Paperback 1109: To Tell Your Love / Mary Stolz (Scholastic Books T124)

 Paperback 1109: Scholastic Book Services T-124 (3rd ptg, 1961)

Title: To Tell Your Love

Author: Mary Stolz

Cover artist: Uncredited (but the book is "Illustrated by Artur Marokvia" so maybe the cover is him too—hard to tell since there's only one shitty illustration in the whole dang book for comparison)

Condition: 8/10

Value: $6-8

Best things about this cover: 

• To tell your love what? That you've developed Giraffe Neck? That an anvil fell on your head and now your head is flat like an anvil? That you see the world entire in greenscale? That you still use a landline? From the 1930s? What are you going to tell him, Anne!?
• Man, her hands are fucked up. I know it's hard to draw hands, but ... is it that hard? Poor Anne. She can barely clutch her pearls properly.
• "... and so I stared directly at the eclipse and now I only see green. Annnnyway. What about you, my love? What's weird about you? ... Hello? Hello?!"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Kitty! I love this book now.
• I hope this book is about the kitty. Is the kitty her love? Tell the kitty he's good, Anne! Scritch Him!
• Wow, that blurb is ... not exciting. Or even coherent. What do I care about Anne's sister? Or Nora, for that matter? This book should've been titled "To Tell Doug He's Boring." That, or "Kitty's Grand Sleeping Adventures!"

Page 123~

    "What sort of pet is Cooper taking?"

    "That rooster of his," Johnny replied, shaking his head.

    "Does Mr. Maloney approve of that?"

    "Sure," Johnny laughed. "Mr. Maloney says it'll do the rooster good to get away from home and the hens for a while."

Mr. Maloney's crude rooster jokes would constitute the entirety of Johnny's sex education, and for that, Johnny's mother was grateful.

~RP

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Paperback 1108: Double Sin / Agatha Christie (Dell 12144)

Paperback 1108: Dell 12144 (1st New Dell, 1980)

Title: Double Sin

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6

Value: $6

Best things about this cover: 

• Hey kid, you got a little ... just ... on your mouth there ... no ... I'm a mirror ... my right, your left ...
• For some reason, Random Heap of Objects is a common Christie cover motif
• Who would arrange this stuff like this? What are the jewels even doing? How is that gun standing on end? Who would sculpt such a creepy wide-eyed kid? As you can see, all the blood is the least of my concerns
• Why is Hercule Poirot not also "incomparable" (or something like it)? Where's his hyperbolic adjective? I think he's earned it. 

Best things about this back cover: 

• This cover copy makes it sound like Marple and Poirot team up, or at least interact in some way, but I'm pretty sure this is a collection of short stories, none of which feature both detectives at the same time. Calling them an "unstoppable combination" is at least a little misleading.
• What year do UPC codes start appearing on paperback books? A truly evil year, that.
• This back cover is boring, the design uninspired. The corners of the text frame are vaguely deco-ish, which I guess is supposed to evoke the era in which the stories are set, but ... meh. I do kinda like the mirrored "A"s at the front and back of "AGATHA," but that may be the only design element here that I like.

Page 123~

An idle young man, she thought, but good-looking.

Finally—horny Miss Marple! It's what we've all been waiting for.

~RP

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Paperback 1107: The Razor's Edge / W. Somerset Maugham (Pocket Books 418)

 Paperback 1107: Pocket Books 418 (2nd ptg, 1946)

Title: The Razor's Edge

Author: W. Somerset Maugham

Cover artist: [Uncredited]

Condition: 6/10

Value: $7

Best things about this cover: 

• He touched her face. It was just as he suspected—whiskers! Steve knew right then that before he could make Janie his bride, her face would need to experience ... The Razor's Edge!
• Tonight, Janie decided, she would end things. Steve had coochie-coochie-coo'd her chin for the last time!
• This cover is back from when Pocket Books was still trying to make their books look serious and literary, i.e. boring. I would've sent this back to the art director with a simple three-word note: "Too Much Sky!"
• I love the insane specificity of Pocket Books's numbering scheme from this era. Individually numbered books—what was the appeal supposed to be!? They coulda just gone with the "Millions and Millions Sold" thing like McDonald's and that would've probably done the trick. What was I supposed to feel upon purchasing the one hundred and fifty-eight million two hundred and twelve thousand three hundred and tenth Pocket Book? Elation? Ennui? I can't exactly collect all the ones I'm missing! Ridiculous.

