Paperback 1121: A Place To Meet / Mary Orr (Perma Books M-4257)

Paperback 1121: Perma Books M-4257 (1st ptg., 1962)

Title: A Place to Meet

Author: Mary Orr

Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5-8

[from Stomping Grounds bookstore, Geneva, NY (6/24/25)]

Best things about this cover: 

• Excellent title design motif. Really evokes an affair by evoking a hotel room of a bygone era (i.e. before key cards). But if I were Mary Orr, I'd be mad that they did not have a similarly eye-popping design for My Damned Name. I keep looking at this cover like [squinting] "who the hell wrote this?" They really bury her name in an avalanche of white text.
• Barye Phillips has not generally been among my favorite cover artists (there's something slightly sloppy / sketchy / incomplete / messy about his work, esp. for Gold Medal), but I kinda like this one. Their embrace—her ecstasy in particular—is really ... radiating. "When they came together ... it was nuclear!" (it's 1962, after all, so I thought a little Cuban Missile Crisis energy was in order)
• I did not know All About Eve was based on a book. Once again, the popularizers and adapters get the title right. Last time (Paperback 1120), it was the paperback changing the hardcover original title from The Long Chance to Long Shot (so much better), and here we see the movie-makers made the wise decision to ditch The Wisdom of Eve in favor of the much snappier title. Would that movie be the classic it is if it were titled The Wisdom of Eve?Honestly, I doubt it.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Wow, the key is much more menacing back here. Bigger, more skull-like, and with prominent jagged teeth. Perhaps this is a sign that the affair between ... what's her name and ... Miguel? Really? ... anyway, perhaps the key is a sign that the affair spells Danger!
• I like how she talks like a casting agent: "I've got this role that you might be perfect for..."
• Miguel: Filler of Voids
• It's kind of funny to describe your prospective affair as "The One." Like, wasn't your husband supposed to be "The One?"

Page 123~

And then, like a crash in the dark, the volcano of discontent had suddenly erupted the way it always had in past Vanzadorian history.

Now is the volcano of our discontent made glorious crashing by this son of ... Vanzador? That's your fictional Latin American country, Vanzador? I guess if the only two words you can think of are "Venezuela" and "matador," then sure, Vanzador. Anyway, I now that there is an actual place called Vanadzor—not a country in Latin America, but a city in Armenia. Don't say this blog never taught you anything.

~RP

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Paperback 1072: The Sex Cheat / Roger James (Bee-Line 284S)

Paperback 1072: Bee-Line 284S (PBO, 1967)

Title: The Sex Cheat

Author: Roger James

Cover artist: photo!

Condition: oof

Value: sentimental?

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Somebody read the hell out of this book. Or at least handled it ... frequently. I love a beater copy—no worries about condition, just an open invitation to "Read Me!"
• Oh, the wig. Oh. Ow. By the time it leaves her heck and heads toward her torso, it appears to turn semi-sentient, evolving claws, contemplating hellish doings...
• Legit LOL'ing at the how the cover text has to kind of scooch over and make room for her considerable chest. Her boobs just shove those words right out of the way. That's power.
• It's an oddly cheery, wholesome-looking photo for a smut paperback. Fright Wig notwithstanding.
• Ah, the original "... in bed" joke!

Best things about this back cover:

• Sex Game! All caps! You've heard of the TV show "Squid Game"? Well ... this isn't that!
• Cover photo seems so much darker with the poor girls' eyes ripped off
• "Wanton"—there's a word that peaked on paperback covers circa 1967 for sure. Definitely a cover copy writer's second-best friend (after "Sin," of course)

Page 123~ (bracing myself for something awful/wonderful)

Bruce turned completely away from the uncovered, brandishing breast and walked dismally towards his wife.

