57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 22

Title: You'll Like My Mother (Fawcett T1418, 1969)
Author: Naomi A. Hintze
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Yours for: $5

• "I think I *will* like your mother. She sounds ho- ... whoa! Is that her? Oh ... man. I, uh, I have this thing I have to go to now. Band practice, I think."
• MILF! (Mom I'd Like to Flee)
• "Maybe if I hide under this giant Fabio wig, mom won't see me..."

• Dear Best Sellers, "THEY" has no antecedent. Thank you.
• We need to revive the word "CHILLER-DILLER"
• Book-of-the-Month Club News is creeping me out with its metaphors. "It's like watching a demonic baby emerge from the birth canal. You'll love it."

Page 123~

In my mind's eye I fixed a firm picture of that fawn-and-brown cat catching that one gray rat. One rat; there were no more.

This is, by far, the most interesting thing happening on this page.

~RP

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Paperback 150: The Dead Beat / Robert Bloch (Popular Library 60-2299)

Paperback 150: Popular Library 60-2299 (1st, 1961)

Title: The Dead Beat
Author: Robert Bloch
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Her face - everything about it screams horror hilarity
• She looks like she's about to snap her own neck
• That mouth is So Red that I can only imagine / hope / surmise that this novel involves her drinking blood
• "My hair! O, why did I ever swim in that stupid, over-chlorinated community pool!"
• "My robe! It appears to have fallen open to reveal my impossibly spherical boobs!"
• "My jaw! I can't shut it! How am I even forming this sentence!?"
• Honestly, I love the design on this cover. The jagged backgrounds, the sickly colors. All gold. I believe the word "shocker" is even being struck by something resembling lightning. Fabulous.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Did we mention that Robert Bloch wrote 'Psycho'? 'Cause he did. Write 'Psycho.' It's true. 'Psycho!'"
• "(Remember the author's Psycho)" - um, hey, reviewer from EQMM: the movie adaptation was an international sensation and made a generation of people think twice about getting in the shower. I'm pretty sure folks "remember."
• "Psycho!"

Page 123~

Then he walked in. Opportunity knocks, but Larry walked in. He knew where he was going.

Did I mention that Bloch is a pretty good writer?

~RP

Paperback 100: Hold Your Breath / ed. Alfred Hitchcock (Dell 3658)

Paperback 100: Dell 3658 (1st new ed., 1963)

Title: Hold Your Breath - Alfred Hitchcock's "Stories to Turn in Your Grave By"
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $10

Paperback 100!!! Milestone! [sounds of noisemakers going off and balloons dropping from the ceiling]

Best things about this cover:

• It was not until just this second that I considered the head in the shovel anything but a reflection. It's such a weird photo-shopping decision, as the result is ridiculous-looking (gravity says that head would fall out of that shovel)
• If there were no Hitchcock head in the shovel, I would actually like the design of this cover a lot - words in place of head, brilliant yellow font against black background - but you Have to have the Hitchcock head; it's an icon and a selling point, like the golden arches or Mickey Mouse

Best things about this back cover:

• Yes, that Norman Mailer. Story in this book was first published when he was 18 (1941)! It was his first published story, the winner of Story literary magazine's college contest (weirdly, I knew someone who won that contest in the '90's).

Page 123~

from "Action" by C.E. Montague:

How can you tell by the looks of a man that he would not feel the point of a pin if you ran it into his thigh, or that this exemption from pain is causing any disturbance of his spirits?

~RP

Paperback 98: The Corpse in the Wax Works / John Dickson Carr (Dell 775)

Paperback 98: Dell 775 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: The Corpse in the Wax Works
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• It's surrealism + gothic - SURROTHIC!
• Richard Powers is probably the best known scifi cover artist. It's weird - highly unusual - to see one of his paintings on anything but a scifi book. His stuff is always creepy and wacked-out, with arcs and bulbous things of indeterminate status. Clearly influenced by surreal artists, especially Yves Tanguy. In fact, this painting, despite its eerie otherworldiness, is far more representational (i.e. it has identifiable things in it) than most of his stuff.
• Love the lurking shadow in the middle background. Not as enamored with the horn-hatted Fu Manchu Dracula guy.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is astonishingly gruesome.
• Marat!

• "Sepulchral" is a beautiful word (like "cellar door," which is two words, but still...)

PAGE 123~

"She had no ticket, Jeff!" Bencolin leaned forward and slapped the arm of his chair impatiently. "Surely you know that if only for appearance's sake each member of the club must buy a ticket for the waxworks when entering. Those blue tickets! You must keep them constantly in mind!"

~RP

Paperback 38: Pyramid G-665

Paperback 38: Pyramid G-665 (PBO, 1961)

Title: The Ghoul Keepers
Editor: Leo Margulies
Cover artist: John Schoenherr

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• So red
• "I am the eye in the sky, / Looking at you -ou -ou, / I can read your mind..."
• What kind of title is The Ghoul Keepers? Is it supposed to be a pun on "Goal Keepers?" I hope there is at least one story in here about monsters who play soccer.
• There is nothing recognizable in this cover painting except the supremely miserable man (possibly bleeding from his eyeballs) who is about to impale himself on the spear-like branches.
• That man is clearly damned - he has been cursed with an obscenely long thumb on his right hand ... and an exoskeleton.
• "Seabury Quinn" is the most made-up-sounding name ever ever. Ever. Actually, it's just the "Seabury" part. Unless you are a racehorse, that is not an acceptable name.

This book is so beautiful. I wish you could see it in real life. Pristine. Unread. The kind of book collectors dream of. Several of the featured writers here are top-notch - the top three on the list, specifically. One of my students, whom I'll call Cindy Loo Hoo, is writing her Honors Thesis on short horror fiction. She will undoubtedly want to look at this book. But I am too neurotic a collector freak to let her actually read it.



Best things about this back cover:

• Here we see the man falling in the opposite direction. And in black-&-white. How interesting.
• I actually love the cheeky reference to "The Shadow" in the footnote.
• Answers to the quiz:

1. Mermen
2. Sasquatch
3. a vampire (trick question)
4. Caspar
5. that quiet guy next door
6. Betty & Veronica

RP