Paperback 975: The House That Stood Still / A.E. Van Vogt (Paperback Library 63-016)

Paperback 975: Paperback Library 63-016 (2nd ptg, 1968)

Title: The House That Stood Still
Author: A.E. Van Vogt
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $8-10
Condition: 9/10

Best things about this cover:

• "Pete... do you see that?" "What?" "That house ... it's not moving. It's just ... sitting there." "Dear God! You're right! Call for backup."
• "DO NOT LOOK BEHIND THE MASK OR YOU WILL SEE THE TERRIFYING VISAGE OF ... Shelley? Shelley from Accounting? What are you doing here?"
• That ziggurat is gonna want to have that growth looked at.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Obliterate the universe from the heavens"? This doesn't sound ... right.
• Immortals are always trashing shit and running away.
• That last sentence needs a huge spoiler alert. Why would I want to read now?

Page 123~

"What's the good of having a forty-year-old heart and a ninety-year-old liver?"

~RP

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Paperback 929: You Can Die Laughing / A. A. Fair (Pocket Books 45004)

Paperback 929: Pocket Books 45004 (2nd ptg, 1964)

Title: You Can Die Laughing
Author: A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: photo cover

Estimated value: $5-10

Best things about this cover:

• Yeah, well you can go *$&%^ yourself with this terrible cover, Pocket Books.
• Fully painted covers cost money. This ... doesn't.
• What the hell kind of mask is that? It doesn't even make sense as a decorative mask, as it's ugly as hell. Honestly, I think this "concept" came together in like 30 seconds. Nothing about it makes sense. It is not funny, or creepy, or anything. It is a non-cover. I'm mad at myself for buying this, for any amount of money.

Best things about this back cover:

• Hey there, exclamation point. How you doin'...? You've, uh .... filled out since last I saw you.
• "A figure like one of the babes in the comic strips!" That is a new frame of reference. "Mmm, I really dig her comical proportions and two-dimensionality." 
• Gender-coded font colors! This has been: Great Moments in Reactionary Design ...

Page 123~

Bertha's temper visibly began to rise. "There are times when I could take this paper knife and cut your throat from ear to ear, Donald Lam! What the hell do you mean you rented her?"

Not sure a knife made of paper is going to do much, Bertha. Just punch him in the face. No one will mind.

~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 866: African Poison Murders / Elspeth Huxley (Popular Library 100)

Paperback 866: Popular Library 100 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: African Poison Murders
Author: Elspeth Huxley
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $12-17

Best things about this cover:

• "Here, African. Put this on. That's better." Hashtag racist.
• Actually, maybe the green guy is a sick European. He looks like a 17th-century actor who has eaten some bad mutton.
• If you stare too long at that foreshortened thumb, you will begin to get queasy. It's… not right. Kind of like the relationship between green head and blue body. Not right at all.

Best things about this back cover:

• Read that second sentence as "Feces were smashed." Was briefly intrigued.
• A "native boy" wrapped in "baling wire." Hmm. That's a bit on the nose, as Slave-Trade metaphors go.
• This book should've been called "Leopard Trap!" That, or "All's Veld That Ends Veld."

Page 123~

"It is the way of Europeans," the house-boy said philosophically.

"You gotta read a lot of Kant to deal with these motherfuckers," he added.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 803: Love and the Countess to Boot / Jack Iams (Dell 139)

Paperback 803: Dell 139 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: Love and the Countess to Boot 

Author: Jack Iams

Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Cupid does not mess around with rival gods. Just look what he did to Santa!
• Everyone should have a countess to boot.
• This cover is ultra-terrible. No countesses. No boots. Weird log-like clouds. Bah.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, that's more like it. Mapback!
• Caribbean mapback with St. Croix inset and even bigger Bland Seascape inset. Hot.
• Ooh, Charlotte AMALIE. I recall that place name from a crossword clue I Did Not Know.

Page 123~

He sipped the frothy swizzle, enjoying Walter's rising curiosity.

That line is either benign and dopey or super-homoerotic, depending on your mood.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 182: The Gay Bandit of the Border / Tom Gill (Popular Library 190)

[Even though I didn't do a proper write-up for this book, I've decided to count it as complete - your insightful comments make it scarily apparent that I'm not as essential to the smooth functioning of this blog as I'd once imagined]

Title: The Gay Bandit of the Border
Author: Tom Gill
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $12

Hey folks - I'm on vacation, working from an unfamiliar computer, and I cannot get Blogger to publish correctly. It's All kinds of screwed up. So ... patience. I'll be back with more as soon as I can. Til then, enjoy this random cover, which I may or may not be able to blog in the near future:

Paperback 178: The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution / Donald Westlake (Ballantine 3307)

Paperback 178: Ballantine 3307 (1st ptg, 1973)

Title: The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution
Author: Donald Westlake
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $22


Best things about this cover:

• "The Curious Crap I Found In My Closet"
• This is in contention for the single ugliest cover in my collection. Exhibit A: Mustard. Exhibit B: a mass of objects pulled in one lump from the bottom of some (crazy) lady's storage chest. Case closed.
• Somehow the wig makes the whole object lump much, much worse. Who thought this was artful!?
  
• And yet, while ugly, this is also a very memorable cover. Indelibility: The Up-Side of Ugly.
• That is a stubbed out cigar in the middle of the rubber mask's forehead. There's also a wig, a diamond necklace, three guns, and a blue thing (gum wrapper?)

Best things about this back cover:

• "a-burgling"

Page 123~

From "Never Shake a Family Tree"

"Ah," he said. "Forgive my telephoning, please, Mrs. Buckley. We have never met, but I noticed your entry in the current issue of Genealogical Exchange -"

~RP