We received an email a couple of days ago from a reader named Joe R., who pointed us toward an item about Norton Records, a New York City based vintage vinyl dealer whose Brooklyn warehouse was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Sandy (above you see a photo taken of the building just after the storm). According to Norton’s website, most of their catalog stock was destroyed by floodwaters. Like many other vintage vinyl dealers, they also have a pretty nice stack of sleaze fiction, so you collectors out there might want to take a look at their selection. We’ve uploaded a few covers right and below, including Dale Koby’s Sin Lens (art by Paul Rader), Milton Geller’s Don’t Like Me—Love Me!, and Frank Gavin’s Crossfire. The prices are lower than you would typically find on, for instance, Ebay (where we came across a couple of items from Norton’s catalog going for over $30, which is more than double what they charge). If you bought something you’d be supporting a business at a time of struggle, plus it’s officially holiday season again, and nothing says Christmas quite like a sleaze paperback. Thanks, Joe, for sending this item over. Norton Records warehouse photo by Nick Cope

Cats play with their prey before killing it. The cover of Michael Avallone’s 1962 thriller Sex Kittten, with its turquoise-eyed femme fatale painted by Paul Rader, conveys that threat nicely. We’ve seen this paperback going for as much as fifty dollars. While we wouldn’t pay that for the book, we’d meet virtually any price for a print of Rader’s original art. But we’ll never have to prove that, because we looked and it isn’t out there. You can learn more about Avallone here, and see more Rader art here. 

This is one of the nicer pulp covers we’ve run across recently, which is no surprise since the art is by the incomparable Paul Rader. The author James Harvey wrote standard issue sleaze like this one for the Midwood imprint during the ’50s and ’60s, and also specialized in lesbian fiction with offerings like Between Two Women, Daughter of Joy and Lady Wrestler. We can’t find much more information on him, which is a clue he was probably a pseudonym used by Midwood’s in-house scribes. But we’ll see if we can dig up more facts. In the meantime remember to always check your masseur’s credentials before getting naked. 

Every once in a while, we like to feature Paul Rader as a reminder what a virtuosic illustrator he was. So here’s another aggregate post, this one of assorted steamy Midwood pulp covers by Rader, circa 1960s. As a side note, you may have noticed our pulp uploader is malfunctioning at the moment, but we’ll get that fixed as soon as we can. Anyone with contributions, please hold, thanks. 

American author Jay Flynn, aka J.M. Flynn, is one of those writers whose real life reads as entertainingly as some of his fiction. He was a heavy drinker with a case of wanderlust, and he set up shop in places like Massachusetts, California, Paris, Mallorca, and Monte Carlo. 1959’s Drink with the Dead is considered one of his better books—you see Paul Rader's U.S. cover art above, and as a bonus we've shared Richard S. Prather's Finnish edition of Bodies in Bedlam, which borrows the same image. Anyway, Drink with the Dead concerns a bunch of modern day bootleggers—ironic, considering Flynn got involved in the illegal liquor trade at one point. He was one of those rough and tumble writers that injected a lot of personal experience into his fiction, and whose erratic, hellraising ways always made subsistence a struggle. He spent time on skid row, was hired and fired by a lot of publishers, and refused to give up the booze even after his doctor said it would kill him. He died younger than he should have, perhaps, but left behind a lot of writing. You can find a detailed review of Drink with the Dead here. and a detailed bio of Flynn here.

The only thing that could make this cover better is if she were real and not just an amazing painting by Paul Rader. And also if we could substitute the mirror for a window and put ourselves on the other side, hiding in some bushes in her yard, possibly with a camera. The cover asks if a hunger so strong can be so wrong. We answer: not if it makes you do this. 

The things you do to pay the bills. Loren Beauchamp was the pseudonym of multiple award-winning sci-fi author Robert Silverberg. Silverberg wrote more than 80 sci-fi novels, hundreds of short stories, scores of non-fiction books, and countless thought-provoking articles. But in the late fifties, when the sci-fi market shrank, the man whom the Science Fiction Writers of America would eventually name a Grand Master turned to softcore pulps, which he wrote under a couple of different names. 1959’s Unwilling Sinner was about a nympho wreaking havoc in a small town, while 1962’s Sin on Wheels concerned depraved goings-on in a trailer park.

Unluckily for smut fans, Mr. Silverberg said so long to schlock after a few years and went on to earn multiple sci-fi Nebula and Hugo awards. But his pulps are floating around on various vintage sites, and we recommend you mail order one and curl up for a titillating read. You won’t be disappointed. The artist on both of these books, by the way, was Paul Rader, who painted hundreds of pulp covers. More info on him here.