Paperback 1133: Seduction Campaign / Bruce Shelly (Merit Books 681)

Paperback 1133: Merit Books 681 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Seduction Campaign

Author: Bruce Shelly

Cover artist: photo (?)

Condition: 8/10    

Value: $40

[newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• Help me, Seduction Campaign girl! Your nymphomania is my only hope! (this is a Star Wars reference)
• For a really effective seduction, try taking the Chinese lantern or birdhouse or whatever that is away from your face
• Not a fan of photo covers, esp. when the photos seem to have been weirdly artificially colored (her Ronald McDonald hair color is implausible). But I actually really love her sassy, casual get-up. I guess the unbuttoned top button of the pants is supposed to be part of the seduction campaign? I just assume she ate a little too much at breakfast. 
• I like to think that she's in a western, and signaling to some gunslinger in the road, "Four..." Four what, I don't know. Maybe pancakes she had at breakfast?

Best things about this back cover: 

• As seduction campaigns go, this one seems pretty low-budget. SEDUCTION CAMPAIGN feels less like cover copy and more like a placeholder. It's like "future site of Seduction Campaign" or "Seduction Campaign, Coming 1963"
• "You ever think about anything else besides bed?" "Well, sure. There's, uh, seduction. Oh, and campaigning. Ronald McDonald. Bralessness. Lots of things."
• "Like to see?" is a weird line. "Wanna see?" tracks, but "Like to see?" sounds like she's threatening to put his eyes out. "Like to see? Then you better stop bugging me pal. Be a shame if anything happened to them peepers of yours."

Page 123~

    "Here's some pants, Davey." It was Bunny. All dressed and standing demurely in the living room. "Nice of you to call on us, Mrs. Kelly. It was time for us to get up anyway."

    Bunny was back in character. She flounced around Janet and handed me my slacks. "Don't mind us, Davey," she said. 

    "Oh, no!" said Janet. "Don't mind us at all!" She stalked into the living room and I followed just as soon as I was trousered.

This is basically an episode of “Three's Company.” Two girls and a guy. A landlady (probably). I mean, there's even a character named "Janet." 🎶"Come and knock on our door / Nymphomania reigns / Where the flouncing is hers and hers and his, / It's the Seduction Campaign!"🎶

~RP

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Paperback 949: Play the Sin Field / Drew Deskins (Spartan Line SL134)

Paperback 949: Spartan Line SL134 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Play the Sin Field
Author: Drew Deskins
Cover artist: presumably

Estimated value: No idea. Somehow, I have TWO copies of this, and yet there are NO copies at abebooks. :(
Condition: 8/10

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Holy crap, I only *just* realized that this is supposed to be a pun on the phrase, "play the infield." Before, I thought a. wow, they just threw the word SIN in to a perfectly good phrase and ruined it, how stupid, and b. wow, SIN is a really truly terrible pun for "out."
• I love this woman. We should all be this confident. (i.e. confident enough to wear pasties that clash with our evening gloves).
• Wanton nymphos are the best kind of nymphos. Them prim nymphos ain't no fun at all.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, the Insane Phrase Bookend blurb. I should create a tag for these things. They are a truly great part of American literary history. I assure you Hemingway could never have come up with "SIN GUESTS"; not in his whole, adulturous life.
• P.S. "orgiastically"

Page 123~

"I want you to lay me right here and now," she said softly and he fell on her, his malehood jutting and pulsating, as he inched it within her eager body.

You'd think you'd be laughing too hard to properly masturbate to this stuff.

~RP

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Paperback 828: Dead in Bed / Day Keene (Pyramid G448)

Paperback 828: Pyramid G448 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Dead in Bed
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Estimated value: $55


Best things about this cover:

• Said it before, I'll say it again: "women spilling backwards off of furniture" is an oddly common paperback cover trope. Really should've created that tag a long time ago (WSBOF).
• That left hand, like many things about her body, is physically preposterous. My understanding is that dead people are much more prone to gravity than this painting would suggest. Seriously, what is her right shin doing? It's managed to get air, somehow.
• Dude's left hand is Super suggestively placed. He also appears to be floating down from outer space, or at least the ceiling.
• Also, dude is Hawaiian. You can tell by … I don't know what.

Best things about this back cover:

• Possibly the worst tag line in the history of tag lines. Belongs in some kind of noir feminine hygiene ad.
• Yes, when you rearrange her body thusly, the picture *does* make a lot more sense.
• It's a story of more things that start with "b" than ever happened to any braindead bozo, Bolivian or otherwise.
• That last paragraph needs both a lexicographer and an em-dash remover, stat.

Page 123~

She exhaled sharply as she knew what it was like to be a woman for the first time. At least, that's what she said.

Before Johnny put his cock in her, she had imagined herself a grapefruit. Thank you, Johnny.

[Full disclosure, that bit's actually from p. 122, but there was no way I was not choosing it. No way.]

~RP

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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 684: Hired Nympho / Big Bob Tralins (Novel Book 5077)

Paperback 684: Novel Book 5077 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Hired Nympho
Author: Big Bob Tralins (best, author, name, ever)
Cover artist: photo cover + beta version of PhotoShop?

Yours for: Not for Sale [part of the Doug Peterson Collection]


Best things about this cover:

• Can't get past the hair. Just can't. Hideous.
• I do like the fact that I have, multiple times, misread Big Bob Tralins' other titles, e.g. "Seduction Salmon," "Passion Position," etc
• Big. Bob. Tralins. That was someone's name.
• Arrow, haha. "Read this next," says the redundant arrow.

Best things about this back cover:

• Simple and to the point. Elegant. Being honest when I say this is one of my very favorite back covers. Of all time.

Page 123~

I grinned. They were both compacts, the low-slung, economy size, one blonde, the other redhead. Miniature five-footers, but stacked!

I can really picture these women. Sadly, what I'm picturing looks like a cross between a car and a sub sandwich.

~RP

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Paperback 653: Lady Wu / Lin Yutang (Dell 4621)

Paperback 653: Dell 4621 (1st ptg, 1966)

Title: Lady Wu
Author: Lin Yutang
Cover artist: (Tom?) Miller

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Peach, it turns out, is not my favorite of book colors.
• I love the painting, actually. I like the variation on the common "keyhole" cover. Very much implicates the reader as a voyeur. She's even looking at you semi-accusatorily / seductively. Scene itself is a bit staid, but it's still cool. Just wish it were *bigger* (stupid '60s book designers and their insistence on TEXT over cover art)
• A Buddha statue is not enough for Lady Wu. She must also have live-action Buddha (who smokes?). Also, a male companion dressed like '80s Prince.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh. Text.
• NYMPHOMANIAC!
• Still, ugh. Text.

Page 123~

Unfortunately, the leaders of the rebellion were all scholars.

~RP

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