Paperback 350: Strumpets' Jungle / Sloane Britain & Any Man's Plaything / Rubel (Dollar Double 951)

Paperback 350: Dollar Double 951 (1st ptg / 1st ptg, 1962)

Title: Strumpets' Jungle // Any Man's Plaything
Authors: Sloane Britain // Rubel (HA ha, one name, like Collette, or Ludacris)
Cover artists: Robert Bonfils // Robert Bonfils

Yours for: $40


Best things about the "Strumpets' Jungle" cover:

• One of the craziest covers I own. First of all, full frontal female nudity? They cover the nipples with a narrow tree branch, but leave the crotch wide open!? Is the dark patch hair? Or does she shave and that's just a shadow? These tree lesbians are wild!
  
• Second, tree lesbians?
• I find this cover incredibly creepy, as it reminds me of nothing so much as the crucifixion. There's Jesus lesbian, and then Thief #1 lesbian over there, and then ... I guess the Thief #2 lesbian is off-screen. Really horrifying. Or else they are being eaten by tree creatures (Ents?) who really love voluptuous lesbians. Or else this is some sylvan lesbian sex rite that my lesbian friends have somehow never told me about.
• I'm no ecosystem expert, but that doesn't look like a "jungle."
• And in case you didn't know, "3rd Sex" = homosex...ual

Best things about the "Any Man's Plaything" cover:

• She is antithesis of women on the other cover, as she is wearing panties *and* concealing her pubic region with her hands.
• There's nothing very "shocking" looking about this cover. Pretty girl in her underwear, not letting you peek at her crotch. Only the shoes suggest she has anything on her mind besides shutting the door on you and getting some rest. All I know about her is that she has very good balance.

Page 123 of "Strumpets' Jungle"~

"Paula, I don't understand. What were they ...?"
"Never mind that for now," I said. "We've got to get to our classrooms."

~RP

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Paperback 344: 5 Beds to Mecca / Rod Gray (Tower 43-944)

Paperback 344: Tower 43-944 (PBO, 1968)

Title: 5 Beds to Mecca (The Lady from L.U.S.T. #4)
Author: Rod Gray
Cover artist: Uncredited [Paul Rader]

Yours for: Nope—staying here (another gift of the generous Doug Peterson)

Best things about this cover:

• As Doug can testify, this one left me completely speechless—or, rather, it left me saying "Oh my god" repeatedly until I took it all in. I mean ... I've seen the gun/crotch motif before, but scimitar/crotch! That's a new one.
• Well, that's *one* way of taking care of unwanted hair ...
• I am guessing that you were so blown away the vagina dentata that it took you a while to notice that this lady is also carrying a gun (!) in her completely useless garter (!!?).
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E. spawned a number of these kinds of parodies in the '60s. "L.U.S.T." is one of the better acronyms I've seen, in that the literal explanation is completely plausible.
• I think this cover is designed to make you (man) wish you were that sword. Legs spread, hands wrapped around hilt ... etc. Fans of subtlety will have to look elsewhere.

Best things about this back cover:

• Not just white slavery—Milk-white slavery!
  
• "Hypodermics hiss" is my favorite part of this nonsensical paragraph.
• Kama Sutra? Huh. I guess east is east is east.
• "Shiekh" is apparently a brand of shoes. I've never seen that spelling otherwise.

Page 123~

"Unbelievable," she whispered. "There is no sag, despite their size. It is as if they were equipped with springs."

Other randomly pulled quotes include:

"My vaginae constrictor muscles were the only part of me that moved."

And

"You have a couple of cannons yourself," he quipped, eyeballing my female-female breasts, all 38 inches D cup of them, where they stood at attention, brown nipples saluting. They were rock hard as they aimed themselves at his broad chest."

"Let's shoot each other," I suggested.

~RP

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Paperback 340: Youth Against Obscenity / Sharron Michelle as told to Rex Nevins (Saber Books 106)

Paperback 340: Saber Books SA-106 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Youth Against Obscenity
Author: Sharron Michelle as told to [!!!?] Rex Nevins
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $25

Best things about this cover:

• All this female flesh and I'm somehow obsessed with the driftwood (!?)
• These ... I'm gonna say 'triplets' ... have very nice bodies but scary alien faces.
• Love the cross-legged guy—just havin' a cig, checkin' out the view...
• "As told to" is perhaps the richest, awesomest thing about this cover. "Mmm, authenticish."

