Paperback 937: Death of a Stray Cat / Jean Potts (Berkley G492)

Paperback 937: Berkley Medallion G492 (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: Death of a Stray Cat
Author: Jean Potts
Cover artist: photo cover

Estimated value: $10-15 (condition: purrrfect) (sorrynotsorry)

Best things about this cover:

• Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, kitty kitty.
• I love how her chair is so dark you can't really see it, so it looks like she's kind of shimmying and dancing toward you in some kind of gothic version of The Twist. Let's call it the "Stray Cat Strut" (stillnotsorry!)
• What do you call that hairstyle, where it's a bouffant but with a kind of sinkhole up front? It's pretty glorious.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ooh, his and hers panting! You shouldn't have.
• Uh, safe word. We need a safe word up in here. Stat!
• Hmm, never heard of Jean Potts, or "Go, Lovely Rose," or this book. Anyone know if I'm missing anything?

Page 123~

"We gagged him because he kept talking dirty," said Gen.

This concludes the first meeting of "BDSM 4 Prudes"; please help yourself to mini-donuts and Sanka on your way out. See you next week.

~RP

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Paperback 877: The Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe / Edgar Allan Poe (Pocket Books 39)

Paperback 877: Pocket Books 39 (1st ptg, 1940)

Title: The Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Cover artist: Uncredited [signature = Frye?]

Estimated value: $5-8

Best things about this cover:

• I like to imagine the cat is drunk and smoking.
• There's almost too much going on on this cover, but I love the whimsical font fest, and the odd color combo, orange fading into a background of steel blue.
• Cover doesn't really convey "horror," though … unless you count the puddle of vomit where they've positioned the cat, quill, and mask. Pretty gross.
• This book is Beat To Hell—it's my reading copy of Poe—but it's a testament to the quality of the earliest mass-market paperbacks (January 1940! Pocket was less than a year old!). Solid, square, supple, no loose pages. 

Best things about this back cover:

• Master Spider!
• "Effects" (so-called)
• I do like the bespectacled joey-free icon, though that one-volume OED is in danger of causing some grotesque pouch disfigurement.

Page 123~ (from "A Descent into the Maelström")

Twice during six years we were forced to stay all night at anchor on account of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the channel too boisterous to be thought of.

~RP

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Paperback 749: Satan's Child / Peter Saxon (Lancer 73-764)

Paperback 749: Lancer 73-764 (PBO, 1968)

Title: Satan's Child
Author: Peter Saxon
Cover artist: Jeff Jones (Jeffrey Catherine Jones)

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Can't a girl rub her naked bottom on dandelions in peace around here!
• No need for pepper spray or a handgun when you've got Smoke-jaguar.
• Is that behelmeted guy out walking his Smoke-jaguar or shape-shifting into a Smoke-jaguar?
• It's like Rosemary's Baby. Only with more orange. And a Smoke-jaguar.
• One of my all-time favorite fantasy paperback covers, despite/because of its looniness. Love the orange, love the enigmatic man/jaguar/smoke hybrid, love the not-all-that-worried sunbather.
• Only just learned that Jeff Jones was (later in life) Jeffrey Catherine Jones (a trans woman). Fascinating story. She died in 2011. Comics Journal obit here.

Best things about this back cover:

• That is a pretty great use of empty space—like a womb holding the embryonic "Seedling From Hell." 
• Ooh, terrible vengeance! That's my favorite kind!
• You're gonna have a hard time finding a greater name in all of literature than "Pricker Gill.

Page 123~

"All of it!" Finlay cried hoarsely. "I wager it all."

Silently his companions met his wager—and threw down their hands. They were identical—and identical to his own.

Finlay's mouth dried and he gave a little groan of despair. "I … I thought I must win."

~RP

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Paperback 646: People vs. Withers & Malone / Stuart Palmer & Craig Rice (Award Books A146F)

Paperback 646: Award Books A146F (1st ptg, 1965)

Title: People vs. Withers & Malone
Author: Craig Rice & Stuart Palmer
Cover artist: Uncredited / Clip art?

Yours for: $5


Best things about this cover:

• Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer document their early experiments with sexual role-playing games. "Wait, I forget, am I 'Withers' or 'Malone' in this scenario?" Speaking of role-playing, "Craig Rice" is male-sounding pseudonym for female author Georgiana Ann Craig. I own a nice copy of a book she ghost-wrote for actor George Sanders. (Here's a nice write-up about Rice at "Pulp Serenade")
• Or maybe the parrot is 'Withers' and the cougar is 'Malone', in which case I am hoping for a break-out and then serious carnage. Malone can do the killing, while Withers provides narration. "[Squawk!], he's got your eyeball! Got your eyeball! [Squawk!]"
• I hope the artist got paid the $0.75 he was owed for this "painting."
• I keep looking at this book and seeing "An Insane Rectum Mystery."

