Saturday, 7 May 2016

A Hatful Of Rain - Michael Vincente Gazzo

A Shocking Drama of Raw Human Needs
A 20th Century-Fox production,
starring Eva Marie Saint,
Don Murray, Anthony Franciosa,
and Lloyd Nolan, Filmed 
in CinemaScope

Including 8 pages of scenes from the movie


SIGNET BOOKS S1412
NEW YORK, USA
FIRST PRINTING JUNE 1957
FIRST PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY RANDOM HOUSE
MOVIE TIE-IN

Compulsion!

A powerful movie and one of the most outspoken Broadway hits of recent years, this is the compelling drama of a secret drug addict - sick, ashamed and desperate - whose baffling behavior drives his troubled wife into his brother's arms.

"Has scenes of frightening power." - Time

Friday, 6 May 2016

Young Man With A Horn - Dorothy Baker

The brilliant, tough and racy novel of a great jazz musician


TOWER BOOKS T-409
CLEVELAND, OHIO, USA
FIRST PRINTING JULY 1946
COVER ART BY GUNTER

The theme of this novel is as old history-the battle of the artist against the world. But the subject of it is as new as the latest dance tune. Young Man with a Horn is the story of a jazz musician who is a genius in the art of "swing," of his meteoric rise to fame, and of the burning conflict between body and spirit.

Rick Martin is still in his early twenties when a famous orchestra leader hears him and brings him to New York, where he becomes a sensation, recognized as the greatest trumpeter in the business. He is unswervingly devoted to one thing-his music. Then, in a Harlem night club, he meets Amy North, brilliant, perverse, complex-everything that Rick is not.

Here is a story with a ring of truth; the story of an artist burdened with that difficult baggage-the soul of an artist. The clean-cut, unpretentious style, the rapid tempo are beautifully in keeping with the theme.

Thursday, 5 May 2016

The Naked Lunch - William Burroughs


OLYMPIA PRESS TRAVELER'S COMPANION SERIES No. 76
PARIS, FRANCE
FIRST PRINTING 1959

Wednesday, 4 May 2016

The Changeling - Robin Jenkins

POWERFUL...
PROVOCATIVE...
With probing insight and complete honesty a major novelist explores the forces that drive a slum kid towards his final, terrible destiny.


CORGI BOOKS SN897
LONDON, UK
FIRST PRINTING 1960
COVER ART BY RICHARDS

THE CHANGELING

The challenging, provocative story of a teen-age boy from the Glasgow slums, and the well-meaning schoolmaster whose attempts to rescue the boy from his sordid background ends in disaster.

Tuesday, 3 May 2016

Term Of Trial - James Barlow


HAMISH HAMILTON
LONDON, UK
 FIRST PRINTING 1961
COVER ART BY FRITZ WEGNER

JAMESS BARLOW'S new novel brings the oldest struggle in the world, the endless fight between good and evil, into IVc classroom in the slum Railway Street Secondary Modern School. Here are, under the care of Graham Wier, forty pupils, most of them dull, indifferent and hostile, but a few eager and worthwhile.
Wier, shabby, idealistic and sensitive, is a small man-many of his pupils are obviously far stronger than their teacher. His main enemy in IVc is Mitchell, a fifteen-year-old with the physique of a man and the cunning of his slum environment.
Mitchell's plans include the seduction of Shirley Taylor. In a form of pupils not very willing to learn, Shirley is outstanding. She is a shy, honest, likeable girl, attractive to Mitchell because of her physical appearance and to Wier because of her sincerity. But the battle is more complicated than Wiers knows, for Shirley is in love with her teacher. She is subtle despite her youth and persuades Wier to coach her at home. After a series of innocent episodes, Shirley concludes that her teacher is at last in love with her, and in a London hotel, she declares herself. But Wier's affections are those of a teacher; he rejects her-gently, even reluctantly, but irretrievably. Her love turns to immense hatred. Knowing how it will hurt him she goes with bitter eagerness to be soiled by Mitchell, and with a cunning heart and a shy face complains to her mother of Wier's behaviour.
A charge of indecent assault is brought against Wier and the evidence is alarming. Events that were tender, innocent, now assume a guilty aspect. His trial in the magistrate's court and the effect of the trial upon his life form the climax of the book.
James Barlow's last novel, The Patriots, was one of the big fiction successes of 1960. Film rights were sold for a high price, and it was the Book Society's Choice, has been published in America and is now being translated into nine foreign languages. Term Of Trial, with its frank understanding of today's young delinquents and the awful power they can command, will, we believe create a still greater sensation.

Monday, 2 May 2016

Frail On North Circular - Macgregor Urquhart


BOARDMAN 380
FIRST PRINTING 1962
LONDON, UK
COVER ART BY MCLOUGHLIN

The body was discovered in the River Roding, not two hundred yards from the busy North Circular road. It was that of a young redhead, and it was dressed only in underclothing. Cause of death was immediately obvious-a stab wound in the heart. Sergeant Renning discovered the body. Chief Inspector Smarles got the case-and Renning along with it.

A curious man, Smarles. Untidy, scruffy almost, careless of externals, sometimes oblivious of his physical surroundings, yet all the time aware on the five planes of awareness of what really matters.

His investigations centre on a dingy restaurant, the type of place known to its habitues as a caff. Here the weak-minded son of the manageress entertains hid friends-the boys already well on the road to delinquency, the girls matching them stride for stride. There is, too, a senile seller of call girl lists, a dim ex-pug, a tired and faded prostitute. And behind them all, manipulating them as though they were puppets, the sinister figure of the Guv'nor. But everyone is too frightened to give Smarles his name.

So Smarles-a dirty rozzer as he often tells himself-investigates. But in a way quite strange to most fictional detectives. He listens to the talk of delinquent youth, he puts up with the officiousness of Sergeant Renning. He thinks bitter thoughts about his superiors, is offensive to his juniors. And finally, he pounces.

Here is a novel as fresh and original as the conception of Chief Inspector Smarles. The Chief Inspector will probably never be promoted, but readers will not complain so long as he remains the same wholly original figure.

Sunday, 1 May 2016

The Kids - Tony Parsons


NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY 450 02911 5
LONDON, UK
FIRST PRINTING JULY 1976

Blondie, Dogend, Rod and Chiv are THE KIDS OK

They are the kids of today, the toughest in their tough world of high-rise flats, pills, booze, careless violence, petty crime, casual sex and drugs.

The kids cut a violent swathe through the East End, terrorising dance-halls, schools and soccer grounds. It is a life that leads to Borstal and the big, bad world of organised crime and dealing heroin to the grand people from across the tracks.

But the good times don't roll for ever, and violence breeds violence - as The Kids discover, to their cost.