Best things about this back cover:

• If you made it through that second sentence (let alone the whole description) with even a fingernail still clinging to the main idea, you're a better (wo)man than I am.
• How is this description simultaneously massively detailed and exceedingly vague?: Crusading against "something?" Selling photos to "a segment of the public?"
• "Of whom..." It's like an earnest 14-yr-old wrote this.

It should be said that there are hand-written / cursive marginalia all over this book—2nd page has the beginnings of a detailed synopsis (breaks off mid-sentence [!?]) and first page has one-line rating: "VVVG perhaps the best of my 30 books"—seriously, this book's owner Really liked this book. Like the person who wrote the back cover copy, this book's owner also comes across as an earnest 14-yr-old.

Page 123~

Danny looked at Betty again, only this time his eyes took in her hair, breasts, legs, and buttocks, all at once.

It's an well-seasoned leerer who can take in breasts *and* buttocks "at once."

~RP

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Paperback 335: Deep Throat / D.M. Perkins (Dell 1857)

Paperback 335: Dell 1857 (PBO, 1973)

Title: Deep Throat
Author: D.M. Perkins
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: SOLD (7/19/10)


Best things about this cover:

• The font—the style, and the pink
• Hey, this book is right: I never did get the chance to see the movie. Then again, I was 3 when it came out.
• Wish there were more art on the cover. I kind of dig the 70s-era cartooning style in evidence here.
• This book is in amazing condition. A little scuffing here and there, but essentially square, w/ blue edges. Hardly appears to have been read at all.
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Her capital-P Problem is that her clitoris is in her throat, and her capital-S Solution is ... the title of the book. Oh, and also, SPOILER ALERT!

Page 123:

So here I am, she thought, ass up on a tall pole, waiting for two Tarzans to swing to me so that I can give them head.

~RP

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Paperback 331: 5:45 to Suburbia / Vin Packer (Gold Medal s731)

Paperback 331: Gold Medal s731 (PBO, 1958)

Title: 5:45 to Suburbia
Author: Vin Packer (pseud. of Marijane Meaker)
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $50

This copy is SIGNED


Best things about this cover:

• Douchey salesman by day ... vampire by night.
• That is the color red seen only on 1950s/60s paperbacks. Looks like the work of Barye Phillips, but the book gives no credit.
• Love stories of tawdry goings-on in the suburbs. Post-war pop fiction kind of obsessed with the suburbs, as they were relatively new and probably put on a sanitized, happy air that made writers sick—i.e. easy pickins.

Best things about this back cover:

• One of the few back covers that makes me genuinely want to read the book. The language isn't just descriptive—it bounces: his wife's impeccable tweeds, her wicked martini, their daughter's (!) long legs, the phrase "hatchet man," all great. Even the language of addiction in the second paragraph is compelling, and timely—makes Charlie Gibson sound like a different species of Burroughs' "Junky." Mmm, '50s underbelly. Delicious.
• Despite the obvious opening, I'm finding it hard to make any good jokes about the name "Charlie Gibson" (a onetime prominent morning TV host, in case you didn't know).

Vin Packer is Marijane Meaker (also Ann Aldrich, for her explicitly lesbian writing; M.E. Kerr, for her young adult fiction). She is a really compelling literary figure and a very good writer. I recommend her memoir about her relationship with Patricia Highsmith. In doing some research on the Mattachine Society (for a future writing project on a different pulpy literary figure), I came across a bunch of stuff by and about Meaker—a controversial figure among some gay people. Apparently, not all of Meaker's gay characters (and the lesbians she chronicles in her non-fiction books) were "sympathetic" enough for some. Hurray for someone's caring more about giving a realistic and complex picture of humanity rather than sanitizing and enhaloing her characters in order to push a political agenda. I really want to meet this woman, who (last I checked) is still alive. I own close to a dozen of her books, many of them signed (I can only hope the sigs are authentic, as I didn't get them myself).

