleavage. Come on. A lesbian paperback cover's lasting impression should not be bathroom tile, house plants, and seriously flamboyant footwear.

Best things about this back cover:

• Yeah, yeah, "warped." You said that on the front cover.
• "Imported," HA ha. "Hey, did the new shipment of Zane Hunter come in yet?"
• "Dale, for relief, turned to pretty Julie Hilton." For relief? Relief from What? The sexual attention of a glamorous actress?
• I like that Julie enjoyed "questionable ecstasies." "You call those ecstasies? Hmm. I'm dubious."
• "Baby-skinned"is a horrifying adjective.
• "Dale, get in here. You *gotta* see this degradation..."
• "Probes deeply, boldly, into forbidden areas." That's what I call obvuendo!

Page 123~

There were times when her flesh seemed unable to wait for the completion that he would give it with his own.

So he's going to give her flesh completion? With his own flesh? His own completion? But the whole paragraph is about how they're *not* having sex because they're waiting for marriage ... only the very next chapter is entitled "Menage à Trois"! Crazy college kids.

~RP

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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 315: Lust Killer / J.S. McWinter (All-Star 142)

Paperback 315: All Star 142 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Lust Killer
Author: J.S. McWinter
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15



Best things about this cover:

• "Now that you are sufficiently humiliated, I'll just rub my face with my magic gun, like so, and ... presto, I start to turn invisible from the feet up."
• This guy is actually trying to protect the lady from the hailstorm of mini-doors/light switches/'60s decorative effects pounding down upon her naked body.
• Whoa, I just read the cover copy: child molester!?!? Oh, man, I can't do anything with that. NEXT COVER!

Best things about this back cover:

• I have just one thing to say, and that is — how do you conclude "accidental death" when the body is "STUFFED within" an "icebox?" Unless this is an attempt at escape artistry gone horribly awry, even the most bumpkiny of police chiefs couldn't arrive at "accidental death" from that evidence. Not with a straight face.

Page 123~

OK, before I begin, let me say that I flipped the book open to a random page and found out that the book is at least in part about boys in a sado-masochistic relationship who discover that they are "queers" ("You know damn well you almost came every time I beat you. And I always do. What do you mean we aren't queer?"). I'm afraid to look at Page 123 ... Oh. It's not so bad.

"All right, John," she began again. "For years your father and I have known that you're homosexual. All right. That's that. Until now you always kept it quiet. But not anymore. Now the whole town knows about it. But even that isn't so bad. Boston is a great town for burying its head in the sand, you know. In Boston, you can do damned near anything you want, so long as you don't rub our face in it. But if you do that, we have to do something. And you've rubbed our face in it. Do you really think no one is aware of what's been going on? All three of your bosses have been in communication with me about you. So you are now faced with a choice. Either resign and leave Boston, or we will throw you out. I don't mean the Creightons, I mean Boston. We've had it John. In Boston, there are no second chances."

There you go, City of Boston. Your new motto!

~RP

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