2 books handed to me at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament: Book 2

Title: Consultation Room (Pocket 654, 1st ptg, 1949)
Author: Frederic Loom, M.D.
Cover artist: Stanley Meltzoff

Yours for: not for sale

• "What's the matter, doctor? Do my boobs ... frighten you?" "Er, I'll just put the stethoscope ... uh ... here, or ..." "Be a man!"
• "Normally, patients sit down for this exam. Also, normally they don't wear wedding dresses to the exam."
• This book should be called "What the Gigantic Brass Door Handle Knows"
• "My world has revolved around sex as a pivot" — "... as a pivot"?? That's redundant *and* stupid.
• "Frank!" I love when paperbacks get "frank." That means people are gonna do it in some non-marital and possibly non-missionary way.

• Clifton Fadiman shows off his mad (mad mad mad) blurbing skills, while the Dayton News tries, and fails, to make up an adjective.
• "From the young wife to the woman of 50" — All the way to 50!? Way to push the envelope, guys.
• "Frank!"

Page 123~

"Don't do it!" she cried when she could speak coherently. "Please let me have my baby now. I don't want to have a Brazilian soldier!"

"Brazilian soldier" being, of course, code for some fairly serious pre-delivery waxing.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 295: The Three Coffins / John Dickson Carr (Popular Library 174)

Paperback 295: Popular Library 174 (1st ptg, 1949)
Title: The Three Coffins
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Rudolph Belarski

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• "Lady in Peril" week continues with another Lady in Peril — and another Rudolph Belarski cover with serious hand action! Can't decide which hand is better, the blood-soaked one or the ... what the hell is that other hand doing? Signing? Is it clutching something? If she were that horrified, would she really have gotten down on her knees and plunged her hand into the red stuff oozing from under the door? I doubt it.
• This makes me not want to see "Behind the Green Door"
• What is with the NYT syntax? Subject at the end ... no verb ...
• CARR is a common crossword answer. If you solve crosswords, it is good to know who created Dr. Gideon Fell.
• Belarski clearly prefers distressed women in solid, bold colors, and with ultra-expressive, super-plastic hands.

Best things about this back cover:

• More text-only dreck.
• Oooh, a locked room mystery. That should be zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
• This back cover sounds like a "Twilight Zone" plot ad-libbed by someone very drunk or very high. (Happy 50th birthday to "The Twilight Zone," by the way — I live in Rod Serling's home town, so there are "Twilight Zone" city buses driving around town and everything)

Page 123~

"Well, sir, there's blood, for one thing," replied Somers. "And also a very queer sort of rope ..."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

PAPERBACK 250!!!!: Death Warmed Over / Mary Collins (Bantam 718)

Welcome to "Pop Sensation"'s "PAPERBACK 250 CONTEST"
[see Contest Rules, below]

Paperback 250: Bantam 718 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Death Warmed Over
Author: Mary Collins
Cover artist: Gilbert Fullington


Contest Rules:

• Best comment or caption in 140 characters (or fewer) wins not only this book, but Paperbacks 251 and 252 as well.
• Contest will run from now until 8 a.m. EDT, Friday, July 3, 2009.
• One entry per contestant, please.
• Contestants are encouraged to submit entries as Tweets on Twitter (@rexparker), but emails to rexparker [at] mac [dot] com will also be accepted (please send any questions about contest to that email address as well).
• Keep in mind that a "character" is any single letter, punctuation mark, or blank space. Concision is your friend. But feel free to get creative with the abbreviations.
• Comments will be disabled for the duration of the contest.
• Winner and first and second runners-up will be announced by noon Friday, at which time the best entries (and possibly all entries, depending on how many there are) will be posted for all to see.

Your Panel of Judges:

• Me
• Maughta, creator of the fabulous blog for book cover lovers/haters, "Judge a Book By Its Cover"
• Michael 5000, creator of the fabulous blog for the dork lifestyle, "The Life and Times of Michael 5000"

Prizes:

• Grand Prize: Paperbacks 250, 251, and 252
• 1st Runner-up: two cool but very beat-up paperbacks from outside my official collection + 1 copy of the recent comic "Barack the Barbarian"
• 2nd Runner-up: one cool but very beat-up paperback from outside my official collection + 1 copy of the recent comic "Barack the Barbarian"

Best of luck, and tell a friend...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 182: The Gay Bandit of the Border / Tom Gill (Popular Library 190)

[Even though I didn't do a proper write-up for this book, I've decided to count it as complete - your insightful comments make it scarily apparent that I'm not as essential to the smooth functioning of this blog as I'd once imagined]

Title: The Gay Bandit of the Border
Author: Tom Gill
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $12

Hey folks - I'm on vacation, working from an unfamiliar computer, and I cannot get Blogger to publish correctly. It's All kinds of screwed up. So ... patience. I'll be back with more as soon as I can. Til then, enjoy this random cover, which I may or may not be able to blog in the near future:

Paperback 79: Stranger in Town / Howard Hunt

Paperback 79: Signet 729 (2nd ptg, 1949)

Title: Stranger in Town
Author: Howard Hunt
Cover artist: not credited (looks like "T.V." - an actual cover artist's name)

YOURS FOR: $15


Best things about this cover:

• This picture should be titled: "Yep, I'm Gay." That, or "Get Your Giant Hand Off My Shoulder and Tie My Tie Already!"
• I think that I think this guy is gay because he looks just like the first guy Cher (Alicia Silverstone) has a crush on in "Clueless" - who turns out to be gay.
  
• If the name Howard Hunt sounds familiar, it should: he was one of Nixon's "plumbers," and (along with G. Gordon Liddy) organized the first Watergate burglary. In his earlier, pre-criminal life, he wrote popular fiction.

Best things about this back cover:

• Apparently, Howard Hunt also played the dad on "Frasier." Versatile!

RP

Paperback 23: Hillman 18

Paperback 23: Hillman 18 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Collusion
Author: Theodore D. Irwin
Cover artist: N/A

Yours for: $12

Best things about this cover:

• Jazz hands!
• "What a scoop!" - that giant flashbulb is hilarious
• That headboard! Where do you get something like that? Versailles? Goes great with the cheap red veloure bedspread and motel-grade bedside table and lamp.
• Her hair! (so tightly coiffed)
• Her eyebrows! (so highly arched / obviously penciled)
• What's the story here? "Woman Found in Bed ... Alone!"

Best things about this back cover:

• "... but divorces are made on earth?" Not where I thought you were going.
• "Night years," cute
• "A sincere plea for more liberal divorce laws" - 'cause nothing says "sincere plea" like a lingerie-laden paperback
• Check out the other authors in the Hillman stable: lots of nobodies with three names ... and Balzac.

RP

Paperback 16: Pocket Books 567

Paperback 16: Pocket Books 567 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Outlaws Three
Author: Peter Field
Cover artist: Harvey Kidder

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• PINK! - Either this represents Cowboys Against Breast Cancer, or ... "It's raining men," boys! And one of them is sporting a jaunty yellow ascot. Ooh la la.
• Floating heads - I love the floating head concept. I have a whole subset of my collection dedicated to floating heads. This cover does not hold the record for most floating heads on a single cover, but it makes a valiant effort.
• Cliché western mugs - each of these guys looks very familiar; there's One-Eyed McGee, the wise-cracking town drunk; Squarejaw Heroson, who always gets his man (and lady!); and lastly, of course, Hoss.

• Spooky Halloween tree - unless they are planning on hanging a small child, or possibly a gopher, there's no way that branch is going to hold.

RP