4.0 Stars
This must read for any horror fan. Seriously.

As an horror buff, Hendrix provides an entertaining account of the horror publishing industry through the 1970s and 1980s. Each chapter focuses on a different trend within the genre. From demonic possession to creepy children, this book explores the history of the horror, showcasing the best and most ridiculous books ever published.

Hendrix's writes in a conversational style with plenty of humorous and insightful commentary. This light-heart narrative would a great choice for people who do not normally read non fiction.

The full color artwork included in this book was fantastic. The selected images were so eclectic, including so many weird and often humorous covers. This would make a fantastic coffee table book.

While I tend to read more new releases, this book made me want to collect and read so many of these "paperbacks from hell". I would highly recommend this book to horror readers, particularly those old enough to appreciate the nostalgia of these retro titles. I suspect this could easily be a five star read for anyone who grew up reading these novels.

I requested this book from Netgalley, but ended up reading a copy from the library. I highly recommend reading a physical copy of the book.

A very fun and informative trip through the days of horror paperbacks.

Hendrix doesn't look very old, so he must have done a ton of research for this project. Kudos to him for braving the massive pile of mostly horrible books so that we could experience it without regret.
I did note all of the books I haven't read that sounded great.

Now I have an even crazier To Be Read pile.
Thanks, Mr. Hendrix.

I give PAPERBACK FROM HELL 5 stars.

The ultimate guide to the horror genre. A MUST have book for libraries and your home collection. Your TBR list is going to grow exponentially due to the excellent research done for this book. Library customers are going to find so much more horror to read after discovering this book, increasing circulation of the genre collection.

What an entertaining and funny read this is! Read it with a notepad by your side to record all the books you'll want to search out in second hand bookshops.

Paperbacks From Hell is an excellent book that traces the horror publishing history from the 70’s through to early 90’s. This is a treasure trove of information and done in a style that is informative, fun and witty. Hendrix has really done his research and I have to say, I have read a lot of these books and simply forgot about them. Reading through this excellent book, brought back memories and made me want to re-read some these.

The cover reprints are wonderfully done and the rich history of the graphic artists, authors and publishing companies are so well written but never once feeling like a history lesson. Hendrix really has a gift involving the reader in the fun facts but the informative aspect is so well handled. This is a book to savour, own and would make a great book to have out to share. Some of the witty books I really need to search out and would love to have someone to a re-release of some of these lost treasures.

There is a terrible down side to these proceedings as the horror publishing death that follows in the wake of its boom. Publishing companies being bought and consumed by conglomerates. The death of horror books is very well detailed within the pages and it showed a general sadness on what the publishing world has become. Outside of a few authors, the idea of a horror author being published nowadays is pretty much nil. Self-publishing has also pretty much killed the horror genre in respect and although there are some decent self-publishing authors out there, there is a lot of really bad crap to wade through until you find that diamond and often it is a diamond in the rough. The thing about self-publishing is that anyone can do and they do.

Paperbacks From Hell is a recommended read and buy and though the ebook version is very well done, this is one you want to buy the paperback or hardback because you really want to be able to flick through the pages at will. This would also be the perfect gift for anyone with a slight interest in horror. This is highly recommended.

I do have to warn you though, make sure you have a pen and paper at hand because you are going to want to take notes in order to look up some long forgotten gems such as Brownstone or Bloodstone or Slugs just to name a few.

Paperbacks From Hell is a recommended read and buy and though the ebook version is very well done, this is one you want to buy the paperback or hardback because you really want to be able to flick through the pages at will. This would also be the perfect gift for anyone with a slight interest in horror. This is highly recommended.

Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix is a 2017 Quirk Books publication.

While most teenage girls my age were reading Harlequin romances or sneaking peeks inside their mother’s bodice rippers, I was glued to Gothic Romance/Horror/Mystery novels, which morphed into a full -fledged obsession with horror novels, which continued until my late teens, slowly fizzling out, as the horror genre went into a different direction, I didn't feel compelled to follow.

I wish I had had the presence of mind to keep those books, put them a plastic protector and store them in a dark, cool place. But, I didn’t. However, I do love searching out these old paperbacks and do have a nice collection of Gothic novels as well as a handful of vintage horror novels, too. This book really has sparked a renewed interest in these vintage horror paperbacks, so I just might start digging around and try to add a few of these to my collection.

But, I digress-

Like myself, the author’s interest in these vintage paperbacks also stems from the ‘collectable’ angle they inspire, and just as I do, he still reads them.

