Paperback 1112: The Off-Islanders / Nathaniel Benchley (Popular Library SP178)

 Paperback 1112: Popular Library SP178 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The Off-Islanders

Author: Nathaniel Benchley

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 7/10

Value: $20 (the only copies I can find online are priced at $90, which is ridiculous)

Best things about this cover: 

• This looks zany in a very specifically '60s kind of way. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad submarine on a sandbar
• Alternate title: Big Day for Binos
• The shapely redhead with a run in her stockings really makes the cover. Bored with the boys and their boy games.

Best things about this back cover: 

• OK, that's the same picture from the front cover
• OK, that's the same blurb from the front. Someone's ... not trying
• "Capitalistic sandbar" is a bar I would drink at
• "Extra-marital shenanigans" OK fine you got me, I'll read you, you silly book

Page 123~

The first look at Polsky was always a shock, because he not only had no neck but also appeared to have no head; his features seemed to grow out of a slight lump midway between his shoulders. He seldom wore a cap, since the visor came so close to his collar as to all but cover his face, and on the occasions that required full-dress uniform he became dizzy from lack of fresh air.

~RP

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Paperback 1090: Operation Intrigue / Walter Hermann (Avon 706)

 Paperback 1090: Avon 706 (PBO, 1956)

Title: Operation Intrigue

Author: Walter Hermann (aka Walter Wager)

Cover artist: Uncredited, dammit

Condition: 8/10 

Value: $10

Best things about this cover: 

• "Operate!?" "It takes a very steady hand..."
• I feel like Pensive McGee there is about to exclaim, "Hey, what if we split this into two different games: Battleship ... and Operation!" "You mean, 'Operation Intrigue', of course." "No, there's no intrigue. There's just this goofy looking guy on an operating table and you try to remove his various body parts without getting an electric shock." "O ... K, but can I still use my baton? I must insist that this be a baton-based game. Look how fun it is, pointing and pushing, doo doo doo..." And somehow this all leads to a war in Southeast Asia 10 years later.
• I love the hard edge dividing the foreground from the background of this painting. It's like the guy on the right is mad at the people on the left 'cause their side of the painting is boring as hell. "I'm over here looking like the baddest hardboiled motherfucker this side of Flatbush, and those dorks are playing board games? Nah, this won't stand. This is my cover. They gotta go."
• Seriously, that's a great-looking fist and a perfectly level gun. I like how the guy is literally too big for the frame. "They think these little white lines can hold me? Me and my fedora will show 'em, we'll show 'em all!"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Wow, that is ... quite a "7". They're really leaning into that numerical visual concept. Big, fat Pop Art-lookin' "7." Nothing scarier, nothing more ... intriguing ... than a "7," that's for sure. 
• You got a cool name like OPERATION MINOTAUR and you decide to call your book OPERATION ... INTRIGUE? INTRIGUE? Not exactly evocative of anything or memorable in anyway. And then you put a "7" on the back? Real missed Minotaur opportunities here, is what I'm saying.
• That third paragraph reads like a question on a standardized math test. "If five men and two women are checked by four counter-espionage agencies, how many Minotaurs etc."

Page 123~

He had done this massive thing. He felt so strong and proud and clever. Then he thought of the women's clubs and creamed chicken luncheons he would never have to face again, looked at the handsome muscular sailors, and smiled. They were fine healthy lads. They were his friends.

I'm just gonna assume the "massive thing" is coming out, good for him, Happy Pride, everyone!

~RP

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Paperback 1054: The Raft / Robert Trumbull (Dell 26)

Paperback 1054: Dell 26 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: The Raft
Author: Robert Trumbull
Cover artist: George Frederiksen
Back cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Condition: 6.5/10
Estimated value: $10

Best things about this cover:

• Everything above the author's name seems very pleasant. Serene, even. Perhaps, as your eyes move down the page, you can even maintain the illusion that these fellows are just out for a weekend jaunt of fun & sun. But that "DELL WAR BOOK" (a kind of book I can't remember seeing before) drives the more dire context home pretty thoroughly.
• I like early Dell covers, and early covers in general, which are far more tied to abstract expressionism than later, more naturalistic covers (which I also love, obviously)
• I also like the early Dell EYEBALL IN THE KEYHOLE logo. "You don't read Dell Books, Dell Books read you!"

