A local seller of used books currently has a sale shelf where everything on display is five for a dollar. Here are the books I selected (where I know the cover artist/photographer, the info is in the file name):

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A couple of the books have a bit of damage, but as a Malzberg collector, I’d have paid five or six bucks for The Spread alone, and as an collector of paperbacks with interesting cover art, I’d definitely have paid a buck or two for Roger Lamanna’s Black Hit Woman. Also, although I don’t usually buy covers with photos on the front, I made an exception in the case of To the Beat of Drum based on a sudden idiosyncratic insight (or delusion) that Dennis Rolfe’s composition is some sort of visual kissing cousin to the famous double portrait of Rene Magritte and his wife Georgette, The Shadow and Its Shadow (1932):

Not to mention Pierre Bonnard’s Nude in an Interior (1912-14):

Needless to say, I left the bookstore that day with a spring in my step — although I must admit, the short stack of SF paperbacks with cover art by Richard Powers that I purchased at the same time might also have contributed to my good mood.

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BONUS SCAN:

The list of “Kozy Books” on the back cover of Water Witch is amusing, I think:

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Cozy up with Kozy Books!

Keywords: Water Witch, Murder by Proxy, The Spread, Black Hit Woman, To Beat of Drum.