Paperback 806: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner / Alan Sillitoe (Signet P2629)

Paperback 806: Signet P2629 (6th ptg, undated) (1960s)

Title: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner
Author: Alan Sillitoe
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: [Not Applicable]


Best things about this cover:

• The title font. The title font, I like.
• Did you have to capture the dreariness of life in a mill town so … precisely? "Shopkeep, your sootiest looking book, please."
• The only reason I own this book is because my wife stole it from the bathroom of Collegetown Bagels in Ithaca. I mean … "found it in." Definitely not "stole it from."

Best things about this back cover:

• "How to convey the dreariness of life in a mill town on the *back* cover … think, think … I know!" [Explains this back cover concept in detail]
• "And beat it they do"! Promising.
• I love how completely detached and elitist the Saturday Review review is. "Oh, the grubby lower classes … delightful!"
• No cover artist credit, but at least we know where it was printed! USA! Thanks, Signet!

Page 123~ (from "The Disgrace of Jim Scarfedale")

I wanted to sit in my overalls listening to the wireless and reading the paper in peace.

I feel you, buddy.

~RP

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Paperback 801: Morgan's Daughter / H.G. de Lisser (Ernest Benn Ltd (UK) nn)

Paperback 801: Ernest Benn Ltd (UK) nn (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: Morgan's Daughter
Author: H.G. de Lisser
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• "Remove the ascot at once, or you will force me to make use of what appears to be an awfully anachronistic-looking handgun … sir."
• I hope this is a bodice-ripper, 'cause she's certainly ready.
• He has double fear hand! Or else "Air Keyboard Hands."
• I wanted this to be Morgan le Fay's daughter, but no.
• I picked this up in Owego a couple weeks ago, during an impromptu trip to a bookstore basement. Nothing Great, but plenty of Good.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Complacency returned"! Phew! Slavery was really rough for white people.
• The name "Three-fingered Jack" is making me thirsty for whiskey.
• Oh … *Captain* Morgan is her dad. I just got that. Now I want rum.
• With such awkward punctuation and grammar, what might not be the meaning of that last question?
• Wait, she became the "mistress" of *all* the slaves (and maroons!)? What might not be possible?

NOTE: Maroon
n.

1. often Maroon

a. A fugitive Black slave in the West Indies in the 17th and 18th centuries.

b. A descendant of such a slave.

2. A person who is marooned, as on an island.

Page 123~

Captain Thornton was a man of action. And now he was a soldier attending to his duty. He swung himself off his horse and his men followed his example. So did Cudjoe.

I wish I could tell you Cudjoe was a man-eating Saint Bernard. I really do.

~RP

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P.S. Should be back to a roughly 3x/week posting schedule now, for the foreseeable future.

Paperback 551: God's Little Acre / Erskine Caldwell (Great Pan G148)

Paperback 551: Great Pan G148 (1st thus, 1958)

Title: God's Little Acre
Author: Erskine Caldwell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $23
Best things about this cover:

• The Professor and Ginger never did see eye to eye.
• It's like they're having a clenchedmouth-off and she's winning—though it looks like the judge in the background there is about to call "illegal use of boobs." We'll see...
• Zeke likes to watch.
• I think she was overcome by Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" and had to be shaken out of her rockin' reverie before she tore up all the hay bales.
• Zeke, on the other hand, is immune to Bon Jovi's charms.
• Movie tie-in! 

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, they sure picked a dramatic scene for this back cover. And by "dramatic" I mean "one that showcases Tina Louise's tits to the fullest."
• Chivalry isn't dead, it's just horribly, horribly mutated.
• "Gusty vitality"??? Did they mean "gutsy"? Did they conflate "gutsy" and "gusto." "You know, the vitality of his writing ... it's got a ... windlike quality to it ..."

Page 123~

Ty Ty put one foot inside the room and leaned against the door-frame. He watched her roll and unroll her stockings and hang them over the back of the chair. She got up quickly and stood at the foot of the bed.

I *knew* creepy, overt, unwelcome voyeurism was going to figure prominently in this book. The cover artist did his job well.

~RP

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Paperback 496: The Jewels of Aptor / Samuel R. Delany (Sphere 28894)

Paperback 496: Sphere 28894 (1st ptg, 1971)

Title: The Jewels of Aptor
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6

Best things about this cover:

• Image lifted from a "Welcome to the Wonderful World of Scientology!" poster
• "Let's get high and listen to the new Phallus Eruption album!"
• I always thought the Washington Monument could stand to be a little ... gayer.

Best things about this back cover:

• This font is killing me. That "w" is totally making out with that "e."
• If there's one way I like my vivid images, it's crammed.
• "Denouement," Ha ha. I haven't seen that word since high school. So Shakespearean.

Page 123~

The knot's invention was ingenious. At the vibration, two opposed loops shook away from a third, and a four millimetre length of rubber band that had been sewn in tightened and released a fourth loop from a small length of number four gauge wire with a holding tonsure of three quarters of a gram, and the opposing vibration returning up the cord loosed a similar apparatus on the other side of the plug.

Dang. Sex toys of the future are complicated.

~RP

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Paperback 385: Rage to Love / Frank Tilsley (Popular Giant G143)

Paperback 385: Popular Giant G143 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Rage to Love
Author: Frank Tilsley
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• That tagline does not match this picture, but I guess "He Waited Patiently For The Mailman" isn't quite as exciting.
• I suppose there are sluttier poses than that one, but ... not many, I'd guess.
• I'm gonna downgrade that pose rating from "slutty" to "slatternly," with a dose of "wasted"
• The question isn't really "why that pose?" but "why that pose *there*, with her elbows on the sink basin??" "You like this, huh baby? Dirty dishes, dirty girl, right, baby? ... Baby? ... oh for chrissake it's Sunday, the mailman's not coming!"

Best things about this back cover:

• "I can hear your liver!"
• "And I love origami!"

Page 123~

He closed his eyes, opened them again. Stall after stall, with beans, and trucks behind them, unloading: box after box—of beans. There must be as many beans in East Row here alone as Jimmy had bought in the rest of the market!

I submit that this book should be retitled "He Dreams Of Beans." That would explain her expression of contempt on the front cover.

~RP

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