Best things about this back cover: 

• The permagloss is gone, the book is grimy, and abrasions have left part of the back cover copy illegible. Yet the spine is tight and nearly square and the book opens and reads easily. This is a perfect reading copy, which sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it's not.
• I think I read Maugham's Of Human Bondage once, around the time I was in college, because my friend claimed it was his favorite novel. I mean, I assume it actually was his favorite novel, why would he lie? Anyway, I don't remember the book. And I've never read any other Maugham. All I know about this book (The Razor's Edge) is that there was a movie version starring Bill Murray that came out some time in the '80s, and that (famously?) flopped. Apparently there's also a Tyrone Power / Gene Tierney version. That sounds hot.
• What also sounds hot? Frustrated widows, lusty beauties, and complete degradation. I might have to put this on my reading list (which is infinity books long already, but who knows!? I might get to it someday).

Page 123~

I couldn't help smiling. I could imagine what Larry had looked like then, in his patched shirt and shorts, his face and neck burnt brown by the hot sun of the Rhine valley, with his lithe slim body and his black eyes in their deep sockets. I could well believe that the sight of him set the matronly Frau Becker, so blond, so full-breasted, all of a flutter with desire.

That's some pretty specific, pretty carnal imagining you're doing there, buddy. Are you sure it's Frau Becker who's "all of a flutter with desire"? 

~RP

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Paperback 1106: The Scarf / Robert Bloch (Gold Medal d1727)

 Paperback 1106: Gold Medal d1727 (1st ptg, 1966)

Title: The Scarf

Author: Robert Bloch

Cover artist: Uncredited (Harry Bennett?)

Condition: 6/10

Value: $15

Best things about this cover: 

• The terrifying story of a girl whose deep fear of scarves drove her to retreat into a dome of mosquito netting!
• I mean, maybe it's not the most flattering scarf, but it seems like she's overreacting. Just try it on!
• Robert Bloch, after 1960, is always (on book covers) "the author of PSYCHO" (which is what happens when you write PSYCHO)
• The killer-POV cover has a long history in paperbacks. Here's a Rudolph Belarski cover from the mid-'40s that's basically got the same idea as this cover ("fear hands" and all!):

And now the back cover of The Scarf:

Best things about this back cover: 

• That opening graf is a dud. "Of a sort"? What the hell does that mean? "Early"? Compared to what? Dan Morley? That is not a name that inspires terror. Or admiration. Or much of anything.
• "Neatly plotted" sounds like an insult. A backhanded compliment. "Hey, you can plot ... neat!"
• Kids: you really should wear gloves when handling abnormal psychology. Don't let the Saturday Review tempt you into behavior you're going to regret.

Page 123~

His thumb—a weenie encircled by a diamond ring—prodded my knee.

One of the greatest "Page 123" sentences of all time. You think it's peaked at "weenie encircled by a diamond ring," but then the blunt "prodded my knee" comes along and really delivers the knockout. "Prodded." Wow. Word choice matters. 10/10. Perfect. This is why I do "Page 123"—always entertaining, and then every once in a while: gold.

~RP

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Paperback 1105: Suburban High School / George Savage (Beacon B494F)

 Paperback 1105: Beacon B494F (PBO, 1962)

Title: Suburban High School

Author: George Savage

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10

Value: $12-15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA (2024)]

Best things about this cover: 

• Suburban kink is a sizable sleaze paperback niche. Kinsey got everyone interested in the actual sex practices of ordinary people, and nothing shouts "ordinary" quite so strongly as the suburbs. Writers had fun imagining that "upstanding citizens," cultural conformists, and scolding moralists were actually horny hypocrites. And their kids, too!
• Her hair is doing very weird and unnatural things. Either that or she fell on a squirrel.
• "Oh Steve, this dead squirrel makes a terrible pillow. I feel sick. Rub my tummy."
• Seems like a Scandal, Sin and Sex curriculum would involve a lot of redundancy. I'd prefer some outdoor activities and maybe even some philosophy: Sin, Sun and Sartre! (if that's not the tagline of some philosophy conference somewhere, then why even be a philosopher?)
• Aside from her bralessness and semi-brazen side-boob, this cover is pretty tame. At first I thought there was some kind of bacchanalia going on in the background, but they're just dancing and roasting marshmallows, I think.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Does this even qualify as "advice?" And is that someone's idea of a "faculty" pun? 
• Hey, Frank Miller is in this? Exciting to get insight into his life pre-Dark Knight Returns.
• "A new teaching position"—is that also a pun!? 
• "Using women as weapons"—so, like battering rams?
• OK, I'm just gonna assume the whole last paragraph is meant to be SHOUTED.
• There is a catastrophic em dash failure in the last line here. This is the kind of "Scandal" that would bother me as a parent. "Yeah, yeah, the teens are having sex, whatever. Let's talk punctuation."

