It would certainly be an explosive reform. Who cares about the scientists, politicians and diplomats who are usually awarded the Nobel prizes. It's high time that the pulp artists received their due! 😀
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Arthur C Clarke will not be appearing in my Pulp thread so I will feature some of his output here. He was a scientist as well as an author and many of his predictions have turned true, probably the most famous being communication satellites. There is always a large dabbling of hard science in his books but they are also written in an enjoyable, appealing style. Some of them are real cliffhangers and the next chapter must be read before setting the book down for the night. My personal favourite is A Fall Of Moondust (1961) which plot Paul Gallico would re-use in a different setting at the end of the decade in The Poseidon Adventure.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
This was a quite a decent secret agent series, plenty of action and sex as Joe Gall is hired by the CIA to partake in missions for them. Decent covers helped in sales.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I’ve read a handful and they’re pretty good. I’m sure Chandler’s agent supplied the praise to several authors for grateful recompense 😁
The first book has appeared on Kindle - hopefully the rest will follow. The first one was written over a decade before the second one, I haven’t read it so don’t know if it’s similar to the others or not. There are a couple of reasonable priced copies on ABE books site - don’t pay the prices for the couple of books available on Amazon as they are far too much (I know I was sometimes accused of overpricing but the prices quoted there are way over the top).
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Spy Guys and Gals rates this series a B+, which is fairly decent. More than 20 novels makes it a serious investment. Good looking covers, with an insert panel familiar from the early Pan Fleming paperbacks. I too have never heard of character or author.
@CoolHandBond, over the years I managed to snag a few nice vintage hardcovers of Arthur C. Clarke's novels. My copy of The City and the Stars dates back to the 1950s, I found it at a bookstore in Boston ages ago.
@TonyDP Thats a nice copy of City And The Stars - I haven’t seen that one before - is it published by Frederick Muller - it’s similar to the first edition. Looks like you’ve got a nice ACC collection there 😁
I went to Boston for a day trip in the early 2000’s, I drove from Easthampton where my friend ran a secondhand bookshop - we used to send each other weekly parcels of books - I was amused at the number of towns I went through with English names - Boston was nice - I wish I could have spent more time there - must go back one day.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
@Barbel@chrisno1 Philip Atlee was the pseudonym of James Atlee Phillips who also co-wrote the screenplay to Robert Mitchum’s Thunder Road and he did uncredited work on John Wayne’s Big Jim McClain. His son Shawn Phillips sung the title song to the 1973 musical film Lost Horizon (more useless information) 😁
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,845MI6 Agent
This quote appears at the beginning of The Bond Files by Lane and Simpson so you're in good company, @CoolHandBond:
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
@CoolHandBond, the dust jacket says it's a book club edition, published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, copyright 1953, 1956. Can't find any other identifiers.
I've lived in Boston since my family moved here in 1970 (I was 5). There used to be a vintage bookstore called Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop on Newbury Street that specialized in older books and magazines and I remember losing many hours in there. Sadly, it and all the similar haunts in Boston are now long gone.
There used to be a second hand / vintage book store in Wimbledon near the Asda but the block is knocked down now. I bought some OO7 paperbacks there and I often regret not buying the Gardner hardbacks I saw. The place was something of a mess and you needed to take your time to find anything ! Memories...
I don’t particularly remember that bookshop but I probably did go there once. I went to virtually every bookshop in London at some point over the years, mainly to try and strike up some sort of mutually beneficial trading relationship.
I was always surprised at messy bookshops, I could never work in conditions like that, my books had to be displayed in orderly fashion and I found that customers appreciated that.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
actually round here I find used bookstores are more common than new, which is OK by me as I prefer hunting for vintage editions as celebrated in this thread.
new bookstores in Canada are dominated by one bigbox chain (Chapters/Indigo) and they fill up half their floorspace with coffee cups, blankets, totebags, chocolates, etc with the everdiminishing shelf space for actual books towards the back.
Small independent bookstores keep very little stock instore and rely on special orders, which can't be sustainable in the long run, as customers will realise they can order themselves from Amazon and skip the middleman. Special ordering from a bookstore has to be a deliberate choice to keep the local business afloat.
Yes, I do remember going there once, he didn’t spend much sprucing up the place, did he? Still, it’s the books people are after in the long run, but I always found that the more pleasant a place is the longer people will want to stay, and more importantly, the more they are prepared to pay 😁
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Victoria is such a civilised city. I do remember that one as it was just down the street from my old office so I'd browse at lunch hour
when I used to live there (25 years ago!) there was an especially beautiful and wellstocked new book store called Munro's Books, apparently still there, I'm sure you'll find your way there
I'll just link a Google image search so you can see various shots of the interior, I assume its an old bank
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,757Chief of Staff
Comments
The thriller is a great Field of literature. 🙂
What else do you need to begin your Saturday?…
It's a crime that not one of these writers got a Nobels prize for litterature! Perhaps there should be a Nobels for book covers? I'd really like that.
