Paperback 1152: Murder on the Links / Agatha Christie (Dell 454)

Paperback 1152: Dell 454 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Murder on the Links

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Al Brulé

Condition: 7/10    

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• I'm sorry but the freakiest thing about this cover isn't Poirot standing in the doorway, it's whatever that get-up is that she's got on, holy cow.
• Carhop? Ballerina? Working as a waitress in a cocktail bar?
• Those are the gapingest fishnets I ever did see. Reasonable-sized fish could escape through those holes.
• Classic Fear Hand! Or else she's telling Poirot, "Just give me five minutes, you impatient Walloon!"
• In other news, I think 2026 might be My Christie Year. I know a year isn't nearly enough to read all her novels, but I'm hoping maybe I can polish off a dozen, at least.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Mapback!! Paperback design peaked with the mapback. All downhill since then. Every book should have a map on the back. If I started a publishing co., this would be the one and possibly only thing I cared about.
• Look at the detail. Tiny cabanas and beach chairs and umbrellas and everything.
• LOL "Bench." Thanks, map!
• Love the perspective on this one, with Calais visible in the far distance. And clouds! It's lovely, really.
• "Copes" is a weird word to describe what Poirot does. He's solving a case, not surviving a week-end with his in-laws.

Page 123~

    But at that moment a stir and bustle was heard outside, and our old friend, the examining magistrate, accompanied by his clerk and M. Bex, with the doctor behind them, came bustling in.

OK, a couple things. First, M. Bex, cool name. Second, was there no editor to say "absolutely not" to the repetition of "bustle"? "Bustling" almost seems like an intentional comical callback to "stir and bustle," but if that were so, I'd expect all the people to come "stirring and bustling in." "Bustling" on its own gives the appearance of laziness (both authorial and editorial).

~RP

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Paperback 1079: Jonathan Wild / Henry Fielding (Signet CQ660)

Paperback 1079: Signet CQ660 (1st ptg, 1962) (actually 3rd ptg, year unknown, probably early-mid '70s)

Title: Jonathan Wild

Author: Henry Fielding

Cover artist: Milton Glaser

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5

Best things about this cover:

• Another acquisition outside my normal (1939-69) collecting range, but Glaser's covers for Signet are special, so I think I'm going to start making them a special subset of my collection (esp. since they can be found all over and procured for super cheap)
• There's a borderline cartoon quality to Glaser's pop art take on the classics (his most famous work for Signet was the covers of all the Shakespeare plays). Love the intricacy of his designs, and the low-key bawdiness of this particular image—the deep cleavage, the hint of thigh above the stocking, the (I'm guessing) randy bewigged leonine figure standing behind her. . . though if he's randy for anything, it's probably that jewel he's fondling.
• The colors are vibrant and the design on her stockings is absolutely aces. Her shoes are special too.

Best things about this back cover:

• Bah! Mere description! 
• I've never read this novel, but the cover copy here is promising. Love the idea of naming your wild-ass main character "Wild." 
• The book is part biography (of an actual criminal), part social satire, part picaresque novel. Honestly, it sounds amazing, and I am tempted to dive right in.
• Is Gin Lane bad? I want to live on Gin Lane. There's gin there, right?

Page 123~

Wild, immediately at his return to town, went to pay a visit to Miss Laetitia Snap, for he had that weakness of suffering himself to be enslaved by women, so naturally incident to men of heroic disposition.

"Suffering himself to be enslaved" is some choice phrasing, but not as choice as the name "Miss Laetitia Snap"—that is an all-time name. The implications of "Snap" are suggestive but ambiguous ... unlike the implications of "Miss Straddle" (p. 88), which seem pretty straightforward.

~RP

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Paperback 996: Playgirl For Hire / Sylvia Sharon (Domino Books 82-104)

Paperback 996: Domino Books 82-104 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Playgirl For Hire
Author: Sylvia Sharon (pseud. of Paul Little)
Cover artist: photo cover

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $25-30

Best things about this cover:

• "Put down that drink and let's go do some tumbling? Whaddya say?"
• I assume these ladies are supposed to be facsimiles of Playboy Bunnies (?) but aside from the liquor and the heels, and maybe the floor, this cover seems less "big-time vice" and more "back stage at the taping of a yoga class for public access TV."
• "Oh, Patti, I feel so enmeshed in big-time vice." "Those are just stockings, dearie."