Page 123~

"Wait," I said. "Let me take off your panties."

I made it a ritual. I made taking her panties off a pagan rite that we would always practice. I drew them down slowly, inch by inch, over her hot buttocks."

Sorry, I wanted to go on, but I can't stop laughing at "hot buttocks." It's like if Hot Pockets were shaped like a butt. "Hot Buttocks!"

~RP

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Paperback 1104: The Storm and the Silence / David Walker (Lion Library LL33)

 Paperback 1104: Lion Library LL33 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Storm and the Silence

Author: David Walker

Cover artist: George Erickson

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

[acquired at a Minneapolis thrift store, Dec. 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• I'm guessing she's the storm and he's the silence. Just a hunch.
• TFW your girlfriend catches you playing with your ...  hey, what the hell is that anyway? A doll? A flash? A candlestick? A cakepop?
• This guy has too much neck. Just ... too much square footage on this cover is given over to his beeftacular neck. Not at all proportional to his torso. Deeply disturbing. But not as disturbing as ...
• Her hand! What horrid accident befell her!? Is she giving him some weird sign with her right hand, or did she lose her index and middle fingers in a cheese slicer accident? The pinky is bent at a preposterous, unnatural angle. The thumb is so thin it barely counts as a digit. Just a complete nightmare, that hand.
• Hey, maybe he's holding (fondling) the case she keeps her fingers in?

Best things about this back cover: 

• Love it when women cackle while two hapless saps beat the shit out of each other. It's weirdly a thing in paperback cover art, women who get turned on by or are otherwise entertained by violence. Actually, she less amused than bored. "Ugh, this again. I'm just gonna sit here with my beaker of whiskey until you boys are through,"
• Captain Beefneck is pursued by zombie sheriff. That's a plot line I could get into.
• If I were Tam Diamond, the only secret I'd want to keep is that my momma named me after a Scottish hat

Page 123~

"Mine's a port," Maggie said at once. She was a hard-necked one. She'd need to be, always being the goose-gog, always being a drag on other folks.

The existence of goose-gog implies the existence of goose-magog. 

("goosegog" is the acid and prickly fruit of a shrub, fyi)

~RP

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Paperback 1103: I Take This Woman / Georges Simenon (Signet 1034)

 Paperback 1103: Signet 1034 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: I Take This Woman

Author: Georges Simenon

Cover artist: Uncredited [Avati?]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

[acquired at a Minneapolis thrift store, Dec. 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• "... and I take this man [whispers] to hell ..."
• Not everyone's cut out to join the new Coffee Generation. Sadly, there is the occasional casualty.
• This vacant-eyed lady is exquisite. From the light on her hair to that amazing dress with its snazzy shoulder bows, to the bangle on her wrist to her prayer-like hands to the blue arsenic paper she's squeezing in barely suppressed mariticidal glee. Particularly amazing when juxtaposed with the dramatic cascade of falling humanity on the left. Her stillness against their movement, her nearness against their farness, bigness against smallness. Lots happening in such a little space.
  
• I aspire to read more Simenon, particularly non-Maigret Simenon. But most of what I own is vintage and I don't want to hurt it :(

Best things about this back cover: 

• Simenon would ultimately write over 400 novels. This is one of his romans durs ("hard novels"). If you look up "roman dur," it seems that the term applies only to Simenon. He seems to have coined it to refer to his non-Maigret novels that explored "aberrant behavior and psychological torment" without the generic constraints of the roman policier.
• "To understand people is to love them"—such a weird motto, so weirdly presented. "It expresses my heart, so it must be ... in handwritten script. No, it must! I insist! Put a typewritten translation underneath if you must, but the people must see my handwriting to understand my sincerity. Now leave me alone while I smoke my pipe and stare out the window."
• The original title of this book was La verité sur Bébé Donge (The Trial of Bébé Donge). I guess Bébé Donge was just too much ... name for an American audience. As with much French cheese, American palates were simply not ready for Bébé Donge (which kind of sounds like a cheese, come to think of it: "The brie is OK, but have you tried the Bébé Donge!? Magnifique!")

Page 123~

    "Question: Did he refuse to let you have what you needed? Was he strict with you? Did he scold you? Did he beat you? Was he jealous, suspicious?

    "Answer: He never bothered his head about me."

~RP

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