Monday 11 September 2017

Reefer Boy - Hal Ellson

A SHOCKING NOVEL OF TEEN-AGE DOPE ADDICTS


PEDIGREE BOOKS 
FIRST PRINTING 1955 
LONDON, UK
FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE UK BY NEVILLE SPEARMAN 1955
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE USA AS THE GOLDEN SPIKE

From the reeking slums of a big city, from the twilight world of escape-hungry "junkies", comes this striking and powerful novel of tormented adolescents-neglected by society, victimised by ruthless dope-pedlars.

Published in cheap edition here for the first time its purpose is to focus attention upon a problem which is by no means confined to the big cities of the United States with which the book is concerned. It is now common knowledge that drug addiction is a widespread and rapidly growing evil in this country and the publishers believe that this factual account of its effects upon teenagers can serve as a timely warning and a deterrent.

The material of this book is sensational, but this is not a sensational novel. It is based on fact-the shameful, inescapable fact that society takes no responsibility for these lost and bitter children.

The author Hal Ellson, is a recreational therapist who comes into daily contact with the under-privileged and emotionally disturbed teenagers about whom he writes. More than two years of interviewing and several hundred pages of notes went into the preparation of the background of Reefer Boy. Mr. Ellson is also the author of Duke and Tomboy, whose total sales in America now top 3,000,000 copies.

Tuesday 11 July 2017

Go Ask Alice - Anonymous

'No one can read this book without crying for the young who find the world we have built too much to bear.' Sunday Mirror


CORGI BOOKS 0 552 09332 7
2ND PRINTING 1974 (1973)
LONDON, UK
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY EYRE METHUEN 1972

YOU CAN'T ASK ALICE ANYTHING ANYMORE.

BUT YOU CAN DO SOMETHING-READ HER DIARY. STRONG, PAINFULLY HONEST, CANDID. THE ACTUAL STORY OF A DESPERATE GIRL ON DRUGS AND ON THE RUN WHO ALMOST MADE IT.

"Go Ask Alice is a very frightening book-not because it is a story of how drugs can kill, but because it offers an insight, of remarkable naive force, into a style of life...because it is one person's story...because Alice was a born writer, with a natural gift of language and observation. It's not an enjoyable book but it is short and powerful-and dangerous-not for children."
Ray Gosling, The Times

"It shows the complexity of modern life, the awful pressures which plague even the 15-year-old who needs all her energies to cope with growing, it shows the realities of the much-discussed generation gap, the isolation of one who wanders off the track and, alone, finds it impossible to fight her way back."
The Guardian

"Everyone who reads it must ask that most agonising of all questions: 'Can it be that love is not enough?'"
Sunday Mirror

Wednesday 5 July 2017

Hell's Angels - Hunter S. Thompson

The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs of California


PENGUIN BOOKS 2801
1ST PRINTING 1967
LONDON, UK
COVER PHOTO BY CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

They shoot the hillcrest like a burst of dirty thunder, shoulder-length hair streaming from Cro-magnon faces, swastikas jangling, filthy death's-head-emblazoned denims cracking in the wind-the Hell's Angels are out on a run, and America's West Coast cowers in loathing...

Gang rape, pillage, murder...recent press reports of the Angels read like a plot-synopsis of a thriller-writer's worst dreams. Hunter Thompson found the reality different-but still disturbing. Here, with Rabelasian gusto, he tells of his experiences with Little Jesus, Charger Charlie the Child Molester, Big Frank ('You don't really jerk the eyeball, you just sorta spring it so it pops outa the socket') and a host of others. This is the inner truth of a phenomenon which relegates our Rockers to the nursery.

Sunday 2 July 2017

Together Brothers - Jim Robinson

Some mother killed their main man MR. KOOL and all at once they're Together Brothers


AWARD BOOKS 426
1ST PRINTING 1974
NEW YORK, USA
MOVIE TIE-IN

A WANTON MURDER
A MUTILATED BODY
A STALKING KILLER

"Mr. Kool? Why hit him?" the cop asked.

"Why?" His partner shrugged. "Because he was a black cop in a jungle...he just got too close to the animals."

Mr. Kool may have been the "fuzz"-"no better than any other jive-ass cop"-to most of the inhabitants of the ghetto. But to H.J., A.P., Monk, Gri'Gri' and Mau Mau he was a friend, a man who tried to understand young blacks and their problems. His death at the hands of a vengeful ex-con plunged the gang into a chilling manhunt-a race against time and terror in which five black kids pit their street know-how and motherwit against the steel cunning of a crazed killer...

Thursday 29 June 2017

Post-Prison Writings And Speeches - Eldridge Cleaver



PANTHER BOOKS 586 03555 9
SECOND PRINTING 1972 (1971)
LONDON, UK
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN HARDBACK BY JONATHAN CAPE 1969
COVER ART BY PAUL MAY

'It may be that not only in America but elsewhere in the world the lines of a new and terrible war are being traced - a racial war in which there will be a holocaust of innocents. At least, after reading Cleaver, we cannot say we do not know what the struggle is about.'
Stuart Hood SPECTATOR

'An essential addendum to Soul On Ice...this new book contains as powerfully seductive a prose as any being written now anywhere in the world...the results are piercing, brilliantly oratorical, poisonously funny, and quotable until the cows come home.'
Clive James NEW SOCIETY

'I plan to be around for quite a while'
Eldridge Cleaver

Tuesday 13 June 2017

Sticking It To The Man! - Iain McIntyre

Pop, Protest and Black Fiction Of The Counterculture, 1964-75


LEDA TAPE ORGANISATION 978 1922 078 04 9
FIRST PRINTING AUGUST 2012
USA

ROCKING REVOLUTIONARY READS!

Over 120 book covers and reviews of novels drawing on the social and political upheaval of the counterculture era.

Utopia, dystopia and cultural myopia!

Rock and roll, dope, and frugging in the streets!

Blaxploitation, Sexploitation, Youthsploitation!

Bikers, hippies and Black Panthers!

(All photographs are in Black and White)

Monday 12 June 2017

Yardie - Victor Headley

gang war hits London - yardie style!


PAN BOOKS 0 330 33042 X
1ST PRINTING 1993
LONDON, UK
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE X-PRESS LIMITED 1992

At Heathrow Airport's busy immigration desk, a newly-arrived Jamaican strolls through with a kilo of top-grade cocaine strapped to his body. And keeps on walking...

By the time the syndicate get to hear about the missing consignment, D is in business-for himself-as the Front Line's newest don.

But D's treachery will never be forgotten-or forgiven. The message filters down from the Yardie crime lords to their soldiers on the streets:

Find D. Find the merchandise. And make him pay for his sins...

'A book which everyone should read, and soon'
THE VOICE

'Who said you need a review in the quality Sundays to have a hit?'
CITY LIMITS

'The black Godfather...quite simply. Headley knows what time it is'
THE JOURNAL

'It's the ruffest, the tuffest and the boo-yacka of all modern gangster novels'
CARIBBEAN TIMES