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, the old "daddy issues lead Kitty to sin city" narrative. Klassic.
• There's a haven for the bored and jaded? How do I get there?
• No models were harmed in the shooting of the cover photo

Page 123~

Kitty thought it curious that Pearl should suddenly gulp, turn very red, and squirm nervously about as she hastened to reply, "Oh, I do, Miss Wilson."

I wanted to cut that quote short at "gulp," but kept going in the interest of journalistic integrity.

~RP

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Paperback 951: Skin and Bones / Thorne Smith (Pocket Books 490)

Paperback 951: Pocket Books 490 (3rd ptg, 1948)

Title: Skin and Bones
Author: Thorne Smith
Cover artist (and illus.): [Herbert Roese]

Estimated value: $not a lot
Condition: 3/10

Best things about this cover:

• Dang. I'm sure there's an innocent enough explanation for whatever is happening here, but for a late '40s cover, this is pretty ... saucy. It's like she's looking over her shoulder going, "Well, get on with it, then..." and he's trying to figure out how one removes these bloody stocking contraptions.
• I love that when I was tagging this post, the category of "all fours" already existed.
• Thorne Smith was a very big deal in the mid-century "humor" game.

Best things about this back cover:

• Frankly, this sounds amazing.
• "Hoarse, gamy laughter" is what I just emitted upon reading that phrase.
• I never noticed that the kangaroo, in this incarnation of the Pocket Books logo, kinda looks like he (!?) has a giant book erection.

Page 123~

"Sure," said the drunken mortician, growing a little tired of the Rev. Watts.

~RP

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Paperback 949: Play the Sin Field / Drew Deskins (Spartan Line SL134)

Paperback 949: Spartan Line SL134 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Play the Sin Field
Author: Drew Deskins
Cover artist: presumably

Estimated value: No idea. Somehow, I have TWO copies of this, and yet there are NO copies at abebooks. :(
Condition: 8/10

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Holy crap, I only *just* realized that this is supposed to be a pun on the phrase, "play the infield." Before, I thought a. wow, they just threw the word SIN in to a perfectly good phrase and ruined it, how stupid, and b. wow, SIN is a really truly terrible pun for "out."
• I love this woman. We should all be this confident. (i.e. confident enough to wear pasties that clash with our evening gloves).
• Wanton nymphos are the best kind of nymphos. Them prim nymphos ain't no fun at all.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, the Insane Phrase Bookend blurb. I should create a tag for these things. They are a truly great part of American literary history. I assure you Hemingway could never have come up with "SIN GUESTS"; not in his whole, adulturous life.
• P.S. "orgiastically"

Page 123~

"I want you to lay me right here and now," she said softly and he fell on her, his malehood jutting and pulsating, as he inched it within her eager body.

You'd think you'd be laughing too hard to properly masturbate to this stuff.

~RP

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Paperback 751: The Oddballs / Stacey Clubb (Softcover Library B853X)

Paperback 751: Softcover Library B853X (PBO, 1965)

Title: The Oddballs
Author: Stacey Clubb
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: Not For Sale—part of the Doug Peterson Collection


Best things about this cover:

• "I don't think they're so odd," he said, self-consciously.
• So many questions. Such as, where has her right arm got to? Or, why their bed is a parallelogram?
• Remember the fad of wearing two differently colored stockings!? Me either.
• "You awake? … tickle tickle! … alright then, I'm just going to remove your head with my jaws now, OK? Just relax."
• "The only practical sex was unnatural sex!" — Having trouble understanding the use of the word "practical" here. "Well, see, I would just put my penis in your vagina, but … it's really not practical for me ... right now … at this juncture … you know? So, let's just bring in the elephant and the mustard and see how it goes, mkay? It's just easier that way."

Best things about this back cover:

• Shadowy = Lesbiany. In case you're unfamiliar with paperback code.
• INA, ha ha! Calling all crossword constructors, we got a live one!
• I want a business card that reads "Encourager of odd rites and practices."

Page 123~

The sting of his blow had not penetrated.

