'Take A Lesbian To Lunch' And Other Great Pulp Novel Covers (PHOTOS)

My "Pop Sensation" blog is dedicated to celebrating the beauty, absurdity and unintentional hilarity of mid-20th-century paperback cover art. I started collecting old paperbacks in grad school- it was my preferred form of dissertation procrastination. I read Robert Polito's bio of Jim Thompson in the fall of 1995 and was mesmerized by the small black & white reproductions of the lurid covers that graced the first editions of most of Thompson's work. I couldn't afford those books (highly collectible), but it turned out that lots of cheap paperbacks from the same time period, with equally lurid covers, could be found in the dusty corners of Ann Arbor's many used book stores, often for just a dollar or two. I amassed over 2000 books in just a few years. Then, my collection just sat there. Eventually, God invented blogs, and now my books get the admiration/mocking they deserve.