Yeah, I know, you're thinking "Does this writer even know what 'brandishing' means?" and given what I've read, just on Page 123 ... probably not. Consider: "Her own breasts rose and fell in great, trembling lifts" or "Eva Simmonds quickly recouped the dislodged bra cup over her naked contour and hastily came around from behind the sofa." I mean, that's "brandishing" "lifts" "recouped" and "contour" that he's bungled, all in just one page. Imagine Reading This Whole Book. You guys, there is so much lurid, ornate, comically baroque, borderline monstrous breast writing here. "She pushed the shuddering, irregularly bobbing area of luridly exposed flesh back out of sight and held the sagging cup of the damaged pink bra while she glared at Bruce Grant" yes "shuddering" and "irregularly bobbing" is what my soul is experiencing right now for sure. 

~RP

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Paperback 892: Dark Laughter / Sherwood Anderson (Pocket Books 878)

Paperbacks 892: Pocket Books 878 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Dark Laughter
Author: Sherwood Anderson
Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Estimated value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• Her expression is somehow both lascivious and bored. It says "You … sure, you'll do."
• Maybe if you angle your boobs toward him just a little bit more, Lady Chatterley, he'll get the hint.
• The husband … is one of my favorite cover elements of all time. Without him, you've got a pretty typical paperback cover. With him, and his ham-sized pate and his spectacles and his "can't talk, reading" and his vibrant, shlubby boredom, this cover skyrockets to comedy. "What? Sure, fuck him, don't fuck him, whatever. I gotta check my stocks…"
• Reader Michael 5000 sent me this book. Since I hardly ever check my mail at school, I didn't discover this book until very recently. I had, very, very weirdly and coincidentally, checked out Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio that same week. Anyway, Michael sent along a nifty postcard with its own spot-on commentary:

And the back cover:


Best things about this back cover:

• Who wrote that tagline, Douglas Sirk?
• Not "love as few men have ever loved," but "love as few men ever have time to love"—like that's the issue. "Damn my 6pm squash game! I could be LOVING right now, but nooooo…"
• "… when she saw Bruce Dudley  she knew physical desire for the first time." Uh … I challenge. That is simply not a plausible statement.

Page 123~

Being in Rose's apartment that night was, for all the people who had been there, a good deal like walking into a bedroom in which a woman lies naked. They had all felt that.

I really, really wish I … knew what the hell this meant.

~RP

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Paperback 879: Number One / John Dos Passos (Lion Library LL1)

Paperback 879: Lion Library LL1 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Number One
Author: John Dos Passos
Cover artist: Robert Schulz

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• When you start shooting up bourbon, your friends naturally get a bit concerned.
• He's right to be freaked out. If you look at her left hand too long, you too will begin to get the creeping sense that she's an ALIEN, MAN.
• Pee. This book is about pee. You don't want to read the sequel.
• Clever bit of publishing here on Lion Library's part. This is the first (i.e. Number One) book to come out under the Lion Library imprint.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Why is there a ladybug in here!? Who authorized this?! I'm gonna swat it, so help me …!"
• "There's no floor here! No floor! It just … stops." "Er, it's a stage, sir, that's what stages do." "I don't care, someone should've told me, Brian! You're fired!"
• John Dos Passos came to earth to study curious earthling types.

Page 123~

As he looked out through the glass doors of the phone booth at the bustle of dressy people, men in sportsclothes with cigars, frilly stoutish women with skittish hats, pretty girls in long evening dresses, young men out to have themselves a time, he felt an invisible sour smoke swirling between them and him.

I mistyped several words while transcribing this. Every time I looked to see what I'd screwed up, I was like "Yeah, that's better." This passage crystallizes noir—"good times" seen at a sad, knowing, alienated remove. Deromanticized. Surface appearances all revealed as desperate posturing. This is Don Draper just before he goes "fuck it" and just takes off across the country in his Caddy.

~RP

PS check out that "SCHULZ" signature, etched right into the side of the damned table. I always did love how he made his signature part of the three-dimensional world of the painting.

