Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats is the first comprehensive account of how the rise of postwar youth culture was depicted in mass-market pulp fiction. As the young created new styles in music, fashion, and culture, pulp fiction shadowed their every move, hyping and exploiting their behaviour, dress, and language for mass consumption and cheap thrills. From the juvenile delinquent gangs of the early 1950s through the beats and hippies, on to bikers, skinheads, and punks, pulp fiction left no trend untouched. With their lurid covers and wild, action-packed plots, these books reveal as much about society’s deepest desires and fears as they do about the subcultures themselves. Girl Gangs features approximately 400 full-color covers, many of them never reprinted before. With 70 in-depth author interviews, illustrated biographies, and previously unpublished articles from more than 20 popular culture critics and scholars from the US, UK, and Australia, the book goes behind the scenes to look at the authors and publishers, how they worked, where they drew their inspiration and—often overlooked—the actual words they wrote. Books by well-known authors such as Harlan Ellison and Lawrence Block are discussed alongside neglected obscurities and former bestsellers ripe for rediscovery. It is a must read for anyone interested in pulp fiction, lost literary history, retro and subcultural style, and the history of postwar youth culture. Contributors include Nicolas Tredell, Alwyn W. Turner, Mike Stax, Clinton Walker, Bill Osgerby, David Rife, J.F. Norris, Stewart Home, James Cockington, Joe Blevins, Brian Coffey, James Doig, David James Foster, Matthew Asprey Gear, Molly Grattan, Brian Greene, John Harrison, David Kiersh, Austin Matthews, and Robert Baker.

A long, hard ride from start to finish, Biker Boys features easy riders, stuntmen studs, and men who aren't just wearing chaps because they look good. The term "biker" describes a specific archetype in our culture: "real" men — rebels, outlaws, and sometimes criminals. The racy stories of Biker Boys evoke the passion these masculine men have for their cycles and each other. Also along for the ride are grease monkeys who service bikes, guys who willingly take on the role of biker bitch, and road-weary men looking for a bed for the night. These sensational stories by Jeff Mann, Shane Allison, Simon Sheppard and more are filled with speed, danger, and lived-in leather.

Abby Abernathy is re-inventing herself as the good girl as she begins her freshman year at college, which is why she must resist lean, cut, and tattooed Travis Maddox, a classic bad boy.

A screenwriter stage dives into L.A.’s punk rock scene to find a missing reporter as Sinclair mixes “hard-edged realism . . . [and] humor” in a “fine” novel (Gerald Petievich, author of To Live and Die in L.A.). Four years ago, when Capt. George Steifer charged screenwriter Ben Crandel with murder, it didn’t look like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. But Hollywood makes strange bedfellows, and now the cop has come to his writer pal for help. A Los Angeles Times reporter named Elise Reilly disappeared two weeks ago while investigating a story on the punk rock scene. Steifer has been trying to find her with the help of a spiky-haired informant who just ended up shot point-blank in the bathroom of a punk club—and now the cop is losing it. It turns out he buried the lead: He’s in love with Elise. Ben has lost his own loved one to the punk scene, in a way. His now fifteen-year-old adopted son, Petey, is the lead singer in a group called Claustrophobic—and apparently that’s how he felt about living at home. But at least Petey left a note: He’s off to pursue his punk pipe dream and Ben’s left with his basset hound, Stanley, for company. In pursuit of Elise, Ben and Steifer rush headlong into a veritable mosh pit of neo-Nazis and religious fanatics, where one wrong move could get them trampled. As they uncover a stockpile of weapons and an assassination plot, they frantically search for a connection to the reporter’s whereabouts . . . “Sinclair has the unique ability to dish out hard-edged realism with—believe it or not—a touch of humor. Goodbye L.A. is a fine piece.” —Gerald Petievich, author of To Live and Die in L.A.

/DIVI am a queen. I live in a castle, right across the street from the John Howard Housing Projects. Every day right after school I run to my bedroom window and open it wide--even in the middle of winter when the wind blows wet snow up my nose. I watch for my knight in shining armor. He's ten years old, like me, and rides a bike--a two-wheeler with rusty spokes and torn-up seat. So begins Sharon Flake's highly-anticipated new novel--a moving story of an unlikely friendship. DIV Queen is a royal pain in the neck! Her Highness treats everyone like her loyal subjects: her classmates, her teacher, even her parents! That's why all the kids hate her and it's hard for her to make friends. To make matters worse, Queen known she is bright. Her teacher thinks she's a spoiled know-it-all, and that keeps her in hot water as well. When a new kid comes to Queen's school riding a broken bike and wearing run-over shoes, he immediately becomes the butt of everyone's jokes. Her parents insist she be nice to Leroy, since history has never been kind to queens who forget how to be humble. But Leroy isn't just smelly, Queen thinks that he tells fibs—whoppers in fact—and when he says he's an African prince from Senegal, sparks fly between him and Queen. There's only room for one blue-blooded family on 33rd Street, and Queen is determined to prove Leroy is an impostor. What Queen ultimately discovers about Leroy makes her wonder what "happily ever after" really means. If a broken-bike boy is truly Queen’s knight in shining armor, can he save her from herself, by teaching her how to be a good friend?