Best things about this back cover:

• God, paperback book design just went to $^#%ing hell in the mid-'60s. Not in all instances, but in many. See virtually every Travis McGee novel. So much potential, so much ugh.
• I love that Artzybasheff is someone's name. Some *artist's* name.
• I love that "Ellery Queen" (itself a pseudonym) refers to the mid-'60s as "these unfunny days." I can only guess what he means, but I love an author who believes his own time has gone to hell. Also, from a crime novel / crime movie perspective, the mid-60s were (with some very notable exceptions [cough] Parker [cough]) pretty dire.

Page 123~

"Blue sea!" cried Malone. "I told her her eyes were as blue as the sea! That was Luke Swenson's sister, Little Helga, a queen-size Viking goddess! I am in love with her, practically!"

"Practically!" So few people exclaim their hedge words! Nice.

~RP

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Paperback 574: The Innocent Mrs. Duff and The Virgin Huntress / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Ace Double G-509)

Paperback 574: Ace Double G-509 (1st thus / 1st thus, 1963)

Title: The Innocent Mrs. Duff / The Virgin Huntress
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Singularly ugly. The only thing I can really get behind here is her hair, cutting its epic, destructive path across the lower Great Lakes.
• Cat: "Meow, why am I in this picture. Meow."
• Why has the lady incompletely painted her face like the Italian flag?
• That insane Puritan-looking doll is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen on a cover. At least I  hope that's a doll. . .
• Somewhere, a magician mourns his exclusion from this painting.

Best things about this other cover:

• More phenomenal, outsized hair. Also, she appears to be mowing the lawn with her chin.
• She reminds me of Kim Novak in "Vertigo," only with a disembodied head and scary psychokinetic powers.
• Seriously, the cover painting C-team must've got this book assignment. Blocky, ugly, head-y. Junk.

Page 123~

He was choking; he could not draw any air into his lungs. His neck swelled; there was a frightful pressure in the back of his head. O God ... This is it ...

Holding bravely tackles the issue of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Way ahead of her time.

~RP

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Paperback 568: Net of Cobwebs and The Unfinished Crime / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Ace Double G-530)

Paperback 568: Ace Double G-530 (1st ptg, 1963)

Titles: Net of Cobwebs / The Unfinished Crime
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: [Bob Schuller ??? see signature, running vertically on right, 1/2 in. from chair] / Uncredited

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• Evil genius tests early prototype of the chairs seen on "The Voice."
• Evil genius savors his successful attempt to make fire burn green.
• Evil genius remembers when he used to play Eddie Munster.

Best things about this other cover:

• A frank tale about one girl's life-threatening addiction to cat-huffing.
• "The Girl Who Mistook Her Cat For Her Mouth"
• Mary found that they key to really realistic finger puppets was fresh animal corpses.

Page 123~

He went into the library and closed the door behind him, stood looking at Blanche, while she looked back at him, with her great, hollow dark eyes.
"I'm so dam' sick of her...." he thought. 

You can tell he's a tough guy by the way he drops the "n" when he says "damn" ...

~RP

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Paperback 564: Cat Man / Edward Hoagland (Signet S1499)

Paperback 564: Signet S1499 (1st ptg, 1958)

Title: Cat Man
Author: Edward Hoagland
Cover artist: Stanley Zuckerberg

Yours for: $12
Best things about this cover:

• Yes, your ass *is* impressive, ma'am, but Zombie Bowser wants brains.
• If I knew what she was doing, I would tell you.
• What is that magic cloud of pastel soup that Bowser's wallowing around in? I'm torn between 'really shitty futon cover from ca. 1994' and 'Smurf latrine.'
• "He courted danger in a jungle world"—ohhhhh. That's what I'm looking at. Courtship. "Geena, I'm down on all my paws, beggin' you—won't you be my jaguar-bride?"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Random Words" = equally scintillating alternative to "Big Top"; unless there are gay implications I'm missing, which I really hope there are.
• Where have all the cagehands gone?
• I like how "winos" are so-called, while freaks are just fucking freaks—no quotation marks needed. We all know freaks when we see them, amiright? Pfft. Freaks.
• "Rejected by respectable society"!? I've seen the cover. I'm with respectable society here.

Page 123~

Bible licked his mustache and brooded [1]. The man in black smiled, thinking about something [2]. His face was lumpy and gentle [3]. The buttons on his shirt were gray instead of black, and he was playing with them. His belt buckle reflected silver like anybody else's belt buckle [4].