In my mind, horror novels, and horror movies for that matter, of the 1970’s were best. They may seem cheesy now, and of course they followed trends, just like we do now, but…

These books scared me. It wasn’t the same slasher story, told over and over and over. These books had imagination, took risks, were shocking, and terrifying, or… okay- laughable- Nazi Leprachans?

Looking back on these novels now, many of which were adapted for the big screen, I’m reminded once again of the game changing books than shaped the genre and had me sleeping with the lights on.

The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Other, all spent incredible amounts of time on the NYT bestseller list. They spawned countless spin-offs, all with a strong satanic element, which was a huge theme in the first few years of the 1970’s.

From that point on, the horror genre created the most menacing babies and kids you could possibly image, with books like- ‘The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane’ by Laird Koenig, which I happen to be reading right now. But, the sheer volume of books written with this theme, in one form or another, was mind boggling.

Some titles I found intriguing were: ‘Kate’s House’ by Harriet Waugh and ‘Let’s Go Play at the Adams’ by Mendal W. Johnson- (Tonight the kids are taking care of the babysitter!)

Let’s not forget killer animals though- remember Jaws? Of course, you do. How about ‘The Rats’ by James Herbert? There were also a slew of killer dogs, cats, whales, all manner of other creepy crawlies.

Not your thing? How about a good haunted house story, instead? Lots of those! But, not just Amityville!

Every possible angle was covered in the 70’s and 80’s that you could possible imagine. Medical nightmares, horoscopes, psychic teens, UFO’s, Vampires, dolls, Southern Gothic, humanoids, you name it, and this book covers them all.

But, the author doesn’t stop there.

The fantastic cover art is included in the book. The book covers alone make this book worth looking into. Amazing!! It is also interesting to note that some of the cover artists are unknown.

The primary publishers of horror novels are listed too, and frankly, I was surprised by a few- namely ‘Zebra’ which I’ve always associated with those fab historical romance novels of the same period. Who knew?

The 80’s had its ups and downs with some really wonderful contributions to the genre, but also strange additions,such as, heavy metal horror! I’d pretty much moved away from the horror genre by this time, and have no recollections of this, but apparently ‘Splatterpunk’ was a pretty big movement in the mid-eighties.

But, that movement seemed to fade as quickly as hair metal with the onset of the nineties, as did the horror genre as we knew it.

These old horror novels look cheesy, and many are obviously dated, but if you read some of the blurbs, you will see many of them are classics now, and spawned all manner of trends, and influenced many others along the way. They are lurid, gross, often politically incorrect, and misogynist on more than one occasion, but were also groundbreaking. They, also, were a reflection of the era in which they were written, tapping in on real fears, worries, or in some cases, setting off periods of real panic.


But, in the end, the slasher genre won out over killer sharks, haunted houses, creepy kids, and Satan. The name of the game is buckets of blood and revolting gore, without much originality to the plot, which is when I stepped off the horror novel train.

These days, horror is a hard sell for me. On a rare occasion, I’ll try a ghost story or a haunted house novel, or a good vampire novel, as long as the vampire doesn't sparkle, although those seem far and few between these days, or I might settle in for a Stephen King thriller, once in a while.

But, I do have old favorites I read at Halloween, always returning to the tried and true. But, after picking up this book, maybe I can find a few hidden gems from the past to satisfy any lingering craving for a good old -fashioned chiller.

Overall, the author did a terrific job with the organization of this book, deftly adding in well- timed, laugh out loud humor, and his enthusiasm was obvious, and a little catchy.

This is a fun, informative, entertaining, and well researched book, that will appeal to fans of the horror genre, paperback book collectors, or maybe even to those who enjoy nostalgia or pop culture.

5 stars

What a fun book. I had forgotten about quite a few of these books and now my tbr list has added a few oldies but goodies

If you love horror stories--and especially if you love campy-horror story book covers--you'll want to own Paperbacks from Hell, by Grady Hendrix. This compilation of paperbook covers from the 1970s and 1980s is illustrated with everything from skeletons to killer dolls and murderous giant crabs (yes, really). It's witty and fun, and sometimes, a bit too much. But don't let that stop you, if you're into this genre. You'll find forgotten treasures here--and some that actually deserve forgetting.

I've been a long-time fan of Grady Hendrix (Horrostor changed my view on modern horror), so I was excited to hear about this book coming out! Hendrix does not disappoint. I was engrossed from the very beginning, as he weaved a history of (in my opinion) one of the most overlooked genres. With full-color images and creepy synopses, this book is informative, engrossing, and just in time for the spookiest season of the year!

