To me, black paperbacks are holiday books. I guess this goes back to the horror-obsession I had during my teenage years in the late 1980s. As my family’s summer break loomed each year, I’d pack black books about monsters. I remember James Herbert’s The Rats and The Fog, Guy Smith’s The Crabs, Steven King’s stuff and Peter Benchley’s The Deep.
Black books do special things when you take them to a sunny beach or pool, and this is why I love them:
Grady Hendrix's wonderful Paperbacks From Hell is a razor-sharp comedy-critique of the kind of books I took on holiday back then. Hendrix writes with wit and verve, gently ridiculing the tropes of black-book sub-genres whilst clearly still loving them. If like me you're a black-book fan, check it out. Comments are closed.
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