Customer Reviews

Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties

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Sin-A-Rama is the only book on this subject on the market today. Sure, there have been plenty of books discussing the 1940's/1950's pulp paperbacks (sci fi, mystery, etc titles) but this is the only one thus far to delve into the realm of the taboo world of 1960's sleaze paperbacks! The editors do a wonderful job constructing the historical basis for these lurid gems, while also providing the reader with pages and pages of full-color pictures of these naughty novels. The book features great articles by Jay A. Gertzman, Brittany A. Daley, Earl Kemp, and Steve Gertz to name a few. Furthermore, the book features excellent reference material at the back including lists of pen names by Earl Kemp and a publisher's catalog by Brittany A. Daley. The book is also littered with interesting quotes from these rule-breaking books. I would highly advise readers to seek out this book! Oh and I don't know if Amazon.com's personnel ever reads these reviews but there is an error on this book's order page. The editor list is incorrect as the editors were actually (as listed on the back of the book): Brittany A. Daley, Hedi El Kholti, Earl Kemp, Miriam Linna, and Adam Parfrey.

It soon becomes apparent when reading the first few chapters of this interesting book that in this tiny part of the publishing industry were an equally small number of people (mostly males, obviously) yet they were responsible for producing millions of trash paperbacks that sold in the Fifties, Sixties and early Seventies. This book is a celebration of their endeavours.

Because of the very competitive arena in which these publishers worked, with twenty or more new titles each month the covers were the main selling point and the three hundred plus reproduced in this book show that you don't mess with a successful formulae. They had to show a female (unless it was for the gay market) as provocatively posed as possible with a two or three word title to complete the package. It has to be said though that the quality of these illustrations is pretty poor which only makes the work of one or two artists really stand out. Robert Bonfils, in particular, consistently turned out quality art and sleaze artists like Stanton, Bilbrew and Bill Ward were made for this market. No cover design could be too tacky for this publishing genre.

The bulk of the book are the cover reproductions (each with date, publisher, author and artist credits) with several short essays in the front. The two about soft core publishing on the East and West coasts were interesting because they actually explain the background to the publishers and more importantly how the books were distributed through the network of adult book stores in most cities and towns. The back has a useful list of publishers and authors pseudonyms. I was slightly disappointed with the books production though, there is no real page design, paragraphs are excessively long and columns just fall short because no one bothered to make adjustments to the picture sizes to compensate. Despite this 'Sin-a-rama' will probably be the only book to comprehensively cover the publishing world of paperback sleaze.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

The countless lurid, sexually suggestive pictures of the covers of the mass-market paperbacks of the decade of the 1960s are what cannot help but attract the most attention. But there's more to this retrospective than the sensationalistic covers for enthusiasts of popular culture and paperback book collectors. An inside view of the "sleaze paperback" industry of the time is recounted in essays by four writers; one of whom spent some time in jail for peddling [...]. Passages from some of the books illustrate the genre's elliptical, yet unmistakable style for dealing with the sexual subjects and scenes so the books could get by the [...] censorship. The hundreds of paperbacks identified by their covers with author, publisher, and artist in the caption are divided into main categories appealing to readers of different backgrounds and sexual fantasies. "Sick Suburb," "Butch Swish," and "Sin Revue" are some of these. Another feature beyond the pictures is 15 interviews with writers in the field. A listing of the publishers, an index of pseudonyms used by most of the writers working in the genre, and a second index of the authors real names followed by their pseudonyms are found in the back matter. All in all, a copious collection of a vein of book cover art which also has material on the genre as an area of popular culture flourishing in the 1960s and influencing the culture's regard of sexual matter and treatment of it in following decades.

Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties is a full-color gallery of paperback cover artwork from "sleazy" sex-themed paperback books of the 1960's. An introduction surveys the industry and history behind such publications, but most of the text within Sin-A-Rama consists of excerpts from the paperbacks themselves. The covers, done in the realism style with muted shades so common in the 60's, are often quite revealing; bare breasts and nipples are not uncommon, as are a number of kinky, if exaggerated situations. An eye-opening visual survey of the sensuality marketed to popular American culture during the era of the sexual revolution.

Firstly, the gallery of covers of these paperbacks is really well-done. This is an art book. It would make a great coffee table book as long as your in-laws aren't coming over to visit! This is a very fun book to flip through, but there are a lot of good stories in it too. For example John Gilmore (Severed: The True Story of the "Black Dahlia" Murder, Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Trip) recalls getting into the sleazy paperback business with Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Ed Wood) as a mentor (as he also does in Laid Bare). A lot of great pulp writers (Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block) have books featured in this beautiful tome. There are really beautiful covers (like the one on this book illustrates), as well as some rather silly ones. This will become your guilty pleasure. You'll want to leave it on your coffee table, but you'll probably hide it in your bookshelf.

287 pages which include hundreds and hundreds of cover scans,A four page listing of pseudonyms and a comprehensive history of these books The authors, the artists and the publishers. There were 30 to 40 thousand copies of each book published. Now try to find one for under 20 bucks....

Campy, trashy, bad, tacky, sleazy... this should appeal to anyone that loves John Waters movies or similar cultural underbelly fare. A big, thick book of fun NOT for the entire family. The text is as interestingly funny as the covers. Sure, it's sexist in the extreme, but we just didn't know better back then, now did we? This totally appeals to the sense of iconic, nostalgic and retro sex and anyone that still thinks "the jerk" is a still cool dance to do and girlwatcher sunglasses are de riguer will love this book. I've bought it for 2 people so far and they can't keep their friends hands off of them... a great FUN gift idea that keeps on giving and making you laugh out loud with every page turn.