Best things about this back cover:

• What is happening here? Why are they spaced so far apart? Why have their arms fused together? Does the dude in the middle need propping up? Is this some kind of Weekend at Bernie's situation?
• The italicizing concept here is ill-conceived. I know alliteration has its charms, but choose parallel construction every time. 
• War bond ads appeared inside early paperbacks with a great deal of regularity. On the outside of early paperbacks?? Far less so.

Page 123~

He seemed more interested in the boat than in his natural prey.

~RP

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Paperback 1039: The Bridge Over the River Kwai / Pierre Boulle (Bantam HP4391)

Paperback 1039: Bantam HP4391 (35th ptg, 1970)

Title: The Bridge Over the River Kwai
Author: Pierre Boulle
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $5

Best things about this cover:

• My wife actually spotted this one on the $1 cart outside the bookstore. My initial immediate response was "meh" but then I held it and noticed a. the condition (excellent) and b. the quality of the art, which really is exquisite. 
• I love how Bantam has let the cover breathe. You can see how they might've used the painting differently, maybe cropping it differently and putting text (title / author) in or on top of the red sky. But this way, the painting really feels like a painting, and that sky is allowed to take up space and create its mood. The composition is also arresting.
• Me: "I know this artist ... Kalin? ... Hooks? ... [looks very closely at painting] oh, man, it's Barye Phillips!" Phillips signs simply "Barye," which you can see just to the left (your left) of the Japanese soldier's hand. I'm used to seeing girl art / crime fiction scenes from him, so this was cool and unexpected. 

Best things about this back cover:

• Again: rooooom for my eyes to breeeeeathe. I like.
• No need to waste time (i.e. words) when dealing with a book this well known (from the 1957 movie). Both front and back covers really do go in for more of a museum treatment than a typical book promo treatment.

Page 123~

Never before had he been conscious of that feeling of power and conquest which absolute isolation affords, whether on a mountaintop or in the bowels of the earth.

~RP

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Paperback 1011: She Wouldn't Surrender / James Kendricks (Monarch MA301)

Paperback 1011: Monarch MA301 (PBO, 1960)

Title: She Wouldn't Surrender
Author: James Kendricks
Cover artist: [Robert Maguire] (attribution from here) (and here)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $20-25

Best things about this cover:

• Wow, this really ticks all the boxes: naked redhead with a gun, painted by Robert Maguire, posing as "Americana," on one of the greatest mainstream sleaze imprints of the 20th century. Monarch Books got some of the greatest cover artists to work for them, and I love how they had all these subseries designed to give their softcore books a patina of respectabilty. Who could quibble with your passion for "Americana"!? Communists, that's who.
• "Whoa, a *real* redhead! Wait'll I tell Wilb-" [gets shot in the neck]
• My favorite part of this cover is weirdly her hat

Best things about this back cover:

• Hmmm. It sounds like she *would* surrender, sometimes.
• Sure, your girl has charms, but do they pulsate? Do They!?
• OK, "Only the dead were incapable of remembering her" is kind of a good line
• 🎶Wanton eyes! They're watching you! They see your Union boots...🎶

Page 123~

[nah, I don't like this page—it's all gruesome war stuff: horses being maimed and what not ... I much much prefer the teaser text on the opening page, headlined NAKED ENCOUNTER]

The soldier whirled. His eyes bulged at the sight of the naked girl, her magnificent breasts jouncing as she stopped abruptly to stare back at him wantonly [...] Too late he saw the weapon in her hand. Too long he had stared at the undulating breasts, the quivering eyes, the tantalizing smile...

JOUNCING! Part jiggling, part bouncing, all *deadly*!

~RP

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Paperback 945: GI Jokes / Compiled by Lou Nielsen (Dell 77)

Paperback 945: Dell 77 (PBO, 1945)

Title: G.I. Jokes
Compiled by: Lou Nielsen
Cover art: [William Strohmer]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• A catalogue of acceptable and unacceptable [Laugh syllables] in crossword puzzles. HEH! HAHA! HOHO! All fine, but once you get into the HAWs, things get dicey, and HEEEE! ... well, that's right out. And now all I want to do is put it in a puzzle grid...
• This dude seems So Happy to be a G.I.
• The cover design here is really nice. Clean and bright, with fantastic font action, and an explosion of brown chalk marks that looks simultaneously explosive and floral ... or like a barrel just fell apart and this dude's smiling mug was what was inside.