• [1] Some people give their kids names from the Bible. And then some just say 'fuck it, I can't keep them bible names straight. Let's just call him Bible.'
• [2] I like the second half of this sentence for answering the tough questions I had about the first half of this sentence.
• [3] "... like oatmeal, when it's thinking about something"
• [4] Foreshadowing the black-hole belt buckle that kills everyone at the end. (spoiler alert)

~RP

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Paperback 541: The Case of the Careless Kitten / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 724)

Paperback 541: Pocket Books 724 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: The Case of the Careless Kitten
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: "Front cover photograph by Paulus Lesser"

Yours for: SOLD! (6/20/12)

Best things about this cover:

• "Hey, what's up? My name's Gary. I'm here to read for the role of 'Careless Kitten.' So ... do I stand here, or ... what? Oh, too close? Sorry."
• Perry Mason solves 'The Case of the World's Least Meme-able Cat'
• Seriously, this cover makes me laugh more than most covers I own. What the hell is happening? I love this cat. He's like the vintage paperback Anti-Cover. "No semi-naked ladies to see here, fella. MOVE along ..."
• This was one of maybe 30 *more* ESG / AA Fair books I got from a generous reader. That makes 60-70 total. I'm gonna start reading the Perry Mason stuff in order ... if I like it, I'll keep going (at his worst, Gardner is competent, so I think I'm going to like it).

Best things about this back cover:

• When Helen Kendal lost the second "L" in her last name, she knew just where to turn.
• That's a human "corpse," I assume. Because one murdered kitten may be my limit.
• When I want to add spice to my hot dish, I collect a scalp. Of course.

Page 123~

Della Street went on rapidly. "It's that way when someone near to you passes away. It's a shock. Your brother must have been smart, Mr. Lunk."

"Despite what his name suggests," she added.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 48

Title: The Window at the White Cat (Dell D411, 1st ptg, 1961)
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover artist: Victor Kalin

Yours for: $6

• "Meow, I'm a house."
• Isn't "cathouse" another word for "whorehouse?" Yes. Yes it is.
• Cool wraparound cover by Victor Kalin, though the back just has some Tim Burton-esque tree, the eerie effect of which is deadened by the avalanche of text that's covering it.
• "The Cat With Wide-Set Ears and Mutton-Chops!"

Page 123~

The figure stopped to read the taximeter, shook his fist at the chauffeur, and approached me, muttering audibly.

Isn't muttering inherently audible?

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 44

Title: False to Any Man (Bantam 80, 2nd ptg, 1947)
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: "Kohs"

Yours for: $8

• When the Bride of Frankenstein sleeps, she dreams of the facades of junior high schools.
• I sort of like the torn cover effect, but the rest — it's both nonsensical and ugly. The color scheme alone is a nightmare.
• "Colonel Primrose" already sounds like someone I'd like to kick in the balls.

• If only this book were about a "gimlet-eyed" cat.
• Always sad when the original cover is light years better, design-wise, than the paperback.

Page 123~

"He sure am smart, ain' he?" William said, with quite genuine enthusiasm.

In case you were still entertaining some idea of actually reading anything written by this woman...

~RP

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57 books from the University Book Sale: Book 1

Title: The Confession + Sight Unseen
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover artist: Victor Kalin

Yours for: best offer

"Mrrowr"
"Hello?"
"Meow?"
"Uh, I'm calling about the antique phone you advertised in the paper?"
"[purrrr]"
"Is this Rinehart?"

[My wife thought this was a book about a cat named "Rinehart," by a woman named Mary Roberts — a reasonable inference, I say]

Page 123~ (from "Sight Unseen")

Of Elinor Wells I have only my wife's verdict, and I have found that, as is the way with many good women, her judgments of her own sex are rather merciless.

~RP

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Paperback 185: Honey West: Dig a Dead Doll / G.G. Fickling (Pyramid R-1355)

Paperback 185: Pyramid Books R-1355 (2nd ptg - 1st thus, 1966)

Title: Honey West: Dig a Dead Doll
Author: G.G. Fickling
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Alliteration? Check. Hot girl with gun? Check. Ocelot? Check.
• Fencing in the foyer!
• The Honey West novels were first published before the TV series, then reissued as TV tie-ins like this one. The series was short lived. More here.
• This cover makes me sad, as I am sure that cat is drugged

Best things about this back cover:

• Grrrr. Seriously, grrr, taking this fucking leash off, lady.
• "Look, I give. You are very, very hot. I can't deny it. Now just put down the gun and dear god let the cat go already ..."

Page 123~

He shoved an elbow in my ribs. "Sí. There is no place better to hide a body, no?" His eyes slid down to my hips. "Speaking of bodies, it is a shame to hide yours."

"Thanks," I said, patting his swarthy cheek. "You're not so bad after all."

Non-threatening lecherous Mexicans who love word play = comedy gold.

~RP