Page 123~

"Very simple, boss—the child's in love with you."
"Hogwash!" Bruce Cadence snorted. "I'm old enough to be her father."
"That's the point." Keene laughed.
He waved and went out.

~RP

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Paperback 317: The Summer Ghosts / Alexis Lykiard (Tower 43-891)

Paperback 317: Tower 43-891 (1st thus, 1966)

Title: The Summer Ghosts
Author: Alexis Lykiard
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• That photo does not say "never caring about tomorrow." It says "ennui." Also, "UNCENSORED!" = false advertising. Move your arm!
• That's a wig. That is also Cameron Díaz.
• I thought "hippie" was spelled "-ie," and "hippy" was a word used to describe a somewhat widish woman.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Society" w/ a Capital "S" = HA ha. "We're not gonna conform to your bourgeois ways, man!
• "The What's Happening? Generation" — I think I was part of the sequel generation: "The What's Happening Now? Generation"

Page 123~

... Fantastic battles begun with zip-gropings or oiled smooth friction of hand on nylon leg ... she sheds clothes like petals, hurriedly ... breast straining to its full pink apex ... fleecy triangle ... a cunt like a warm sticky fondue into which I dip my finger my tongue my prick seeking that unique tangy flavour like a madman or a driller for texan oil.

Bored with his many accolades, and distressed that most people knew him only as "that 'Road Less Traveled' guy, Robert Frost turned to ghostwriting softcore late in life, primarily as a way to amuse himself.

~RP

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Paperback 315: Lust Killer / J.S. McWinter (All-Star 142)

Paperback 315: All Star 142 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Lust Killer
Author: J.S. McWinter
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15



Best things about this cover:

• "Now that you are sufficiently humiliated, I'll just rub my face with my magic gun, like so, and ... presto, I start to turn invisible from the feet up."
• This guy is actually trying to protect the lady from the hailstorm of mini-doors/light switches/'60s decorative effects pounding down upon her naked body.
• Whoa, I just read the cover copy: child molester!?!? Oh, man, I can't do anything with that. NEXT COVER!

Best things about this back cover:

• I have just one thing to say, and that is — how do you conclude "accidental death" when the body is "STUFFED within" an "icebox?" Unless this is an attempt at escape artistry gone horribly awry, even the most bumpkiny of police chiefs couldn't arrive at "accidental death" from that evidence. Not with a straight face.

Page 123~

OK, before I begin, let me say that I flipped the book open to a random page and found out that the book is at least in part about boys in a sado-masochistic relationship who discover that they are "queers" ("You know damn well you almost came every time I beat you. And I always do. What do you mean we aren't queer?"). I'm afraid to look at Page 123 ... Oh. It's not so bad.

"All right, John," she began again. "For years your father and I have known that you're homosexual. All right. That's that. Until now you always kept it quiet. But not anymore. Now the whole town knows about it. But even that isn't so bad. Boston is a great town for burying its head in the sand, you know. In Boston, you can do damned near anything you want, so long as you don't rub our face in it. But if you do that, we have to do something. And you've rubbed our face in it. Do you really think no one is aware of what's been going on? All three of your bosses have been in communication with me about you. So you are now faced with a choice. Either resign and leave Boston, or we will throw you out. I don't mean the Creightons, I mean Boston. We've had it John. In Boston, there are no second chances."

There you go, City of Boston. Your new motto!

~RP

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"Harling College!"

I'm on vacation, where I just received THIS book as a gift.


Discuss.

New posts when I return to NY.

~RP

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Paperback 310: Four O'Clock on Friday / Philip Storey (Novel Library U177)

Paperback 310: Novel Library U177 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Four O'Clock on Friday
Author: Philip Storey
Cover artist: Robert Bonfils

Yours for: $22


Best things about this cover:

• Oddly unmoving for a peek-a-boo nightie cover.
• "I like to paint with my hands — much more sensual than painting with rollers or brushes. I call this color 'The Blood of My Latest Victim.'"
• "Pretend you're shopping..." — sorry, but your role-playing skills need some work.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Tits!" — ha ha. Klassy.
• I love how the plot description basically alleviates us from the burden of reading for the plot, thus freeing us up to scan quickly for the "part-lesbian" (?!) scenes.
• I also love how the cover copy seems hell-bent on debasing the word "hero" as much as possible. Starting with "The hero is a personnel manager..."
• "This, however, is not complicated enough" — I'm gonna disagree with you there, partner — though the "weird brother" plot does have, uh, novelty on its side.