A Nobel Prize would be very appropriate as some of these book covers are dynamite. 🧨
🤣
Nobels for pulp book covers? Now, that would make that boring institution interesting 😁😁😁
It would certainly be an explosive reform. Who cares about the scientists, politicians and diplomats who are usually awarded the Nobel prizes. It's high time that the pulp artists received their due! 😀
Paul Radar was an artist who was in demand for painting pulp paperback covers. You can see why below…
Arthur C Clarke will not be appearing in my Pulp thread so I will feature some of his output here. He was a scientist as well as an author and many of his predictions have turned true, probably the most famous being communication satellites. There is always a large dabbling of hard science in his books but they are also written in an enjoyable, appealing style. Some of them are real cliffhangers and the next chapter must be read before setting the book down for the night. My personal favourite is A Fall Of Moondust (1961) which plot Paul Gallico would re-use in a different setting at the end of the decade in The Poseidon Adventure.
This was a quite a decent secret agent series, plenty of action and sex as Joe Gall is hired by the CIA to partake in missions for them. Decent covers helped in sales.
Never heard of this series, but praise from Chandler (now where have I heard that before? 😁) does make me interested.
I’ve read a handful and they’re pretty good. I’m sure Chandler’s agent supplied the praise to several authors for grateful recompense 😁
The first book has appeared on Kindle - hopefully the rest will follow. The first one was written over a decade before the second one, I haven’t read it so don’t know if it’s similar to the others or not. There are a couple of reasonable priced copies on ABE books site - don’t pay the prices for the couple of books available on Amazon as they are far too much (I know I was sometimes accused of overpricing but the prices quoted there are way over the top).
Spy Guys and Gals rates this series a B+, which is fairly decent. More than 20 novels makes it a serious investment. Good looking covers, with an insert panel familiar from the early Pan Fleming paperbacks. I too have never heard of character or author.
@CoolHandBond, over the years I managed to snag a few nice vintage hardcovers of Arthur C. Clarke's novels. My copy of The City and the Stars dates back to the 1950s, I found it at a bookstore in Boston ages ago.
@TonyDP Thats a nice copy of City And The Stars - I haven’t seen that one before - is it published by Frederick Muller - it’s similar to the first edition. Looks like you’ve got a nice ACC collection there 😁
I went to Boston for a day trip in the early 2000’s, I drove from Easthampton where my friend ran a secondhand bookshop - we used to send each other weekly parcels of books - I was amused at the number of towns I went through with English names - Boston was nice - I wish I could have spent more time there - must go back one day.
@Barbel @chrisno1 Philip Atlee was the pseudonym of James Atlee Phillips who also co-wrote the screenplay to Robert Mitchum’s Thunder Road and he did uncredited work on John Wayne’s Big Jim McClain. His son Shawn Phillips sung the title song to the 1973 musical film Lost Horizon (more useless information) 😁
This quote appears at the beginning of The Bond Files by Lane and Simpson so you're in good company, @CoolHandBond:
@CoolHandBond, the dust jacket says it's a book club edition, published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, copyright 1953, 1956. Can't find any other identifiers.
I've lived in Boston since my family moved here in 1970 (I was 5). There used to be a vintage bookstore called Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop on Newbury Street that specialized in older books and magazines and I remember losing many hours in there. Sadly, it and all the similar haunts in Boston are now long gone.
Lost bookshops - especially used/secondhand ones - are unfortunately a common recurrence everywhere it seems 🥲
Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill are always good sources for quotes 😁
There used to be a second hand / vintage book store in Wimbledon near the Asda but the block is knocked down now. I bought some OO7 paperbacks there and I often regret not buying the Gardner hardbacks I saw. The place was something of a mess and you needed to take your time to find anything ! Memories...
I don’t particularly remember that bookshop but I probably did go there once. I went to virtually every bookshop in London at some point over the years, mainly to try and strike up some sort of mutually beneficial trading relationship.
I was always surprised at messy bookshops, I could never work in conditions like that, my books had to be displayed in orderly fashion and I found that customers appreciated that.
This one looks familiar?
coolhand said:
Lost bookshops - especially used/secondhand ones - are unfortunately a common recurrence everywhere it seems
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actually round here I find used bookstores are more common than new, which is OK by me as I prefer hunting for vintage editions as celebrated in this thread.
new bookstores in Canada are dominated by one bigbox chain (Chapters/Indigo) and they fill up half their floorspace with coffee cups, blankets, totebags, chocolates, etc with the everdiminishing shelf space for actual books towards the back.
Small independent bookstores keep very little stock instore and rely on special orders, which can't be sustainable in the long run, as customers will realise they can order themselves from Amazon and skip the middleman. Special ordering from a bookstore has to be a deliberate choice to keep the local business afloat.
Yes, I do remember going there once, he didn’t spend much sprucing up the place, did he? Still, it’s the books people are after in the long run, but I always found that the more pleasant a place is the longer people will want to stay, and more importantly, the more they are prepared to pay 😁
Good to hear that Canada still has lots of used bookstores 👍🏻
This is the second hand bookstore I used (and will use in the future) last time I was in Victoria on Vancouver Island.
It’s spread over a couple of floors…it’s easy to lose track of time in there 👀🤣
Victoria is such a civilised city. I do remember that one as it was just down the street from my old office so I'd browse at lunch hour
when I used to live there (25 years ago!) there was an especially beautiful and wellstocked new book store called Munro's Books, apparently still there, I'm sure you'll find your way there
I'll just link a Google image search so you can see various shots of the interior, I assume its an old bank
Already been there and bought from them 🤣
Thanks for those pictures, guys, I would love to visit one day.