No, darling, I'm not screwing my secretary. I have a new boss, and she's screwing me.
Bee Line Books was one of the imprints that transitioned from painted covers (examples here and here) into photo fronts, as you see with Roy Battle's 1974 novel Something for the Boss. We wanted something to read on a train ride and this fit the bill. The story deals with a suburban wife and her banker husband, and how his ambition to ascend the corporate ladder leads him to press her to have sex with the branch president. She does, and this leads to a full fledged swapping lifestyle, not only with the president and his wife, but with their two depraved collegiate children. Yeah, it's pretty kinky, but that's no surprise for a sleaze novel published during the ’70s. By then there were no limits. Despite the raunch, Something for the Boss isn't anything you can bank on for entertainment. Next.
Since you're supposed to be so good at reading signs, what am I asking for right now?
Val Seran's 1967 novel Grand Slam Girl took us by surprise by being a sleaze novel. The rear cover text suggested a crime thriller set in the world of baseball, and it's that, but it's also an erotic novel littered with a dozen or so semi-explicit lovemaking scenes. Such scenes are fun when they're well written. Here they aren't, and an additional problem is that there are almost as many rapes as sex scenes, as a quartet of organized crime thugs use sexual assault as their go-to weapon. The thriller aspect of the story deals with a minor league pitcher named Jack Sweet who gets involved with the fiancée of his murdered brother. Did she kill him? We didn't care, and we weren't intrigued by the book's heroin smuggling subplot either. Somehow Seran, aka Curt Allen, managed to publish at least ten books. Based on this effort we find that surprising. Edit: We've just learned that the cover, uncredited by Bee-Line Books, is repurposed Paul Rader art from the 1962 Midwood Books sleazer The Sex Game, written by Mike Skinner.
Sleaze novel suggests it's more fun for doctors to trick than to treat.
The only reason we took any notice of the 1975 sleaze novel Doctor's Dirty Tricks by Rand McTiernan is because Swedish actress Christina Lindberg is the cover star. That fact led to the thought process, “Well, we might as well read the thing and see what it's about.” It turns out it's about exactly what you'd think, except there are not one but two doctors—a dentist and a psychologist. They're pals, and both molest their patients. The dentist does it while they're gassed, and the shrink does it while they're hypnotized. The shrink considers himself a better breed, because, “You can't make someone do something under hypnosis they don't want to do.” The cover tagline describes this as being seduced, but the concept of seduction has nothing to do with this book at any point. Sleaze novels are usually pretty fun, with women often the main plot drivers, but then there's this kind too. Doctor's Dirty Tricks is a regressive male fantasy centered around helpless and insensate women. We'll take ours helpful and responsive. No thank you, Mr. McTiernan.
The classification system isn't the only thing that's dewey around this library.
This is a cover we've seen around the internet more than once, but we don't mind that it's been used a bit. Nympho Librarian was written by Jake Moskovich under the pseudonym Les Tucker, and the copyright is 1970. The art was painted by Paul Rader, and we rate it a top effort from him, possibly even iconic, considering these days you can buy this cover as a refrigerator magnet. Quick question: do you go to the library? Well, you should, because with usage declining, doing the above without getting caught is probably easier today than ever. Give it a try. Nymphos are in the stacks right between nutrition and oceanography.
Mwah. Zat is ze height of eroticism in our country. Ze back kiss. Does it turn you on? Are you ready for ze sex now? Searching for information on vintage books and authors sometimes brings unusual results online. In the case of Paris Sex Circus, plugging in the author's name Leaver French gave us seemingly every article published about Donald Trump abandoning the Paris climate accords. An unexpected outcome, to say the least. So we can't tell you anything about Leaver French, except that we're reasonably certain the name is a pseudonym. But as for the book, as the great French lovers say: the back tells you everything. Lovely Dawn's sexcapades begin on a transatlantic cruise, and continue once she hits French soil, but she's no naive ingénue, as evidenced by the line: “Even the orgies she had been to in the States were only child's play compared to the French way!” This is 1970 from Bee-Line Books, number 457 in their catalog. Yes, they churned out hundreds of these. And as far we can tell, all of their cover illustrations were uncredited, including this one.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1945—Mussolini Is Arrested
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and fifteen supporters are arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, Italy while attempting to escape the region in the wake of the collapse of Mussolini's fascist government. The next day, Mussolini and his mistress are both executed, along with most of the members of their group. Their bodies are then trucked to Milan where they are hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of a gas station, then spat upon and stoned until they are unrecognizable. 1933—The Gestapo Is Formed
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond. 1937—Guernica Is Bombed
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced. 1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves.
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