Page 123~

"You could have knocked me over to hear Celia had been married to Fred all along. You knew it? Oh yes, darling, I can see it in your handsome face. Don't be made at me, love, I'll never talk."

It would be hard to express to you how poorly this book is written without also boring you to death. Also, I think "Don't be mad at me, love, I'll never talk" should have been the tagline of this book.

~RP

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Donations to the Collection: Lust Lodge

Title: Lust Lodge (Nightstand Books NB1621, 1962)
Author: Don Holliday
Cover artist: that guy who did so many of their covers ... whatsisname!

Happy Halloween! You're welcome.

• The Hand!! "Nice to meet you Mrs. ... I ... uh ..."
• X marks the spot, dang!
• Did they even plan to draw a guy into this shot originally? His sliver of head and Random Hand look like total (awesome) afterthoughts.
• I like her underwears. I choose to ignore the fact that she has Ronald McDonald hair.

• Yet another classic from the Absurd Two-Word Intro .../... Outro school of back cover writing.
• To say this is bad writing is really to give bad writing a worse name than it already has.
• Three "wantons" (counting front and back)! Plural, adjectival, possessive. That's gotta be a record.

Page 123~ (brace yourselves ...)

"Don't be melodramatic," she said, blowing smoke once more. It hung in a grey cloud above her, as though prognosticating a storm at the cloud. How symbolic I've become, Beverly thought, looking at the cloud.

As though doing a what at the where now?

~RP

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Paperback 258: Perverted Love Slave / Adam Calin (Royal Line 127)

Paperback 258: Royal Line RL 127 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Perverted Love Slave
Author: Adam Calin
Cover artist: in witness protection

Yours for: Unavailable


Best things about this cover:

• Worst. Alarm Clock. Ever. "Alright, alright, I'm up ... dang!"
• "In this house we wear bras and *only* bras! No [crack!] bracelets! [crack!]"
• The lady in the bed is, uh, hot. The lady with the whip is, uh, not. She's pasty and misshapen and has one of the Fry Guys on her head.
• Debbie was distracted from her dominatrix duties when she suddenly noticed a mysterious, massive dollop of lemon frosting at the foot of the bed.
• "She was a lust slave to his every depraved desire" — "his?" Wow, "he" managed to get himself a superior boob job.

Best things about this back cover:

• This feels like it was translated from the Bulgarian in some horrible translating forced labor camp.
• I mean, how am I supposed to do my job? This thing is self-parodic.
• I like how that first paragraph appears to be someone writing out loud, in real time. Stop transcribing every thought you have!
• Misspelling "Jekyll" helps them avoid messy fictional defamation lawsuits.
• "Shame Whims" made me literally LOL.
• My god, the font size, the spacing ... it's all so off, so wrong, so tawdry — the cover copy equivalent of a snuff film.

Page 123~

"I mentioned you to Mrs. Tomane. She's interested in writing. She would like to meet you, since you're writing a novel that has a chance to be published."

"Who told you that?"

~RP

Paperback 253: Each Won Two / Marsha Bates (Fabian Z-101)

Paperback 253: Fabian Z-101 (PBO? 1959?)

Title: Each Won Two
Author: Marsha Bates
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• "Each Lost Dignity"
• That Cathy, always egging on the drinks. "Go drinks! You can do it! Be cold and tasty!"
• I'm pretty sure that "veteran impersonators" do not get drunk, wrap themselves in bed sheets, and do impressions of gay lobsters.
• The dude in the middle with the blush and the ear injury appears to be wearing a burlap sack. He also appears to be floating.
• Florine prepares to do what any sensible person would do in her position: drink herself into a stupor.
• Don't look for that wall paint color at your local hardware store. It's available only in hell.

