159 books
—
46 voters
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties” as Want to Read:
Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties
by
, , ,
“What most distinguished these paperbacks wasn't their narratives but their frequently amazing covers, swashes of erotic eye-candy that, as surely as a Warhol soupcan, now define an era. And so the emphasis in this first-rate celebration is on the covers, with hundreds reproduced in what looks like accurate (i.e., soul-shocking) color.”—Publishers Weekly
268 pages
Published
November 1st 2004
by Feral House
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
Sin-A-Rama,
please sign up.
Be the first to ask a question about Sin-A-Rama
Community Reviews
(showing 1-30)
Less is more. I'm of two minds over this idea. On the one hand, I definitely agree with it in terms of the arts (books, film, music, etc.), while on the other I definitely think there is some truth in the saying that the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. So there's this struggle within me, constantly raging, Manichean, furious. I could never find balance, you see? I never thought I'd find it, and never would have dreamed that when I did, it would be at a garage sale three doors down.
...more
Sin-A-Rama is a deliciously sleazy thrill ride through a repressed decade of sin, vice and kinky sex. All the bases are covered here. Suburban swingers. Supernatural sin. Racial swapping. Science Fiction porn. Counterculture orgies. Drug-induced madness. Each lovingly spread in jaw-droppingly pristine photos of the original covers. Behold the stark, psychedelica of Robert Bonfils' nude starlets. Wallow in the bullet-breasted psychopaths inked by Gene Bilbrew. Eat up the soapy, high drama illustr
...more
Robert Silverberg’s opening essay “My life as a Pornographer” is the wow-factor from the writer’s perspective: He wrote one hundred fifty (150!) 50,000 word novels in the five years between 1959 and 1964!! His essay is a high point of this book for sure. The book also includes interesting essays on the east coast and the west coast soft-porn (considered hard-core at the the time) publishing scenes in the 1950s and 1960s before the supreme court decisions on obscenity. There’s also a too short in
...more
Untold history of Adult Paperbacks, A TRULY MIND-ALTERING WORK!
This was a depressing book.
More picture than history (and that's just fine with me), Sin-A-Rama provides an overview of the era of the sex paperback. We do get some history, and some pretty entertaining biographies of various writers and publishers, but totally worth it for being as close as I'm ever likely to get to Clyde Allison's James Bond parodies featuring the intrepid Agent 0008. You will be mine, Platypussy, oh yes, someday you will be mine.
A mixed bag: Historical essays are hit and miss; excerpts from novels are almost all lame; cover art reproductions (the main attraction) range from bland to titillating to are-you-kidding-me?; and the descriptive catalog of publishers and the list of author pseudonyms are a service to humankind.
Endlessly entertaining collection of images from the period of time that obviously churned out the most interesting smut book covers: The sixties. Intro by Lydia Lunch.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