At the confluence of experimental art and the gay subculture of early 1960s New York, Juan Suárez discovers a postmodern, gay-influenced aesthetic that "recycles" popular culture. Filmmakers Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, and Andy Warhol epitomize this sensibility, combining the influences of European avant-garde movements, comic books, rock 'n' roll, camp, film cults, drag performances, fashion, and urban street cultures.

India is a tough country. Growing up in India is a tough job. Back in the 1990’s, it was even tougher. Armed with a bachelor’s degree in engineering, Pi, at the age 21, embarks on the roller coaster called ‘life’. Seeking love, happiness and a successful career, Pi experiences many firsts. His first kiss, his first pay cheque, a live-in girlfriend and his first million. In a decade, during which the red fort saw six Prime Ministers, and the country saw rapid but haphazard economic growth, he also takes baby steps into the corporate world, learning the ropes all over the country. Myriad happenings around him not just helped him form his world view, but in fact chiseled and sometimes even destroyed his career, happiness and love life. The Mandal commission, The Kashmir exodus, The Mumbai riots, the Gulf War, the south east Asian meltdown and an Indo-Pak war impact his life in unforeseen ways. He also adapts to the invasion of technology through Satellite TV, the internet and the mobile phones. Steering his love life and career through ups and downs, faced with the burden of expectations of a dominant middle-class father, the journey he took during this decade was tumultuous, torturous yet exhilarating. The learnings which came from that road could not have come any other way.

96 pages of comic strip - that's something that can be leafed through fairly quickly, one should think. But things are different when it comes to American comic artist Zack's juicy, nasty and nostalgic erotic stories! In fact, the stories are so hot that readers will have trouble getting through just one of them from beginning to end without...well, taking a break, shall we say? But Zack's comics are also so much more than sex. They're arty, nostalgic and fantastically drawn; a real treat for all the senses!

Five years for an adult, passes in five minutes. Five years for a kid is a lifetime. An attempted bike stealing incident in Glasgow when Raymond Moore was 13 led to him living in Linicro on the Isle of Skye with his Great Granny and Great Aunt. His family stayed in the city whilst his life changed on the island. Skye Stories tells the adventures he had growing up: the girls he fancied, the sheep he worried and the music he loved. Although the book is about Skye and his love for the island, the account of his experiences and emotions will strike a chord with people who have never been near there. Skye changed the author's life forever and for the better. You could say the Isle of Skye saved his life. This book, Volume 1, tells the story of the first two years on Skye - the Linicro years.

In a time of war, morality is overcome by the unthinkable. The unthinkable justified by fear and circumstances beyond our control. From uncontrollable circumstances emerges a new world of terror. To fight this terror we sacrifice our morality further and go beyond the unthinkable. The remnants of this vicious cycle turn with a momentum all their own and live on long after the treaties are signed. This is the fuel that sustains us between conflicts. This is the catalyst that ignites our creativity and spawns new technologies of war. We are united through common enemies, even though our greatest enemy is our own fear. For David Andrews, his peaceful existence collided with the reverberations of a war written into history books decades earlier. As the reality of these uncontrollable events swamp over him he comes face-to-face with the unthinkable. The cyclone of a war that will not die will test his fear of the unknown by redefining everything he knew to be true and replacing it with an alternate universe. An alternate set of events sent into motion the day of his birth. A universe created by the cold war in a long forgotten US military base called Camp Hero. Camp Hero State Park is located on the south fork of Long Island, just west of the Montauk Point Lighthouse. The Montauk Point Lighthouse was commissioned by General George Washington in 1792 during the Revolutionary War. In 1929, during WWI the US Army established Fort Hero, named after Major General Andrew Hero, Jr. who was the Army's Chief of Coastal Artillery. In 1942, during WWII the US Army upgraded the defenses of Fort Hero to deal with the growing threat of German invasion and Camp Hero was born. Camp Hero was eventually turned over to the Air Force in 1950 to become part of the National Air Defense system. Finally, in 1984 the land was turned over to the New York State Department of Parks. Conspiracy theorists believe the base is still operational today and the science being developed is out of this world.