Book Buys

While on the way back from yet another fun-filled visit home, I passed a Discount Books & More (the 'more' was some chirpy parakeets in the back room). Of course, I had to go in, and boy, am I glad I did! I found lots of overstock goodies. And here's the super-cool part: When you go to check out at the counter, right before the cashier finishes ringing you up, you're asked to give the ol' 'Spin-to-Win' wheel a whirl. What is the 'Spin-to-Win' wheel, you ask? Well, it's a wheel that is divided up into 16 pie-chart-style sections, each of which contains a different % off (i.e. 15%, 30%, 50%, 75%, etc.). Whatever percentage you land on, that's the percent that they take off your total!! How cool is THAT?! I just love shit like that. So, I spin and I get 20% off my total, which basically gave me 2 of my books for FREE. Woo hoo! I will definitely be back. Fun stuff!

Charles Atlas' 10 Steps to a Better Body
Synopsis: The original bodybuilding classic is back! For more than fifty years, Charles Atlas - twice named "The World's Most Perfectly Developed Man" - has helped thousands of 97-pound weaklings bulk up, build muscle, and stop bullies from kicking sand in their faces. Without the use of expensive supplements or equipment, this book utilizes Atlas's groundbreaking theory of "dynamic tension," also known as "isometrics," which can be used at home or in the office, by anyone.

*This is actually a 'kit.' Of course, you know me, I bought it for the kitsch factor, not because I long to embrace the world of physical fitness. Pphht! The book comes in a Charles Atlas box and also contains:
-A poster of a Charles Atlas ad
-A boxing lesson
-Charles Atlas trading cards
-A reproduction booklet of the course brochure
-1 'sand in the face' refrigerator magnet
-Tape measure
-A reproduction $10.00 off coupon for the full course

Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean. A Love Story by Liz Sheridan
Synopsis: Sheridan, best known as Jerry Seinfeld's TV mother, reveals her love affair with James Dean in a brief book replete with moony dialogue, prescient remarks about Dean's driving habits and a 1950s New York setting. The effervescent Sheridan, known as Dizzy, was a dancer living in a theater district residence hall for aspiring actresses when she met the 21-year-old Dean, an Indiana farm boy who had come to New York via Hollywood. Their instant attraction was soon consummated. Sheridan portrays Dean as a sometimes corny romantic, who immediately began talking about being "together forever" and who needed "always to touch and be touched." While Dizzy managed to work, dancing in nightclubs all over New York or in summer stock musicals, Jimmy was either more unlucky or more choosy, and brooded over his disappointments. Though she touches on Dean's moody episodes and regular, unexplained disappearances, as well as his disclosure of a homosexual liaison with a California producer helpful to his career

Gabby Cabby: The Inside Scoop From New York's Lasy English-Speaking Cabdriver by Peter Franklin
Synopsis: Three hundred million listeners in seventy countries laugh every day as Peter Franklin, New York's radio-active cabdriver, steers them through the city's personalities, politics, and innumerable oddities over the world's airwaves. Now Frankling writes about the great adventure he's had driving a taxi twelve hours a day in the streets of New York City.

Politicians, celebrities, dogs, a transvestite, shoplifter, and even a corpse have graced Franklin's back seat. Upon picking up Henry Kissinger, the wacky hacky decided to have a little fun, as usual. "You look familiar to me. Weren't you the doctor on the soap opera General Hospital? No? The center fielder for the Boston Red Sox?"

Franklin speeds from the hilarious to the touching, such as when he chauffeurs terminally ill children on their dream trip to the big city. Filled with true tales, corny jokes, and even tips on finding a good bagel in the Big Apple, The Gabby Cabby takes you on a wild ride you won't forget.

Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines by Robert Lesser
Synopsis: The term pulp fiction has always had a certain resonance; but it is the artwork--bold, energized, dramatic, garishly colorful, and frequently grotesque--that has made pulp magazines memorable to so many people. Pulp Art is the groundbreaking--and ultimate--book on one of America's most important and spectacular forms of illustration art. At last, preserved in this volume are most of the still-existing originals created for the pulp covers, never before seen in all their sharply focused, vibrantly colored brilliance. Robert Lesser, a pioneering collector of this work and an expert on American popular culture, has assembled a gallery of these now-priceless originals.

Miller's Collecting the 1970s by Katherine Higgins
Synopsis: Remember Star Wars, the Sex Pistols, ABBA's Waterloo, David Cassidy, the Partridge Family, and Evel Knieval's daredevil motorbike stunts? All are familiar and popular icons of the 1970s, spawning toys and merchandise many of which are now hot collectables. This is a fascinating and informative look at the decade that saw Michael Jackson's first solo hit and skateboarders first surfing the streets of the USA. Miller's Collecting the 1970s is the latest in the best-selling series that includes Miller's Collecting the 1950s and Miller's Collecting the 1960s. Every item is given a dollar price range.

The Revenge of Kali-Ra by K.K. Beck
Synopsis: Nadia Wentworth, a big-bosomed, empty-headed Hollywood actress, chances upon a fictional character she wishes to portray. Taken from pulp novels by a jaded 1920s drug addict, Kali-Ra (the Queen of Doom) embodies a dangerous blend of eroticism, bondage, and violence. As soon as Nadia makes her plans known, grasping strangers appear on her doorstep: the author's ancient widow, an alcohol-soaked scriptwriter, and Kali-Ra's current incarnation. Beck's subsequent mixture of spoof, exaggerated confrontation, phoney mysticism, and murder spotlights Nadia's level-headed assistant Melanie, who saves the day.