PUBLISHER: Quirk Books, 9/2017GENRE: Nonfiction/Horror novels
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: A
SYNOPSIS: Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of the 1970s and ’80s . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby. It’s an affectionate, nostalgic, and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of two iconic decades, complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles. You’ll find familiar authors, like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, and many more who’ve faded into obscurity. Plus recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.
MY THOUGHTS: This book is worth the price just for the book covers alone. The author is very funny and entertaining. The book is a large and heavy paperback. It's full-color with thick pages. The cover has French flaps. It has eight chapters: Hail, Satan, Creepy Kids, When Animals Attack, Real Estate Nightmares, Weird Science, Gothic and Romantic, Inhumanoids, Splatterpunks, Serial Killers, and Super Creeps. My favorite section is called Toys 'R' Death, from the Creepy Kids chapter, about killer dolls/stuffed animals.
Humorous spoilers are given for most of the books mentioned so be careful not to read too much if it's a book you're interested in.
Brief biographies are given for thirty-one authors and some for publishing houses.
Too many titles were mentioned in the book to list here but you can see photos of the titles from the "credits" section here. Click on each image to enlarge. Edit- Someone created a list on Goodreads of all the books mentioned, here.
You can see many images from inside the book here. Click on each photo to enlarge.
The only things this lacked was a list of films that were based on horror novels and maybe a listing of all the horror novels published during the 70s and 80s. A large task, I know.
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