Best things about this back cover:

• Kandinsky strikes again!
• "Florine, Cathy, and Jim — names?" Uh, yes. "Not when you mix them up." Hmm, let's see ... nope, still names.
• I love how there is no way in hell you could possibly have any idea what this book is about despite the fact that the description is lengthy — 3 paragraphs! And no there there at all. "Things ... it ..." Dear god, just tell me what they're doing!

Page 123~

The minute I'd finished, her eyes told me that she knew I had asked a question for which I already had an answer. But I had to know, hear it from her mouth, hear her admit something I'd for some time suspected.

~RP

Paperback 244: Split-Level Love / Carlton Gibbs (Softcover Library B1057S)

Paperback 244: Softcover Library B1057S (2nd, 1967)

Title: Split-Level Love
Author: Carlton Gibbs
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "This is a rather odd lap dance ma'am ... ma'am ... why are you looking in my ear, ma'am?"
• I wonder what the pink "V" stands for?
• Her lower leg is scary thin.
• Adoption and abortion ... how topical!?
• Carlton Gibbs ... was that the doorman on "Rhoda" or the cousin of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?

Best things about this back cover:

• Brig Doncaster? Seriously, my paperback collection is killing me with these names! Tell me "Doncaster" doesn't sound like "Dong-caster."
• There's a whole subset of 60s sex paperbacks about "Suburbia" and the goings-on there. Suburbia is to 60s paperbacks what Juvenile Delinquency is to late-50s paperbacks.

Page 123~

She let him divest her, just the same, of the flimsy fluffs he had given her. She trembled at his touch. His was the kind of diabolical male charm a woman could hate and yet become heedlessly intoxicated with. She could stand there loathing the fact that he had taken hundreds of bras off scores of women [pausing ... doing math ...] and yet thrill to his removing hers. She could grow faint when he touched his lips to her taut breast regardless of how many others he had kissed. She could shiver visibly when his hands slid away her final garment although they were far too practiced.

Brig Doncaster, divester of flimsy fluffs and irresistible asshole extraordinaire.

~RP

Paperback 243: Twilight Women / Les Scott (Beacon 156)

Paperback 243: Beacon 156 (1st, late 50s)*

Title: Twilight Women
Author: Les Scott
Cover artist: uncredited

*[dated 1952, but I don't think Beacon was even publishing then ... probably late 50s, probably first Beacon printing ... and a Gorgeous one at that; slight spine lean, but apparently unread]

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• "This tree makes my pits smell awesome!"
• If you are going to adopt a pseudonym for your first lesbian softcore effort, might I suggest "Les"?
• They Worshipped at the Shrine of Passion — this either made them gargantuan or shrunk them to the size of a bonzai tree, I can't really tell.
• Free Mini-Twilight Woman with every Twilight Woman purchase!

Best things about this back cover:

• From the Unbelievable Names Department, we bring you ... Lakla! Aletha! and introducing ... Rance!
• "But Lakla soon thrust upon him her adorable little companion Aletha" — So that's who the small woman on the cover is. Wow, they're not foolin' about "little companion." "You'll love her, Rance. She fits right in your pocket. You don't have any cats, do you?"
• "Punishment by death for penetrating ..." — insert lesbian joke here.

Page 123~

On and on the quivering ship staggered blindly, strained to the limit of her brave endurance, the sea bellowing around her, threatening disaster, savagely wrathful.

Oh yeah, just what I want from my vintage lesbian paperback: Hot Nautical Action.

~RP

Paperback 241: Mother, Daughter and Lover / G.G. Fickling (Softcover Library B1069S)

Paperback 241: Softcover Library B1069S (2nd ptg?, 1967ish)

Title: Mother, Daughter and Lover
Author: G. G. Fickling
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Does my bra strap smell weird to you?"
• "The Intimate Confessions of a Beach Boy" — Brian Wilson at his nadir ... or apex, I guess, depending on how you look at it.
• We've seen Fickling's work before — they (yes, they) wrote the Honey West novels. I like that their name is a mash-up of "fickle" and "fucking" ... and "finger-licking," sort of.
• I like the idea that there is a ranking system for the relative explosiveness of Sex Triangles.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Well preserved?!?!" HA ha. Like a mummy.
• "Her eyes ... stopped at my wet trunks and narrowed." That's pretty good, as sex fiction cover copy goes. "Youthful, upthrust flesh," less so.