Best things about this back cover:

• Everything. Just ... all of it. I am in love with all of it.
• Speaking of crosswords: WAC.
• Love the surreal mass of female humanity in the background, contrasted with the strong, luminescent isolation of our discriminating main character and her frustrated antagonist.

Page 123~



~RP

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Paperback 903: Joy Killer / Ralph Brandon (Vega V-4)

Paperback 903: Vega Books V-4 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Joy Killer
Author: Ralph Brandon
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $20 (unread / perfect condition)

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection!]

Best things about this cover:

• I think that's her underwear on the floor wax can there. I think. For their sakes, I really hope the floor wax is for the floor.
• Seaman Apprentice! Subtle.
• I can't get over the fact that together, their names make BABY KILLER.
• Once again, Vega (and Fabian, and Saber) books are the best, that is, the worst, in a good way. God bless Sanford Aday and his short-lived Fresno-based softcore ridicu-porn empire.

Best things about this back cover:

• That first sentence of the second paragraph makes me think the writer hasn't really mastered the art of the conjunction.
• So they're both kinky, but not in compatible ways? Am I reading that last sentence right?
• I believe that the title "Joy Killer" makes absolutely no sense. Unless there is some as-yet unmentioned character named Joy ... nope, even then, no sense.

Page 123~

"An orgy of sensual lust! Oh Killer, that sounds so exciting."
"I'm trying to help you, you depraved female. Now pay attention to what the book says."

There follows several pages of Killer reading aloud from some kind of sex-phobic sex manual for new wives, which is then followed by a marriage consummation scene in which "I plunged my throbbing masculinity into the depths of her quivering feminity [sic]."

~RP

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Paperback 871: Dictators Die Hard / Robert A. Levey // Evil is the Night / John Creighton (Ace D-393)

Paperback 871: Ace Double D-393 (1st ptg / PBO)

Titles: Dictators Die Hard / Evil is the Night
Authors: Robert A. Levey / John Creighton
Cover artists: Uncredited / Uncredited

Estimated value: $25-30

Best things about this cover:

• Dictators Die Hard—Stenographers Spank Harder!
• Dictators Die Hard—You're Looking At My Chest, Aren't You?
• I love the composition of this cover. Logically, this must depict two different scenes, but I like the idea of her staring down the gunman. "Oh, am I distracting you?" "I hope you're man enough to make the shot." "You *better* not be pointing that thing at me." "Hurry up so we can go riding, you tiresome lout!"
• She borrowed her ascot from a foppish squirrel.

Best things about this other cover:

• Jenga!
• I hate to think where that thing's been.
• "I'm thinking of calling my book 'Tender is the Night'" "That title's taken." "Hmmm…."

Page 123~

I stared at McMahon, and Hibbs scowled at me. Nobody said anything. It was an uncomfortable moment. 

This took 9th place in Yakima County's "Write Like Raymond Carver Day" competition.

~RP

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Paperback 862: The Valiant Strain / Kenneth E. Shiflet (Dell First Edition B126)

Paperback 862: Dell First Edition B126 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Valiant Strain
Author: Kenneth E. Shiflet
Cover artist: [Robert McGinnis]

Estimated value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• Lieutenant Grumpystache misses his Xbox.
• That neckerchief is beautiful. I also love the orange, the hint of mountains, the way the line of soldiers on horseback extends and fades to nothing. Fine little touches like these make this potentially generic cover visually interesting.
• Turns out McGinnis can paint things other than bored-looking half-naked ladies with ample hips. I had to double-check my own labeling just now, because I thought "no way this is McGinnis."

Best things about this back cover:

• "A story as big and rugged as these two giant dueling cocks … oh, sorry sabers. Those are sabers. All appearances to the contrary … sabers."
• I can't wait to read about the "strain" that brought the giant dueling cocks men to their "final glory." I am in. Money down, out the door. You had me at "shavetail."

Page 123~

Roan thought of how Graham had denied them.

Don't deny them, Graham. Open your heart. Let your love flow. And nevermind that I'm taking things out of context, just go with it.

~RP

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Paperback 836: The Jungle Seas / Arthur A. Ageton (Signet S1200)

Paperback 836: Signet Giant S1200 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Jungle Seas
Author: Arthur A. Ageton
Cover artist: James Meese

Estimated value: $5-10


Best things about this cover:

• "I think that's … yeah, that's just a freckle, Kathy. You're gonna be fine."
• Navy Vampires of Tonga!
• He likes it when you scratch him here. *Really* likes it.
• James Meese wants you to know that he can sure as hell paint hands. All hands, all day, mother*ckers!

