"Girls on the Loose," "The Day they H-bombed Los Angeles," and other literary masterpieces
I love pulp fiction book titles and vintage paperback book covers, and I just found on a website that, because of my own personal taste, I assume everyone will enjoy: http://www.bookscans.com. The navigation is a bit difficult, but there are over 30,000 paperback covers (as well as a huge collection of colophons, also known as printers marks, which is what I was looking for in the first place).
It's a treasure trove of American classics like Love Me Sailor and Someday I'm Going to Kill You. Please check it out and post comments with your favorite book covers or titles or both. Imagine you're in an old bookstore in New Orleans twenty years ago and need a flashlight to go through a box you found in a corner--I remember that bookstore well, but that's another story.
Follow the link above, poke around his collection, and when you see one you like, click on the image to enlarge it, right click and select copy, then paste into your comment below. Or just tell us about it. I have to go now, and finish reading...
!!!
- Login Or register To Post Comments
- Send To A Friend
- Share With:
Marilyn Kallet says:
This is a hoot!
Fantastic, Ivory! What a treasure trove. I'm forwarding the link to my journalist daughter--
Huntington W. Sharp says:
I'll have to search later...
...but can add now, according to my own taste for obscurity, that the "Eel Pie" in the title of that one book refers to Eel Pie Island,a small island (or "ait") in the River Thames in west London.
Quoth Wikipedia:
"The island was the site of the now legendary Eel Pie Hotel, which was a genteel 19th century building that hosted ballroom dancing during the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1950s, it became a venue for jazz and, in the 1960s, for rock and R&B. The Eel Pie Studios, owned by Pete Townshend, were the location of several significant pop and rock recordings. Townshend's publishing company, Eel Pie Publishing, is named after the ait.
"For his 2005 television show How To Start Your Own Country, presenter Danny Wallace claimed to be 'Leader' of Eel Pie Island after invading the island via the footbridge. After a few hours, the Metropolitan police forced him to peacefully give the island back to HM Elizabeth II."
With my usual penchant for discovering pop culture backwards, I first heard of Eel Pie in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous in which Edina's mother, during a '60s flashback, wonders if her very intoxicated daughter had been to a "happening" there.
Now we know more about the setting for the murders. And I know I want to live on an ait.
Huntington Sharp, Red Room