The Paperback Show Podcast

In our first episode, Paperback Show host/producer Ricky Lee Grove introduces the Paperback Show Podcast. He shares the story of his first paperback purchase at the age of 12 years old. At a local used paperback shop, he picked up an Ace Double paperback which contained Philip E. High's Reality Forbidden  and A. Bertram Chandler's Contraband in Otherspace . He reviews the two novels and outlines the history of Ace books. guest Lisa Morton In the second half of the Paperback Show, Ricky Lee introduces author Lisa Morton , a multiple Stoker-award-winning author, and discusses her excellent paperback collection of Philip K. Dick's books along with many other paperback-related topics. Music: US Army Blues Band " Live at Blues Alley ". Available at Freemusicarchive.org Show Notes Philip E. High Ace Books  overview Ace science fiction specials edited by Donald Wollheim and Terry Carr, a great place to start collecting paperback science fiction as many are st...

Episode 1 - Covers

  Ugetsu Monogatori 1953 (picnic scene)  I first came across  Tales of Moonlight and Rain  after viewing Mizoguchi's brilliant film  Ugetsu Monogatori  (1953) which adapts two stories (  Homecoming  and  Bewitched ) from a collection of 16th-century Japanese Gothic tales written by  Ueda Akinari .  Since I was deeply impressed with the Mizoguchi film, I wanted to read the two original stories from the collection. So when Criterion released their wonderful 2-disc set of Ugetsu (the name was shortened to one word for American audiences) they also included the two stories in a small booklet and I was finally able to read them. I was entranced and immediately wanted to find a good edition of the full collection. And thanks to working in a great bookstore, I found an excellent collection published by Columbia University Press in 1972. It reprints the University of Tokyo Press edition which came out the year before.  I've s...

I’m always looking through articles and bibliographies on books; searching for new authors and new reading experiences. So when Caustic Cover Critic  recommended  Broken April in his Best-Books-of-the-Year (2009), I was intrigued. “ It’s very well written, which helps, but the underlying idea is even more fascinating. The setting is Kadare’s native Albania, where the hill-dwelling people have this mad system of honor and code of behavior called the ‘Kanun ’”. The story is simple. The central character, 26-year-old Gjorg Berisha, is returning to his country village in Albania. He is forced, through the 'Kanun" code, to murder someone in another family in revenge for a previous killing in his own family. The results of his actions, which come as a surprise, place him inside of the very code he wishes he could break out of. Ismail Kadare  Kadare’s theme of how the past influences the present, is so beautifully wound into the story, that you find yourself wondering about...

  At the bookstore where I worked for over 20 years, I rang up hundreds of couples. With the traditional middle-aged male/female couple, I noticed that men often bought books on war and women bought romances. Of course, this is a generalization because many traditional couples bought all kinds of different books. But, in general, older men usually like war-related books. I've been mulling over why this is so and here are some of my ideas.  Men born in the late forties and fifties were inundated with war stories for most of their lives. Either their fathers or a friend's father probably fought in WWII and Korea. They heard stories directly from soldiers about war and it's consequences. Also, television took over from the radio and covered every aspect of past wars and current ones. Korea, Vietnam, and more filled the airwaves and minds of adolescents and teens. I remember watching endless war movies and imagined myself as John Wayne fighting for our country. Young girls were...

 I was brought up on Western movies. Growing up in post-war Arizona, I don't think any young kid could avoid them.We were all glued to the TV in the 50's and 60's. All the best stuff happened on TV (and in the comic books). Vietnam war, man on the moon, civil rights, peace demonstrations, late night talk shows (Alan Berg blew me away) and a million westerns played endlessly on that flickering box. And because my family could have cared less about me, I put most of my time learning about the world through the magic box (the Glass Teat, as Harlan Ellison called it). My grandfather, Harry Fanter, spent the winter with us. He was from Nebraska, so Arizona winters were like summertime to him. With my fathers help, Harry built a little one-room cabin out of a big parking garage we had on our one and half acre lot. It was nice and cozy with a bed, a propane tank, a table and a nice porch looking over our big backyard. He had Black Jack Pershings picture over his bed and when thing...

 I recently acquired four new Ross MacDonald vintage paperbacks and wanted to share them. Ross MacDonald is one of my favorite American mystery writers. He was the first mystery author to receive a front page review in the New York Times Book Review (Underground Man, reviewed by Eudora Welty) and he was instrumental in taking the mystery genre out of the pulps and into literature. I still think he tops Chandler and Hammett in his writing skills. You will be richly rewarded if you venture into your local used bookstore and pick up one of his Lew Archer novels. You can find more about Ross MacDonald  here

I love shopping for books. Recently went to the Iliad Bookshop in North Hollywood, CA. and spent a couple hours going through the paperback collection. Discovered some great paperbacks at reasonable prices: Gothic Romance, Black Fiction, Mystery, Naval Fiction and Literary Fiction. I found a great old Penguin Classics paperback edition of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain and an excellent Quentin Crisp autobiography. I've been collecting the older, mid-century Penguin classics for years. I just really like the design and they read very well.  If you live in Los Angeles, you must visit the Iliad Bookshop. They are the best. Not to mention they have two of the coolest bookstore cats around - Zeus and Apollo! Covers Gallery

I can't seem to stop reading the remarkable trilogy of novels by Jeff Vandemeer collectively titled The Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance). The one volume hardback edition came out last week and I've dived into it with no lack of enthusiasm considering it's my third reading. “ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ” ― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation What makes these books so fascinating? They are beautifully written for one thing and a pleasure to read. The depictions of nature (the southern Florida landscape/seashore) are remarkable and crystal clear. Plus, the story is so involving/moving that the characters and situations are becoming part of my own life memory.  There are scenes in these three novels that will shock you, creep you out, amuse you, move you and anger you (among only a few reactions to the characters/story). And the characters are like...

   I've been selling books for over 40 years and I still love the job. In fact, it's no longer a job to me, but a way of life. Although I've got an Amazon store and an Ebay store (I sell collectibles there), I decided to create a boutique bookstore which would work in support of the Paperback Show: Grove Used Books. I will feature books I've reviewed on the podcast there along with hand-picked paperbacks and unique book selections. I'm also featuring select DVD's and Blu ray discs that are related to the subjects I cover in the podcast.  I'll be running special sales and discounts over the course of the year. Please come on by and check out Grove Used Books

" In Catch-22 , Joseph Heller invented a motif for the modern world. The book shaped everything that came after it, establishing Heller's reputation as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century "                   -back of paperback edition of Hellers short stories " It became enormously popular, particularly among younger readers during the Vietnam War era, and its title became a catchphrase       -Oxford Companion to American Literature Somewhere between these two quotes lies the real Joseph Heller and the real Catch-22 . I've spent the better part of the last month reading this wonderful novel and pondering all of the puffery surrounding it (along with its author), and I have some ideas and observations that I'd like to share. I've been a focused and obsessed reader going on for 40 years now. Ever since I walked into Humphrey's Family Paperbacks in Glendale, AZ., and picked out a book to...