Best things about this back cover:

• Dude's like, "Squirrel!?"
• "… a book to join THE CAINE MUTINY … on that shelf of books I haven't read."
• "full-bodied" [wink!]

Page 123~

"Yes, sir. Was I groaning?"
"Were you groaning? Boy, you let out a scream that scared me right out of a sound sleep. Who's Rogers?"

"Uh … Rogers? … uh … he's this guy … you know … definitely not a former lover, if that's what you're thinking … oh, no wait. I mean 'Ginger'! 'Ginger Rogers!' Forget that other stuff I said. Ginger Rogers. Guys scream for her, right? Right. Ginger."

~RP

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Paperback 795: Blood-and-Guts Patton / Jack Pearl (Monarch MA305)

Paperback 795: Monarch Books MA305 (Monarch Americana Series) (PBO, 1961)

Title: Blood-and-Guts Patton
Author: Jack Pearl
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Font makes blood-and-guts seem like kooky fun!
• Love this photo cover for how anti-celebrity it is. You can't even see his face. "Take your fucking picture. I got Nazis to kill and a cigarette to finish."
• "Swashbuckling"?! Unless he puts on an eyepatch, pulls out a cutlass, and boards a clipper, no.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Eat their entrails, you pussies! Aarrrrrrrgh!"
• I like that Monarch apparently had a "Hell on Wheels" series with a little weather-danger symbol.
• Kicking!? While the rest of the world was merely punching and flogging. Genius.

Page 123~

"Hell, I'd feel as uncomfortable without this pistol as I would without pants."

Patton then pulled a knife and smiled. "Suckers … I hate pants. Now I eat your entrails!"

~RP

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Paperback 787: The Man Who Never Was / Ewen Montagu (Avon 640)

Paperback 787: Avon 640 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Man Who Never Was
Author: Ewen Montagu
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Exciting to imagine Ghost Major—riding the seas, thwarting the Nazis.
• Less exciting when you find out "the man who never was" was actually an "anonymous corpse" that doesn't reanimate or nothin'.
• This cover manages to be clever without being particularly interesting or exciting.

Best things about this back cover:

• More visual riffs on The Invisible Man theme.
• Silly Germans—Tricks are for Victorious Americans!
• "Operation Mincemeat" sounds like a WWII-themed Looney Tunes short featuring Sylvester and Tweety Bird.

Page 123~

An attempt at an immediate thrust into the area of SALONICA and THRACE need not be reckoned with.

And that's how Major Martin avoided the clap.

~RP

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Paperback 713: Flight / Edgar Jean Bracco (Berkley G291)

Paperback 713: Berkley Medallion G291 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Flight
Author: Edgar Jean Bracco
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Lasers!
• Simple, clean lines. Shitty-looking sky, but still, oddly elegant in its simplicity.
• Love the "Flight" font and its positioning on the horizon.
• Surely the copywriter could've gotten another "A" word into that tagline.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Authentic!" See, that's an "A"-word.
• ETO is a common crossword answer. PTO, not so much (i.e. never).
• "Annals" always makes me do a double-take. Also, another solid "A"-word.

Page 123~

"You gone nuts? How we going to—"

~RP

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Paperback 665: Patterns of Sin / Dave Patrick (Saber Tropic 922)

Paperback 665: Saber Tropic 922 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Patterns of Sin
Author: Dave Patrick
Cover artist: Uncredited [Bill Edwards]

Yours for: $26


Best things about this cover:

• How is this book *not* titled "They Cloned Castro!"?
• I think her underwear is pretty. 
• Is it just me, or is it less fun to admire the half-naked lady when she's being gang-raped?

Best things about this back cover:

• Ouch. I have sleaze whiplash. Going from Cuban gang rape to brother/sister incest will do that to you.
• "May I?" Ha ha. So polite, and such proper grammar.
• "Since there were no degrees of sin in her mind..."—the implications of this are staggering. "Oh, well, I already stole a $5 from the till, so I may as well carjack that lady and start running people over."
• "Roddy." Again, HA ha.

Page 123~

"What's going on here?" he demanded, his eyes taking in the Major's body. 

