Paperback 1140: Undress Rehearsal / John Carver (Softcover Library 95265)

Paperback 1140: Softcover Library 95265 (1st ptg, late '60s to 1970)

Title: Undress Rehearsal

Author: John Carver

Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 9/10    

Value: $12

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• Seems pretty bored for someone at an orgy. "What an orgy!" "Meh, it's OK." Maybe that wicker chair seat just isn't that comfortable to sit in naked.
• What is she holding? A leaf? A shoe? A feather? I also have a follow-up question. Namely, "Why?"
• Those thigh-high black leather fetish boots are shiny and spectacular. I just wish she seemed to be getting any joy from them.

Best things about this back cover: 

• The backs of sleaze paperbacks fall into two categories: brief, enigmatic, typo-ridden prose poems that seem to have been translated hastily from some lost Central European language; or, treatises.
• I took one look at the name "Roz" and thought, "oh that's definitely the requisite lesbian." I was close. 
• "Adults could make love with youngsters"—did that *ever* sound good? "Youngsters?" It's better than "children," I guess, but only barely.

Page 123~

"Filthy. It is even more disgusting in the flesh. A degenerate, characterless story containing the grossest invitations to moral disintegration. I object—and I shall go on objecting."

There's your back cover blurb right there. Just ascribe it to some the head of some fictional Public Morals Org. and you're in business! 

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]

Paperback 784: Mac Bird! / Barbara Garson (Evergreen Black Cat BC-132)

Paperback 784: Evergreen Black Cat BC-132 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: Mac Bird!
Author: Barbara Garson
Cover artist: [Lisa Lyons]

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• I … don't know what this is. Hang on. OK, here we go—from wikipedia:

MacBird! is a 1967 satire by Barbara Garson that superimposed the transferral of power following the Kennedy assassination onto the plot of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Thus John F. Kennedy becomes "Ken O'Dunc", Lyndon Johnson becomes "MacBird", Lady Bird Johnson becomes "Lady MacBird", and so forth. As Macbeth assassinates Duncan, so MacBird is responsible for the assassination of Ken O'Dunc; and as Macbeth is defeated by Macduff, so MacBird is defeated by Robert O'Dunc (i.e. Robert Kennedy). This action is significantly influenced by the Three Witches, representing Students, Blacks, and Leftists.

• Is he green because … Scottish people … are green?
• Love the cowboy boot / kilt combo.
• I don't remember foot-jousting in Macbeth.

Best things about this back cover:

• I like how they made it seem as if LBJ were blurbing this thing. But otherwise, just a bunch of quotes. Moving on.

Page 123~

The EARL OF WARREN, carrying the crown, stand next to KEN O'DUNC. The "Hallelujah Chorus" plays in the back ground as he speaks.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 452: A Man of Parts / Vivian Connell (Gold Medal 130)

Paperback 452: Gold Medal 130 (PBO, 1950)

Title: A Man of Parts
Author: Vivian Connell
Cover artist: Uncredited (though I can see a signature in lower left ... very elongated ... looks like "drip")

Yours for: $11

Sorry for the week-long publication drought. I've been away for a week at the Minnesota State Fair and other Midwestern attractions (friends, mostly). Plus, I prepared a slide show of covers from this blog for Huffington Post Books, so it *felt* like I was writing. Anyway, back on a 3 book/week schedule now, for the most part, I think. So let's get back to it:


Best things about this cover:

• A Man of Parts ... and the best part, Tracy knew, was the thigh.
• "Well, your leg sounds just fine, so I have no idea what's ailing you. I'll go get my leeches."
• I've never actually heard anyone utter the phrase "How gauche!" but pencil-mustache sure has the face for it.
• "I say, do you know how to work one of these iPod minis...?"

Best things about this back cover:

• For some reason I'm imagining the first two lines here being spoken in the voice of Darth Vader.
• "... and all her womanhood pushed out to him in her warm full breasts": so it's a lactation fetish novel. Cool.
• "... and the women caught in the tempest ... of the tempestuous novel ... that I mentioned at the beginning of this sentence ... what? I like the word 'tempest.' Get off my back."

Page 123~

God, it was good to be alive, in the country, on a night like this. He began to sing gaily. Suddenly he realized what he was singing:

"Then we snuggle in the corner,
An' there's no fire any warmer
Than your mouth all sweet and rosy . . ."

He pulled up with a jerk.

Those are odd lyrics to masturbate to, but ... whatever floats your boat, Man of Parts.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]