Page 123~

Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pane of glass.

It's bad enough that you have to use the painful adverb "shatteringly" — do we really need the simile? Glass is the First thing evoked by "shattering." I mean, what else is the shattering supposed to signal? "Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pot pie."

~RP

P.S. I was thrilled recently to hear that my blog had inspired one of my readers to start her own vintage pb collection. Check out one of her initial purchases here. It's ... jaw-dropping.

Paperback 231: Sin Crop / J. A. Nash (Dragon Edition 151)

Paperback 231: Dragon Edition DE 151 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Sin Crop
Author: J. A. Nash
Cover artist: the artist of the damned

Yours for: $19


Best things about this cover:

• Define "best"
• This artist graduated from the "Making Nudity Sad and Joyless" school of painting
• The positioning of the "Adults Only" sign, dear god! ... "Wanda lived her life by one rule - no anal sex with minors."
• "... and then the starfish just attacked my boob. It was so weird ..."
• The background color is there to remind you of the dirtiness you should be feeling in your soul right about now.

Best things about this back cover:

• For every Sin Crop, there must be a Shame Harvest
• Remember what I said about back cover copy on sleaze paperbacks (see Paperback 230: Lust Cult). Well, this is pretty typical of what I was talking about. I mean ... comma splice! Come on!
• "A gaggle of rural women" - I doubt that phrase has ever been used by anyone, anywhere, ever (besides this cover)

Page 123~

As I slowly let my lips glide down to hers, let them collapse to softness, melting and caressing, consuming hers.

Apparently, I am supposed to believe that that is a complete sentence. Then there's this:

Her lips were hot, indescribably soft and moist, forming a delicate cushion [!]. Still I held the locked contact [?], slowly moving my mouth, my arms holding her gently but firmly ...

I lost it at the "slowly moving my mouth" part. Made me imagine being gummed to death by ... what was the name of those novelty singing large-mouth bass?

~RP

Paperback 230: Lust Cult / Don Elliott (Robert Silverberg) (Midnight Reader 419)

Paperback 230: Midnight Reader MR 419 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Lust Cult
Author: Don Elliott (pseud. of Robert Silverberg)
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• What the hell happened to her torso. It's like taffy ... or krazy bread. Yikes. Everything from the bottom of her breast to the middle of her ass needs to be ReDone!
• When Thing isn't hanging out with the Addams Family ...
• This is actually a nicely designed cover, as sleaze covers go. Like the rectangular segments - very mid-century modern.

Best things about this back cover:

• I can tell you that, compared to the back covers of many sleaze novels, this one is remarkably lucid. That is, it doesn't sound it was translated from English into Urdu by a Swede and then back into English by a half-witted Czech.
• "I'm gonna be late again tonight, honey ... yeah, I've got that damned Sin Meeting I was telling you about ... yeah. Boss really wants us new acolytes to work hard pushing his new 'Shrine of Evil' theme parks ... OK, I'll call you when we're done Embracing Lust!"

Page 123~ (this better be good)

His hands went to her blouse, cupping the ripe thrusts of her breasts.

Oh yeah. That's the stuff. OK, I cheated - that's page 124. But page 123 was all descriptions of driving. Just ... driving. No fun.

I have to believe that if I google "ripe thrusts" right now I get exactly zero hits. . . 71 hits! That's insane. They appear to be all porn sites, although hit 1 appears to be about some kind of lemon. I'm not clicking through to find out.