Wow, this book is bound and determined to hit *all* the major "sins" (at least I assume this passage is a prelude to gay sex in the military). Too bad I don't do Page 144—it has a lengthy, clumsy, hilariously clinical description of lesbian 69. "... Estelle knew what the next step was to be, and she was reluctant to take it, until Gizelle's mouth reached its destination and moved on to her partner's thighs in a manner that said the act was to be a reciprocal, if it was performed." Mmm ... tell me less ...

~RP

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Paperback 657: The Red Badge of Courage / Stephen Crane (Pocket Books 154)

Paperback 657: Pocket Books 154 (5th ptg, 1951)

Title: The Red Badge of Courage
Author: Stephen Crane
Cover artist: John Alan Maxwell

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• This book is weird. It's a 5th printing, 1951 paperback, but retains the look of a book from a decade earlier. Perhaps this is because this book is a "classic" or "literary" or whatever—which was the backbone of Pocket's catalogue in the early years, before they figured out, you know, sex sells.
• This book is also in near-perfect condition. Square, bright, barely read. Always feels like a minor miracle to pull a 50- to 60-year old paperback off a shelf and see it so pristine.
• I like how this guy's coming right at you. The tone of the whole painting is very (appropriately) ambiguous. All the storied elements of war (bombs bursting in air and what not) mixed with stumps and sad expressions and a very sickly sky.

Best things about this back cover:

• Pretty straightforward. Nothing to see here.

Page 123~

The men stared with blank and yokel-like eyes at him. He was obliged to halt and retrace his steps. He stood then with his back to the enemy and delivered gigantic curses into the faces of the men. His body vibrated from the weight and force of his imprecations. And he could string oaths with the facility of a maiden who strings beads.

I'm getting really tired of all this hyper-competent writing. It's throwing me off my game.

~RP

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Paperback 614: The Ordeal of Private Heath / Jeb Stuart (Pyramid 106)

Paperback 614: Pyramid Books 116 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The Ordeal of Private Heath
Author: Jeb Stuart
Cover artist: [Julian Paul]

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• "Your knees ... I can't hear anything ... I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING!!!"
• Knee fetishism—truly "the gravest sin"!
• He likes it when you rub his head and tickle his underarm.
• I love her expression. "O, look at the spotlights. Why can't I be out at a movie premiere instead of stuck in this dank apartment grooming my shell-shocked boyfriend? I should've married that Bill Rivers when I had the chance."
• I also love the way she is lit. Gives the painting the feeling of a religious tableau — from one of the sillier Bible stories, perhaps.

Best things about this back cover:

• The front cover suggested it, the back cover suggests it more strongly, and a very quick perusal of contents of the book confirms it—"less than a man" = "queer."
• How many years had gone by since the publication of "A Farewell to Arms" and how bad were the war novels in that period?
• Interior blurb from James Michener. Also, the Binghamton Press. So, you know ... heavy hitters.
• "If you dislike stark realism, this book is not for you"—actual warning printed opposite title page. Heart of Starkness!
• The Louisville Courier-Journal says "Will be compared with The Naked and the Dead"; I'm guessing the publishers left off the "... and found wanting" part.

Page 123~

"You looked like a lion," she said.

"A lion," he said dryly, humorlessly. "A sad-looking lion indeed."

"An unhappy lion," she answered, getting up from the floor and seating herself beside him, touching his cheek, saying, "I will not ask questions."

A woman who knows her lions and stays out of your business. Sexy!

~RP

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Paperback 561: GI Rights and Army Justice: The Draftee's Guide to Military Life and Law / Robert S. Rivkin (Grove B-258)

Paperback 561: Grove B-258 (1st ptg, 1970)

Title: GI Rights and Army Justice: The Draftee's Guide to Military Life and Law
Author: Robert S. Rivkin
Cover artist: Jules Feiffer

Yours for: $11
Best things about this cover:

• I hope the resolution on this image is good enough for you to see the G.I. being crushed by the title. Huddled up and anxious. What a great Vietnam-era, counterculture book this is.
• Love the Red White and Blue *on black* color scheme—it essentially says "your country is great because it has laws that will protect you even though your country is doing Terrible things in southeast Asia."
• Jules Feiffer! I probably got this book just because the art was by him.
• Grove Press fought really important legal battles against censorship in the '50s and '60s after publishing banned books like "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and "Tropic of Cancer," among others. For more info, see the entertaining 2008 documentary "Obscene."