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Paperback 754: Passionate Trio / John Davidson (Epic Book 120)

Paperback 754: Epic Book Original No. 120 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Passionate Trio
Author: John Davidson
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: Not for Sale (part of the Doug Peterson Collection)


Best things about this cover:

• I can't believe this cover photo *ever* read as salacious. It could easily be the cover of a modern girl group's album Right Now. Adorable.
• "Half-female" raises the important question WHAT IS THE OTHER HALF!? IS IT RANCH DRESSING!?
• Seriously, this photo looks like it was taken yesterday. Fantastic swimsuits! This may be the only cover where my reasons for wanting to see more of the women's bodies are almost purely fashion-related.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wild Font! Love it.
• Wow, the tonal gulf between cover photo and cover copy just gets deeper and wider…
• "Bill Hayward" made me laugh out loud. "Here is the story of something racy … Here is the story of something salacious … Here is the story of some random guy's name."
• Next time I feel caught in the insane whirl of my existence, and people ask me how I'm feeling, I'll be like "not gonna lie, kinda Bill Hayward today."
• READ THIS STORY, NOW! = my kind of advertising come-on. No beating around the bush. JUST BUY IT, MOTHERFUCKER!

Page 123~

Even from where he stood he could see that she was drunk.

"Why aren't you at work?"

"Too drunk," she replied. "Aha," he exclaimed. "Just as I thought."

~RP

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Paperback 739: Main Line / Livingston Biddle, Jr. (Popular Library 402)

Paperback 739: Popular Library 402 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Main Line
Author: Livingston Biddle, Jr.
Cover artist: Barton

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Slouchy guy's expression is priceless. I can almost hear him going "Pfft. Dames. Whaddyagonnado?"
• I love the action in this painting, but her face doesn't look quite … attached. Almost like she's holding a face-mask up to her real face as she runs.
• This painting has amazing street-level details. The cracks in the sidewalk, the guys on the stoop, the red awning, the hot dog / Italian ice vendor. It's a cool action street shot unlike almost anything I've seen on my paperback covers.

Best things about this back cover:

• The '50s, when things you might say to a cabbie were considered erotic.
• "Uh, I said 'Take me to a hotel,' not 'Take me to a shabby downtown hotel.'"
• I like how they are going to have one of those so-called, quote unquote "one-night stands." Oh, the saucy lingo.

Page 123~

"That's true … I can't offer Cassandra security in the terms you outline—but I honestly believe I can make her happy."
"You have found a place to take my daughter?"
"Yes."
"Where is it?"

This is an awfully dark game of 20 questions.

~RP

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Paperback 589: Summer Widow / Florence Stonebraker (Beacon B394)

Paperback 589: Beacon B394 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Summer Widow
Author: Florence Stonebraker
Cover artist: Al Rossi

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover: 

• "First the pelicans, now this!? Damn you, oil spill!!!," raged Steve.
• "Your abdomen, it's so hot ... like ... like warm asphalt ... seriously, what the f*&^ is this?"
• The black Sharpie assault on this woman's torso may be the single lamest act of censorship on record.
• Florence Stonebraker ... she sounds like a real ... stonebreaker.
• Every girl's gotta have a pair of beach heels. Or just one beach heel, I guess.

Best things about this back cover:

• Time On Her Hands / Men On Her Mind / Sand On Her Butt
• Oh, "tucked." That says "*tucked* away at a summer resort ..." How disappointing.
• "What followed was ironical and bitter" is a sentence you should work into every story you tell for the rest of your life. It's a lapel-grabber.

Page 123~

She tried to fight. But what was the use in trying to fight an avalanche of insensate lust?

The guitar moaned. 

She screamed ...

Never mind the seeming impossibility of "insensate lust," I can't help thinking about what this monstrous woman is doing to that poor, poor guitar.

