Showing results by author "Lawrence Block" in All Categories

One of this book's six versatile ladies sums it up like this: "When we first began to get into swinging, our whole orientation was innocent, and essentially limited to the idea of mate-swapping. That was what we thought swinging was about--you met with another couple, paired off, and had sex. We never considered the possibility that homosexual relations would be involved. Well, you live and you learn. I found out today I liked making love to another woman. Today I can't envision swinging without lesbian relations. And I understand that ninety-two percent of wives who get into swinging also ...

Scanning the world's literature, including the vast library of forbidden books, John Warren Wells provides a searching and comprehensive overview of human sexuality. Chapters include: The Endless Search for Eros, The Techniques of Provoking Desire, Positions for Coitus, Extracoital Copulation, Masturbation, Pluralistic Sex Practices, and more. Introduction by Benjamin Morse, M.D.

Lawrence Block has this to say about Flesh Parade: “FLESH PARADE was first published in 1962 by Midnight Reader, a sister imprint of Nightstand Books. The title was supplied by an editor, and we’ll never know what my own title may have been. The publisher was fond of two-word titles, often with favorite words: Flesh, Slut, Lust. They could slip past the censors while letting the reader know what kind of book he was getting. “I’ve had a complicated relationship with my early pseudonymous books. There was a time when I rejoiced in the fact that they had not been printed on acid-free ...

LAWRENCE BLOCK observes: “SIN BUM was published sometime in 1963 as Midnight Reader #472. (Midnight Reader was a sister imprint of Nightstand Books.) “It may have been the final book I wrote as Andrew Shaw, the last title of mine brought out by publisher William Hamling. Or not—it’s impossible to tell. There were other titles by other hands than mine that would be published under my Andrew Shaw pen name, and there would be a stream of retitled books reissued in the 1970s with their prose slightly tweaked to reflect relaxed taboos, but it was sometime in 1963 that I stopped writing ...

Lawrence Block on Lust Weekend: “LUST WEEKEND was written in 1962 and published that same year by Nightstand Books. The title’s an obvious play on THE LOST WEEKEND, Charles Jackson’s groundbreaking novel of alcoholism. The book was a sensation, as was the film adaptation starring Ray Milland. “The people at Nightstand generally changed the titles on my manuscripts. But LUST WEEKEND made the cut, and I’m sure I came up with the title first and wrote the book to fit. ‘Lust’ was a favorite word at Nightstand, where they wanted to excite the readers withoutd alarming the censors. ...

Can a one-woman crime wave settle down and find contentment and happiness in the arms of a nice surburban lady in Kirkland, Washington? That’s what Kit Tolliver’s going to have to find out for herself. She’s become closer to Rita than she’s ever been to another human being, and the phone conversations the two women have are more exciting than the times she spends in bed with men. But there’s a lot Rita doesn’t know about her. Like what she’s done to every man shes been with, starting with her own father. What’ll happen if she tells her? What’ll happen if she doesn’t? All...

Lawrence Block remembers: “Well, maybe that’s not the best way to kick things off, because the fact of the matter is that Lawrence Block remembers virtually nothing about writing BUTCH. I have no difficulty recognizing it as my own work, and I remember hanging the title Butch on one of my monthly titles for Bill Hamling’s Nightstand Books—and, wonder of wonders, noting its appearance on the printed volume. “It’s not a bad title, but I don’t know that this was the right book for it. In Her Brogues Oxford-Style, who uploaded Harold McCauley’s reasonably fetching artwork to ...

Lawrence Block remembers: "Well, in point of fact, I don't remember much. SINTIME was an Andrew Shaw title for Nightstand Books. The book opens at a resort in or around Vergennes VT, a setting that was certainly inspired by a visit my then-wife and I made to friends of ours who were summering in or around Vergennes. It was a pleasant few days, as I recall, and the friends we were visiting were Hal and Marcia Dresner. Hal was a writer, writing the same sort of books as I, and for the same publishers; he moved on sooner than I did, went out to Los Angeles, had a fine career as a screenwriter,...