~RP

Paperback 196: Carrie Corrupted / Rock Logano (Midwood F209)

Paperback 196: Midwood F209 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Carrie Corrupted
Author: Rock Logano
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• "Carrie Corrupted stars in ... 'Beige Mardi Gras'!"
• "Co-starring random sitting guy whose face is too hideous to show"
• I have a new pseudonym. It is Rock Logano. I can't even look at that name without bursting out laughing.
• I should find Carrie hot, but I just find her ... well, corrupt. Even the hint of garter belt isn't doing it for me. And the artist's gone to the trouble of exaggerating the nipple and the belly button and everything. Dang.
• "First Printing Anywhere" - suck it, Bulgaria!

Best things about this back cover:

• Customarily, "strange pleasures" involve girl-on-girl action. Therefore, I was gravely disappointed to find out that Carrie's "strangeness" is run-of-the-mill masochism.
• "More than her fair share of female equipment" sounds, frankly, horrifying. "Carrie, I don't know how to tell you this, but ... you have six ovaries. I'm sorry."

Page 123~

"The main attraction is to be the movie he made of you and those muscle boys."
"Oh no ... " Carrie gasped.

~RP

Paperback 193: Naked Nurse / Ben Anderton (Chariot Books CB-216)

Paperback 193: Chariot Books CB-216 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Naked Nurse
Author: Ben Anderton
Cover artist: [Robert Maguire]

Yours for: SOLD (June '09)


Best things about this cover:

• Semicolon? Really? Did you think that would look fancier than your run-of-the-mill comma? And what is up with that first dash, after "Raw"? What did the comma ever do to you, copywriter guy?
• That's right, my first comment about the cover of a book called "Naked Nurse," which depicts an honest-to-god naked nurse, was about punctuation. That is how I roll.
• "She admired his skill in surgery" - Really? She does not look like she is "admiring" anything. She looks like she is cowering in fear. Naked fear.
• The art is actually first-rate and looks suspiciously like the work of the legendary Bob Maguire (his female faces and hair are very distinctive)
• Ben Anderson's chosen pseudonym was woefully inadequate
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Oh god. And I thought the front cover had punctuation issues. It's a bloodbath back here. "White capped" needs a hyphen, the dash after "nurse" is ridiculous and superfluous, there should be a comma after "Young" ... jeez louise, there's subject / verb disagreement in the description of "Lynn!" I can't go on. You can see the carnage for yourself. I wonder if Chariot Books outsourced their cover copy-writing to, let's say, the Ukraine, and then had the Ukrainians forward their work to Laos for proofing...
• "Penetrating" - tee hee
• "For Men" - you don't say ...

Page 123~

The local minister who performed the ceremony, so far from the strident complexities of the city, had expressed his pleasure in learning that the community was to have a new expert surgeon to help care for their ills.

Oh boy, an expert surgeon! No more getting appendectomies from Floyd the Barber! Hurrah!

~RP

Paperback 158: Dionysus: The Ultimate Experiment / William S. Ruben (Manor Books 15232)

Paperback 158: Manor Books 15232 (PBO, 1977)

Title: Dionysus: The Ultimate Experiment
Author: William S. Ruben
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• This is possibly the most boob-oriented cover I own.

"Do you like them, Steve? I electroded them especially for you?"
"Well ... oh my ... I say ... they're quite ... I'll just ... how does one ... is this ... do I ... like so? ... or ..."

• She is so arched and ecstatic and ready to go, and he is Totally killing the vibe.
• He seems to have made eye contact with the boobs, but his hand!? WTF!? Hey, buddy, you're not supposed to wave at them!
• His junk, while barely visible, is not invisible enough for my, uh, taste.
• Whatever "human emotion" this is, I don't think I care to "experience" it, thanks.

Best things about this back cover:

All this rigmarole about weightless sex is just a front. The REAL "unreportable project" is embedded in the title itself:

Ronnie James DIO will play the New York State (NYS) Fair causing a mass conflagration of rocking out that will engulf the US in madness, allowing a Black Sabbath reunion ... at the highest levels of government! No one can resist the heavy metal keyboard strains of "Rainbow in the Dark!"



Page 123~

This was the time of Eldridge and Grainly, born into a world which accepted without conscience an acknowledgment of the underground. They simply did not think of this sustained nether world.

Funny, I'd rather not think of it either.

"This was the time of Eldridge and Grainly ... Attorneys at Law!"

~RP