~RP

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Paperback 444: Sex Without Guilt / Albert Ellis, Ph.D. (Hillman Books 106)

Paperback 444: Hillman Books 106 (1st ptg (?), 1959)

Title: Sex Without Guilt
Author: Albert Ellis, Ph.D.
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• I don't know ... she looks pretty guilty.
• I'm not sure Kinsey was going for "Daring"—he was a scientist, not a soft-porn novelist
• So Dr. Ellis is just mining his patients' sexual problems for our titillation? This is a great example of how Kinsey provided publishers with a new avenue into the sale of sex—"don't worry: it's science! The boner you're experiencing in reading about it is totally normal."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Frankness!"
• Oooh, she shows a little more back back here.
• "Case histories" = Penthouse letters
• Something about the phrase "preparing youngsters for sexual happiness" doesn't quite sound right.
• "Sex Fascism!" You mean my need to be dominated by a woman dressed as Mussolini is normal!? Freedom!

Page 123~

Two months after she first came for therapy, she was not only having intense climaxes most of the time she had intercourse, but was also having three or four terrific climaxes a night—while her husband, quite amazed, could not keep up with her, and had to resort to extracoital methods of satisfying her on most occasions.

I'm all for "extracoital methods," though I highly suggest you never ever call them that, especially in the heat of the moment. "OK, honey, which extracoital method would you like to use tonight? ... honey? ... honey, where are you going?"

~RP

Paperback 438: The Anatomy of Adultery / Gary Gordon (Monarch 448)

Paperback 438: Monarch 448 (PBO, 1964)

Title: The Anatomy of Adultery
Author: Gary Gordon
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Mmm, sexy. Sexy sexy pen set.
• "Searching probe"
• Nothing says "illicit sex" like faux-wood veneer.
• When a dirty ashtray is, by far, the most interesting thing on your cover, then your cover is not good.

Best things about this back cover:

• The title is "Anatomy of Adultery," and yet the covers feature neither anatomy nor adultery. Rip-off!
  
• First paragraph is confusing. Why are people committing adultery with vagrants?
• "Up to and including murder" = "including murder"; what's this "up to" stuff? Was copywriter on a strict word count?

Page 123~

[Britain's] history, from murderous Queen Elfreda of the Saxons, through Henry VIII, Pepys, Frank Harris, and W.T. Stead's sensational Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, gives solid evidence that this supposedly reserved nation better deserves the title "world's sexiest race" than do the French.

I'm not sure this is convincing, though, to be fair, murderousness and beheadings *are* pretty sexy ...

~RP

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Paperback 427: Adultery in Suburbia / Robert Brooks (Midwood 32-866)

Paperback 427: Midwood 32-866 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Adultery in Suburbia
Author: Robert Brooks
Graphic design: Azzato

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• This title is crying out, begging for a pictorial cover. Maybe I'm supposed to be seeing some kind of funky intercourse in that bathroom-door symbol shenanigans, but I'm not. NOT, I say.
• I want to be a part of this The Affluent Society. It sounds ... affluent. And sexy.
• Kinsey! Sadly, the word "frank" appears nowhere on this book's front or back covers :(

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, I see we have the requisite "probing deep" claim ... nice.
• Robert Brooks is ruthlessly honest, I tell you. Ruthlessly! You will say "No, don't tell me about the key parties!" and he will shout "Mwahahaha, you can't stop me! Key parties! Hot tubs! Oh the things I will be honest with you about!"
• I love the logic of this back cover: "You will ask yourself 'Can this be true?' and you will have to say Yes because, after all, someone went to the trouble of printing it on paper, which, as we all know, makes things true."
• "You, the intelligent reader..." Oh, you silver-tongued book. Do go on.

Page 123~ [aargh, book is only 122 pages long!; default to p. 23!]

The Monotony of Suburban Living Acts to Make Both Male and Female Restive

That's the title of Chapter 2. Good thing I live in the city itself, and not one of them fancy *suburbs* of Binghamton. I'd hate to be restive.

~RP

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