Wednesday 18 May 2016

Send Me No Lillies - Paul Denver

A penetrating account of what makes a jazz musician tick


CONSUL BOOKS 1448
LONDON, UK
FIRST PRINTING 1965

"Send Me No Lillies" takes a hard look at what makes a dedicated jazz musician tick; in particular, the inner compulsion which drives him and in the end compensates even for the destruction of his personal happiness.

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Is Rosemary Your Daughter? - Shänne Sands

SHE LIVED FOR KICKS..'IT'S A BALL, MAN'.


NEVILLE SPEARMAN 
LONDON, UK
FIRST PRINTING 1967

Is Rosemary Your Daughter? is a shattering, true story that concerns every one of us.

Rosemary, the desperate lonely unwanted child of an unmarried mother. Her metamorphosis from a young teenager into Bloody Mary the beatnik raging and torn - worn out with its own rottenness. Beaten by its own sorrow.

In England today there are many who are sick in mind and body, but surely nothing can touch for sadness and shame the mixed-up, untidy lives of England's outcast young. the unwanted, the beats and the bastards. All the out-to-shock-the-world young who are tarnished before they even know what life is about.

Rosemary lived for 'kicks', for 'it's a ball, man'. Drugs and sex followed her everywhere, along with the long-haired, unwashed males she slept around with.

Rosemary began by being lonely and unhappy. She took her own life after the jazz and jabs became unbearable, because nobody cared a damn about her.

Monday 16 May 2016

Girls And Gangs - Don James

 A Revealing Case-History Report On The Frightening Growth Of Female Delinquency


MONARCH BOOKS MB 534
DERBY, CONNECTICUT, USA
PAPERBACK ORIGINAL - FIRST PRINTING MARCH 1963
COVER ART BY RAFAEL M. DESOTO

WHAT ABOUT THE GIRLS?

A great deal has been written about boys who, as members of street gangs, flout the law and make a mockery of civilised rules of behavior. But what about the girls? How large a part is played by them in the spreading sickness called juvenile delinquency?

Unfortunately the girls, who had until recently been satisfied to play a subordinate role in gangdom, are now taking off on their own, stealing, fighting, gouging and killing-all for glory, revenge and kicks.

Here is a comprehensive study of this new development, a case-history account of girls "gone wrong," of teen-agers who resort to prostitution, alcohol and dope-anything that will implement their rebellion and give them status in their own crime-infested, immoral world.

Sunday 15 May 2016

Scrubbers - Alexis Lykiard

It's a crime what Borstal can do to a girl.


STAR BOOKS 0 352 32343 9
LONDON, UK
FIRST PRINTING 1982
MOVIE-TIE IN

'scrubbers'

Annetta and Carol - when they broke out of Borstal they were friends. But now they're caught, back inside, sent to the tough, closed Borstal - it's different. Annetta thinks Carol's betrayed her - and she's going to get her brutal revenge.

SCRUBBERS is a glimpse into a closed world - the violence, the hopelessness, the uneasy alliances between the inmates, built on love and lust and fear. But SCRUBBERS also captures the unique affinity that exists between the prisoners, the rough, bawdy humour that helps them endure the desperate life behind prison bars.

Saturday 14 May 2016

Tomboy - Hal Ellson

A Shocking Novel of Teen-Age Gang Life in the Slums of Manhattan


BANTAM BOOKS 945
NEW YORK, USA
FIRST PRINTING OCTOBER 1951

A GRAVE CHALLENGE

"IN HIS NEW NOVEL, Hal Ellson rips aside the words 'juvenile delinquency' and shows the full extent of the horror and tragedy beneath.

"Far more graphic than court records or newspaper reports, his shocking picture of the operation of teen-age gangs exposes one of the major social problems of our large cities. Mr. Ellson's aim is not only to describe the deplorable practices of groups of so-called hoodlums, but to point directly to two of the chief causes of their delinquency: first, always, their appalling home life; second, the maelstrom outside in which they are set adrift-an environment compounded of crime, violence, poverty, insecurity and fear.

"Some readers may feel that the author could have presented his case more persuasively by replacing some of the sensationalism with constructive scenes, but Mr. Ellson seems deliberately to have avoided this method. He takes the whole shocking and brutal story and flings it down as a challenge. There can be no argument, at any rate, as to whom it may concern. It concerns us all."

-reprinted from the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Friday 13 May 2016

Gang Rumble - Edward Ronns

The city streets became a jungle of fear and terror!


RED SEAL BOOKS 153
LONDON, UK
NO DATE

GANG WAR!

The time:
Saturday night-eleven o'clock.

The place:
Sandor's Bowling Alley.

The operation:
Lancers vs. Violets in a teen-age gang rumble destined to shake the city to its concrete core.

The result:
Death - sudden, violent, and senseless.

Thursday 12 May 2016

Taffy - Philip B. Kaye

"..A FIERCE, JARRING AND IMPORTANT PIECE OF WORK.." N.Y. TIMES


AVON BOOKS 377
NO DATE (1951)
NEW YORK, USA
COVER ART BY RAY JOHNSON

"It is tough like 'Studs Lonnigan'...a devastating chronicle...on juvenile delinquency..."
N.Y. DAILY MIRROR

"Mr. Kaye has written frightening, brilliant scenes that show Taffy and his gang getting drunk, robbing an apartment, playing pool, fighting. Taffy and his friends...are terribly alive, completely believable."
Saturday Review of Literature

"...terrifically human, this novel is a fierce, jarring, and important piece of work."
N.Y. Times

Rarely has a book so faithfully recorded the drama that unfolds daily in the slum sections of our great cities. The story of TAFFY could be the story of a kid any of us might know. We feel sure that after having read it, you will better understand the normal urges of youth and what happens when a sordid environment perverts a boy until delinquency results.