Nope, sorry, that was just the first thing I opened to. Hang on … OK, here we go:

"Bernice," he called out.

But the bikini-clad goddess who appeared casually at the top of the mezzanine stairs in response to his blithe summons was not, of course, Bernice.

If ever there was a name custom-made for softcore porn, that name is Blithe Summons.

~RP

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Paperback 721: Operation: SEX / Kimberly Kemp (Midwood F181)

Paperback 721: Midwood F181 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Operation: SEX 
Author: Kimberly Kemp
Cover artist: Paul Rader

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• Operation: LACK OF IMAGINATION
• I have an alternative title for this book: Naughty Pine.
• This cover manages to be both deeply disturbing and super hot. Indirect evidence of nudity = very effective.
• You have to love the absurdity of the pull-down window shade in the foreground—it's architecturally impossible, of course, but does a cool job of implicating us in the voyeurism.

Best things about this back cover:

• Whoa. Ruby? Tell me more about Ruby. The cover said nothing about Ruby.
• "Anything!"
• Talk about burying the lede—how is the front cover not more lesbianified? I mean, I love the cover, but if lesbian pulp has taught me anything (and it Has), it's that when your book has lesbian sex in it, some visual/textual indication of that goes on the cover. No beating around the bush. As it were.

Page 123~

She visualized the tiny droplets striking the shoulders and then draining down in liquid rivulets, down over those peaked breasts. Down. Across that smooth belly and down into—

End of paragraph. I assume the next words were going to be the aforementioned bush, but who knows?

~RP

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Paperback 687: The Way of All Flesh / Samuel Butler (Pocket Books 8)

Paperback 687: Pocket Books 8 (3rd ptg, 1939)

Title: The Way of All Flesh
Author: Samuel Butler
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $21


Best things about this cover:

• "What're *you* lookin' at?"
• Her stockings are nuts. Horizontal red stripes? When was that a thing?
• This is the most pristine early Pocket Book I own—from the first year of the mass market paperback industry's existence. There are two signifiant scuff marks on the spine edge, but otherwise, it's shockingly pristine. Permagloss intact and everything. Trust me when I say 1939 paperbacks are rarely found in this state anymore.

Best things about this back cover:

• That Shaw quote is one of the best things I've ever seen printed on a back cover. The literary equivalent of "this is why we can't have nice things."
• "Now Ready." It's so adorable how *new* the paperback was at this point. 

Page 123~

One would have thought she had sowed enough of such religious wild oats by this time, but she had plenty still to sow.

"Religious wild oats" is not a phrase I ever expected to see.

~RP

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Paperback 683: Big Heat / Unknown (All Star Books AS 531)

Paperback 683: All Star Books AS 531 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Big Heat
Author: No author credit? Seriously? Not even on the title page or anywhere?
Cover artist: too sad to think about

Yours for: Not for Sale [Part of the Doug Peterson Collection]


Best things about this cover:

• Several things. First: peach?
• Second: the most offensive thing about this cover—his shirt. Actually, probably all of him, but especially his shirt.
• I am enjoying her stockings.
• I like (seriously, like) how they start her off at "Twice."

Best things about this back cover:

• BIG HEAT! Comin' atcha! 3 times!
• In what universe is the phrase "giant breasts falling free of her halter" erotic or titillating? It makes me want to shout "Run!" to all the endangered villagers.
• Hmm. If you're looking to find a man who could release you from the tortured lust of being a lesbian, I'm not sure reckless affairs with other women is the way to go about it. "I keep having reckless affairs with other women, but so far, no luck on the man front. What am I doing wrong!?"
• Ah, "unnatural" and "twisted," my favorite code words. How you guys doin'? Good to see you again.

Page 123~

"Christ, what's the matter with me?" he said. "Blowing my stack over some dumb kid in hick fishing camp!"

Wow. Did not see those last three words coming.

Here's some bonus footage, which I tweeted last night—from the preview page inside the front cover:

Her breasts were enormous bombs of powdered white flesh, tipped with crimson tidbits the size of plums.

The Crimson Tidbits were also a moderately successful doo-wop group from the late-50s.

~RP

P.S. this book appears to be ... short stories. But with no table of contents and no author credit and no apparent dignity, who's to say?

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