Best things about this back cover:

• A.C.L.U.—the renegade publisher's best friend.
• "Minus Its Couth" is a strange, fantastic phrase.
• The black cat logo is so super-awesome that I want it on a t-shirt, like, right now.

Page 123~

However, treason may be committed only in time of a declared war and must involve something more than merely expression.

~RP

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Paperback 539: The Ship With Two Captains / Terence Robertson (Berkley Medallion G402)

Paperback 539: Berkley Medallion G402 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Ship With Two Captains
Author: Terence Robertson
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $8



Best things about this cover:

• This cover fairly shouts the "wah WAH" sound effect.
• There was a time when whatever is happening here would've been manifestly funny, I'm sure, but those hats and those flags don't scream "wacky difference" to me so much as "partners in conquering the world." Cover should've been a study in contrasts, but instead it's Bing Crosby and William Holden waving dainty flags.
• I do like the eye in the periscope, though. I imagine that it is the Devil, who has taken over the submarine and is now going to take Bing and Bill on a hellish journey.

Best things about this back cover:

• I'm sorry. This cover (that is, the first sentence) made me fall asleep and am now too groggy to say anything, witty or otherwise.
• "Army Times" giving a thumbs-up to this book is like "Dog Fancy" giving a thumbs-up to "Benji."

Page 123~

The shells were falling around her now, some salvos just over, the next short and the rest straddling her.

This is way more pornographic than I imagined.

~RP

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Paperback 524: The Farmers Hotel / John O'Hara (Bantam A2203)

Paperback 524: Bantam A2203 (4th ptg [1st thus], 1960)

Title: The Farmers Hotel
Author: John O'Hara
Cover artist: [James Avati]

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• I love this cover. Specifically, I love the use of text—generously sized and spaced, in gorgeous contrasting white (like the snow it's describing), in a 1/2-cover sized block that abruptly Stops and leaves the lower half quiet as 3am. 
• James Avati is best known for doing Every Damn Cover for Signet for several years, but this is up there with my favorite work of his. I clearly need a "Sexy Staircase" or "Woman Ascending a Staircase" or "Staircase Puts Woman's Ass at Man's Eye-Level" tag. This is not the first. 
• I love how the painting is so still (very Avati), and yet there is subtle motion in both him (rounding the corner) and her (slowly ascending, with a slight but meaningful over-the-shoulder glance).
• The dress is the thing. Magenta pops against the monochromatic brown background, as well as against the creamy V of her upper back. So, to sum up, Love.

Best things about this back cover:

• Less love, though this does make me want to read the book.
• This is the second version of this book that I've featured on this blog.
• "Jerry Mayo and the Pickwick Sisters" would be a Great band name.

Page 23~ (book is only 119pp. long)

The quiet of the room was almost total, but not peaceful.

~RP

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Paperback 520: Tales of the South Pacific / James A. Michener (Pocket Books 516)

Paperback 520: Pocket Books 516 (16th-18th ptg, 1950)

Title: Tales of the South Pacific
Author: James A. Michener
Cover artist: Harvey Kidder

Yours for: $5


Best things about this cover:

• "I ... uh ... I forget why I came in here."
• "My eyes are up here" doesn't really work when you're topless.
• I liked the Kangaroo better when it had a joey in its pouch. This "book boner" incarnation is disturbing.

Best things about this back cover:

• Whoa, someone's got a military fetish. I'm looking at you, K.C. Clapp.
• "Balinese lasses" is not the kind of phrase you are likely to see ... ever. Unless there are Balinese in Ireland.
• "Bali laughs" is so terrible I literally laughed.

Page 123~

As in a trance, Cable sucked in his breath audibly. The girl smiled, and at that moment Cable heard a hissing noise. He turned around, frightened. But it was only bloody Mary. She had her peach-basket hat in her left hand. Stains of betel juice were drenching the ravines of her mouth, which was grinning, broadly. Her broken teeth showed through, black, black as night. She winked her right eye heavily and asked, "You like?" Then she turned and fled down the path.

Ah, natives. So droll. So quaint. So exotic. Just a moment of local color before our hero has sex with an underage prostitute ... who is a virgin ... who will cry immediately after. You know, the way men do. "The regrets and moral questionings would come later."

~RP

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