Other books

As I was looking for the copyright date on the library copy of Donald E. Westlake's Bank Shot (1972) the other day, I happened to notice the page facing the title page, which reads:

Other Books

A Tale of Two Cities
The Magnificent Ambersons
So Big
W. C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The Merry Devil of Edmonton
An Account of Corsica
The Love Machine
Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature

An obvious joke, perhaps, but I'll admit to laughing out loud.

So Big and The Love Machine, in case you're wondering, are not examples of the soft-core erotic novels that Westlake wrote with his friend Lawrence Block when both were hungry writers back in the early 1960s; they're novels by Edna Ferber and Jacqueline Susann, respectively (and, according to a listing at alibris, the love machine "is Robin Stone, a TV-network titan around whom women flock.")

Those soft-core novels will soon be seeing the light of day once again, however: via Sarah Weinman I recently learned that, according to Block, Subterranean Press will be reprinting all three in one volume titled Honey Girls and Hellcats next year.