"Too Hot to Hold" by Day Keene (Gold Medal 931, 1959) (cover painting by Robert McGinnis)(01 of13)
Open Image ModalPossibly the most beautiful cover I've ever owned. A quintessential pulp fiction cover. Exquisite attention to detail, from her entire ensemble to the design of the taxi cab door to the cracked sidewalks. Hot woman, bad neighborhood, mysterious circumstances. Why is she looking back into the cab!? I need to know.
"Kill Now, Pay Later" by Robert Kyle (Dell First Edition B178, 1960) (cover painting by Robert McGinnis)(02 of13)
Open Image ModalThis cover expresses everything I love about this era - a sense of cool combined with a sense of something fading, something ending...a kind of twilight. These two look like their best days are behind them, just behind them, and it is only beginning to dawn on them. Look, she's already forgotten how to hold a martini glass. And he seems bemused by his gun. Poor, poor, hot people.
"The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett (Pocket Books 268, 1944--dust jacket, 1947) (cover painting by Stanley Meltzoff)(03 of13)
Open Image ModalThe original Pocketbooks cover for "The Maltese Falcon" (1944) was relatively abstract: three hands reaching for a falcon statue. Three years later, having realized how much sensational covers could drive sales, Pocketbooks issued this new dustjacket for "The Maltese Falcon," which depicts a very racy scene from the novel-too racy, in fact, to make the 1941 film version.
"Plan for Conquest" by A.A. Glynn (Badger Books, SF90, ca. 1963) (cover painting uncredited)(04 of13)
Open Image ModalThe mid-20th century was a great period for robot design. Notice I don't say "a period for great robot design." That's because some of the designs look like this: an electric kettle attached to a bunch of rusty downspouts.
"What a Body!" by Alan Green (Dell 483, 1951) (back cover chart by unknown designer)(05 of13)
Open Image ModalAn early, weird, never-replicated marketing gimmick from Dell. The best part about this chart is the arbitrary numbers. I mean, is there really an 11% chance I'll be able to place my date in my overcoat pocket? Really? So one out of every nine of my dates will be roughly the size of a ferret? That number seems awfully high.
"The Sex Habits of American Women" by Fritz Wittels, M.D. (Eton Books 102, 1951) (interior chart)(06 of13)
Open Image ModalThe Kinsey Reports (starting in 1948) spawned a paperback sexpertise industry, with books ranging from the highly scientific to the frankly pornographic. Paperbacks can give you amazing insights into the values and mores of the culture. They can also make you hurt yourself laughing. Here (in one of the more scientific studies of sex from the period) we have an attempt to graph different kinds of orgasm. Apparently there are two kinds-the "happy hand-in-hand slide" orgasm, or the "my fat slob of a boyfriend came and then fell out of bed" orgasm.
Lesbian Starlet" by Tony Trelos (Brandon House 705, 1964) (cover painting uncredited)(07 of13)
Open Image ModalThe 50s and 60s were a boom time for lesbian-themed fiction. While this might seem like evidence of increased cultural acceptance and tolerance, we should keep in mind that the "lesbians" depicted in these books were not...how to put it?...very realistic. Take this book, for example: I doubt very much that most lesbians had faces like blow-up dolls, or were this enamored of faux-wood paneling.
"Lesbian Twins" by Willi Peters (Vega Books V-2, 1960) (cover painting uncredited)(08 of13)
Open Image ModalSanford Aday, who ran Vega Books (as well as Fabian Books and Saber Books) out of my home town of Fresno, CA, specialized in unconventional sex fiction. Gay men (a gay detective, even), lesbians, cross-dressers, inter-racial affairs, etc.-his books dealt with them all. The writing in these books is mostly bad. Very bad. Unreadable at times. This only endears them to me more. This cover is probably supposed to be hot but comes off more as disturbing, largely because of the creepy addition of "Mom" into the whole sisters-napping-together equation.
"Take a Lesbian to Lunch" by Ann Aldrich (aka Marijane Meaker) (McFadden Books 125-118, 1972) (cover painting uncredited)(09 of13)
Open Image Modal1972 is a bit outside my normal collecting range, but how was I going to resist this title? This cover? Ann Aldrich wrote a number of lesbian-themed books for Gold Medal in the 50s and 60s. She also wrote thrillers under the name "Vin Packer." She write young adult fiction under the name M.E. Kerr, and under her real name, Marijane Meaker, she recently wrote a wonderful memoir about her relationship with Patricia Highsmith ("Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950's"). I got this book for a dollar. It turned out to be worth hundreds. It is reputed to contain the first appearance in print of the phrase "lipstick lesbian."
"5 Beds to Mecca" by Rod Gray (Tower Books 43-944, 1968) (cover painting by Paul Rader)(10 of13)
Open Image ModalThe success of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." inspired a number of acronym-based spy series. Ted Mark had "The Man from O.R.G.Y." and here, in the name of gender equity, we have "The Lady from L.U.S.T." My only comment on first seeing this cover (after a period of stunned, awed silence) was: "Well I guess that's one way to get rid of unwanted hair."
"A Thousand Beds" by John Dexter (Companion Books 521, 1967) (cover painting uncredited) (11 of13)
Open Image ModalI wish I knew what to tell you. I really do. I'm as confused as you are. I can't even begin to imagine what I'm supposed to be imagining is going on here.
"Suburbia Confidential" by Emil Moreau (aka Ed Wood, Jr.) (Triumph Books 305, 1967) (cover ... sketch? ... uncredited)(12 of13)
Open Image ModalI bought this book at a library sale, having no idea it was by cult filmmaker Ed Wood (whom you may know from the Tim Burton film "Ed Wood," where Wood was portrayed by Johnny Depp). It has two features I'd never seen on a paperback before. The first: bite marks. Honest-to-god bite marks. (You can see the distinctive semi-circle at the top of the book, to the right of the orange lines) Second: well, you have to flip the book over...
"Suburbia Confidential" (back cover)(13 of13)
Open Image ModalI challenge you, right now, to find any book in the history of publishing that has ever promised you that it would make you "VOMIT." I believe this book to be unique in publishing history, in that respect if not others. In what universe is the ability to induce vomiting a selling point!? The vomit part made me and the friend I was with laugh so hard we cried. Literally, publicly, cried.