The sexual upheaval of the 1970s was a remarkable turning point in the evolution of contemporary sexual behavior. As much as anyone, John Warren Wells stalked the barricades of this social revolution. He met the players, and let them pour their stories into his sympathetic ear. From the original publisher's edition:" The Taboo Breakers is a penetrating, unbiased study of these modern "swingers." Just what do they do, and with whom, and why? Are they fools and sinners, the shock troops of a new sexual revolution, hell-bent hedonists piling one thrill upon another? Or are they merely ...

O Rose thou art sick. /The invisible worm, /That flies in the night /In the howling storm: /Has found out thy bed /Of crimson joy: /And his dark secret love / Does thy life destroy. Those eight lines constitute the complete text of “The Sick Rose,” published by William Blake in Songs of Experience in 1794. I took to Blake early on, and thought Of Crimson Joy would make a dandy title. I accordingly fastened it on this novel when I sent the manuscript to Harry Shorten at Midwood.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Born to Be Bad and experience the compelling world of erotica.

In A Woman Must Love, Barbara, a young widow, has vowed to be true to her husband’s memory (even though he’d wished otherwise). She’s courted, and she has a couple of adventures.

From the notebook of a female sex therapist: "The "patient" calls me this morning to confirm his appointment, arrived precisely at 11 a.m. He's 28, tax lawyer, divorced. Sex problems: periodic impotence, periodic premature ejaculation, occasional inability to reach climax. Diagnosis: general sexual insecurity. "We sit on couch, drink coffee. Neck a little. He has soft hands, a nice touch. Very breast-oriented. We get undressed, sit around naked, then go to bed and play with each other. He gets erection almost immediately but loses it early, then unable to get it back. "I tell him we'll cure...

When Joyce Kendall arrives in New York, fresh out of Clifton College in Iowa, she has a job and an apartment waiting for her. The job's as a first reader for Armageddon Publications. The apartment's at 21 Gay Street, and the small Federal-period house is already home to a lesbian couple, Jean Fitzgerald and Terri Leigh, and an out-of-work newspaperman, Pete Galton. The relationships of these four people under one roof add up to a fast-paced story that is not only satisfying fiction but a rare window on Bohemian life in the late 1950s.

A missing person case brings private eye Roy Markham to the remote winter-bound college town of Cliff's End, New Hampshire. But what began as a routine investigation quickly becomes dark and dangerous. Six pornographic photos and a tidy little blackmail scheme result in a brutal and baffling murder, and no one is safe - especially Markham himself.

After spending her girlhood writing gentle and thoughtful novels of the lesbian experience (Shadows, Warm and Willing, Enough of Sorrow), Jill Emerson reinvented herself in the early 1970s, just when contemporary literature was experiencing an enormous flowering of sexuality.

The author of dozens of acclaimed novels including those in the Scudder and Keller series, Lawrence Block has long been recognized as one of the premier crime writers of our time. Now, the breathtaking skill, power, and versatility of this grand master are brilliantly displayed once again in a mesmerizing new thriller set on the streets of the city he knows and loves so well.

Some Days You Get the Bear is listed in various bibliographical sources as having first appeared in Penthouse, but I don't believe it did. The story SOLD to Penthouse, and sat in inventory forever, until my agent asked for its return. Then in 1993 It became the title story in my third collection of short fiction, published by William Morrow, and later turned up in my omnibus collection of short fiction, Enough Rope. It's not a crime story, nor is it erotic, so that makes it not what you might expect from me. If I were to categorize it—and I'd just as soon not—I'd probably call it a ...

It's a crime that Times Square dives aren't private investigator Chip Harrison's usual hangouts. Tulip Willing is the star attraction at the Treasure Chest, and also Chip's newest client. It seems she wants cover for a mysterious stranger who's been scaring her out of her clothes. Cherry Bounce, another dancer at the Treasure Chest, is shot dead in the act. Chip finds himself on the trail of a killer who's eager to trap the street-wise detective and strip him of his livelihood forever...

Because they were collected into a single hardcover volume published by Subterranean Press, a good number of readers are acquainted with my three collaborations with Donald E. Westlake. That's not the case with CIRCLE OF SINNERS, a similar joint effort undertaken with another longstanding (and, I'm pleased to say, still standing) friend and colleague, Hal Dresner. Unlike two of the Block/Westlake titles, CIRCLE OF SINNERS did not bear a joint byline; Nightstand issued it as "by Don Holliday," which was in fact Hal's pen name. (To increase the level of confusion, one book of mine was ...