The great American paperback : an illustrated tribute to legends of the book

A wonderful guide to American paperbacks, with an emphasis on pulp fiction of all types. The book has chapters that cover the main publishers--Fawcett, Ace, Bantam, etc. Lupoff provides a narrative history of paperbacks from 1939, but the real reason for owning this book is the collection of full color paperback covers it presents, together with Lupoff's usually interesting capsule descriptions. Occasionally (for a book I have read), the description would seem to indicate that Lupoff doesn't really know what it is about (John McPartland's RIPE FRUIT, for instance), but overall this is a very compelling volume that you won't be able to put down until you have finished.