(Note–Adam Kluger is not only a top notch writer and artist, he knows when and where to aim a camera. I think we’d all love to have out hands on some of the wares in this window. Reminds me of the time, at least twenty years ago, when I found eight original Amazing Stories dating back to before The War (WWII for the very young) at the local St. Vincent DePaul. I spent something like five bucks and got them all (those things can pack a big price amongst collectors) and I gave to to a friend’s wife so she could give them to him as a birthday present–told her to leave my name out of it. He is a big collector of such things and that made it the hit of the birthday party. His wife, also my friend, was grateful because he is one of those people who has everything. It got me drinks with the good stuff in it and it is a good thing to make people happy. I imagine most of the items in Adam’s pictures will do that for anyone with a love for books.–Leila)
Adam Kluger (And there will be a gallery coming by Dreck soon)
Saragun Springs 
The photos reminded me of browsing at the venerable old Trading Post resellit shop in the shadows of The Gateway Arch in S. Illinois during the 1960s. There I’d find awesome ACE Double SCI-FI novels for 45 cents (Trading Post second-hand price ten cents). There would also be lurid “adult” novels and even primitive graphic novels, with select sketches at the end of the chapters, in the event your imagination wasn’t heated enough already. Novels by Erle Stanley Gardner which retailed for a quarter new and ten cents used. Plus my favorite, reprints of old Street & Smith Doc Savage novels. I must’ve had a hundred. Thanks, as Bob Hope used to say, for the memories.
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Hi Leila/Adam
First off I really enjoyed your story of finding “The Amazing Stories” that sounds redundant or something… I’m always looking for First Ed. or First print books to sell on ebay–sounds awful and wholly commercial, but this un-amazing story is true. I haven’t ever hit anything big like a Huck Finn first Ed but I’ve sold quite a few used books along the way.
Great photos of the paperbacks! The Pulp Fiction Era reminds me of my Dad’s John D. MacDonald paperbacks.
CJA
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CJA
Hey, for all it is worth, a little capitalism ain’t a bad thing! I thought about making a profit myself–but it was a very long time ago. Not sure if I’d been as generous if I found them last week!
Leila
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Adam
Thanks for sending these awesome and resonant pictures to the Springs. They fit the aesthetic and the mission of Saragun perfectly. Wonderful photos on a technical level, both in the selection of subject matter and in the execution of these pieces.
I love the bringing together of Jack and F. Scott here. Many are unaware that Kerouac was just as big a fan of Fitzgerald and Hemingway as he was of Thomas Wolfe and Henry Miller. Writers get typecast, and people think of Kerouac as a Wolfe and Miller kind of writer, which he was. But he has just as much in common with F. Scott and Ernie as he ever did with Wolfe and Miller. It’s one of the things that makes him so relevant now – he doesn’t directly resemble any of them, but he synthesized all of them into a new thing. These pictures bring them together in a wordless way that is like literary criticism in pictures.
Also fascinating to see the beat era paperbacks. It shows how marketable these kinds of books were at the time. They had a place on the shelf beside things like science fiction and detective novels, i.e. their own popular niche. And like anything popular, a bunch of people who weren’t genuine jumped on the bandwagon. The real stuff remains, the rip-offs are a memory, and they are all part of a moment in America, i.e. the history of the USA, that will last for a very long time, and which continues to have a profound impact and influence on almost all good writers and artists in the USA today, including the best rap and hip-hop artists, and road movies, etc. Johnny Cash, more than once, actually many times, called himself a beat writer. He perhaps was not literally one, but he was one in spirit for sure, which is what matters most.
Thanks again for sending in this truly inspiring, inspiriting and exciting work!
Dale
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