I already bought two copies of this book, one for myself and one for famiily. I knew I wanted it for my own reference within a couple of pages. What I really love is that it's not just about some of my favorite paperback genres. It also focuses on the artwork that in many cases caused these titles to rule the store shelves. I can't wait to try and hunt down a few of the more obscure titles covered in the book!

I know you may be looking at this review funny: '70s and '80s horror fiction? For teens now? YES. Walk with me.

First off, Grady Hendrix is straight up hilarious. If you haven't read Horrorstor or My Best Friend's Exorcism, you haven't yet been introduced to his brand of smart, snarky horror: a haunted Swedish furniture store (Horrorstor) starts out witty, and leaves you sleeping with the light on for a week. A YA novel about demonic possession in the '80s (My Best Friend's Exorcism) starts with insidious, creepy storytelling, takes it into sheer horror territory, and ends on the most '80s of endings; you can practically hear the synths in your mind as you turn pages. And now, Hendrix writes a love letter to that crazy time with his retrospective of horror paperback fiction. We go back to a time when paperbacks were sold in the supermarket; when kids like me would sneak peeks at VC Andrews' Flowers in the Attic while on line at the A&P grocery store. So many creepy children. So much Satan, with so many cultists. So many animals bent on our destruction.

Hendrix is one of those authors that make you pause, grab a friend - or your teenager, in my case and say, "No, wait, you have to hear this." Multiple times. Until said teenager finally asks, "Wait a minute: Gestapochauns? There was a book about Nazi leprechauns? Are you serious?" And that, my friends, is where you hook them. You pick a section - any section - and you show them some of the covers. Then you read some of the text, because Hendrix's knowledge about these books - in conjunction with Too Much Horror's Will Errickson - is encyclopedic. And the teen is laughing and kind of terrified and wants to know more, all the same.

Paperbacks from Hell is perfect for us readers of a certain age, sure, but it's also a book that connects us with our teens. We can get them on board with the craziness and the overwrought drama of the art and the stories. You can point out authors that teens will know, like VC Andrews, who's now considered YA, and RL Stine, who was writing horror long before Goosebumps made him a household name. Let horror build a bridge between you and your teens. As my teen told me, "You grew up in a different time, Mom." Yes, son. Yes, I did. And it was amazing.

Grab a copy and take a tour through the bookshelves of your youth, and invite your teens to make the trip with you.

The following 4-Star review was published to Every Day Should Be Tuesday, Amazon, and Goodreads on 9/19/17:

Grady Hendrix is Tor.com’s resident expert on horror. He is responsible for the Great Stephen King Reread and a more recent series, Freaky Fridays. It is the latter hilarious exploration of 1970s/1980s paperback horror novels that led to this book. Paperbacks from Hell isn’t just a fix-up of blog posts, though. There is a wealth of additional information, including dozens of book covers. (Hendrix has also written two horror novels of his own, Horrorstör and My Best Friend’s Exorcism.)

Paperbacks from Hell is a laugh out loud funny, joyful romp through the 1970s and 1980s boom in paperback horror. As such, it isn’t just entertaining, it is informative as a work of popular cultural anthropology. I may not be a horror buff, but I’m drawn to this book for some of the same reasons I’m drawn to Jeffro Johnson’s Appendix N book—I like books and I like history.

Horror had been around forever, but it only came into its own with a boom that started with Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Other (before those three books, the last horror novel to appear on Publishers Weekly’s annual best-seller list was in 1938). Those were “grim, sober novels.” The 1980s, on the other hand, produced horror fiction “warped by the gaudy delights of Stephen King and V.C. Andrews.” Horror survived the D&D satanic panic of the 1980s and the heavy metal satanic panic of the 1980s. We were super into panicking over Satan in the 1980s, back before he became Saddam’s b____. Horror helped keep short stories alive. Which makes sense, because most of those horror paperbacks should have been short stories in the first place. As the boom continued (and the Thor Power Tools case killed the backlist), the market transitioned from being nurtured by flourishing small horror imprints to being flooded by the big publishers that had gobbled them up. Bestsellers like Stephen King got all of the attention, and they were among the very few to survive the crash. When the crash finally happened it happened fast, but without much more than a whimper as seemingly every idea (and reader was exhausted) and writers quietly rebranded their serial killer books as thrillers.

Horror paperbacks were successors to the old pulp magazines, as well as to the cheap paperback fantasy and science fiction novels of the 1960s. These are books that are unpretentious and written to entertain. “Thrown into a rough-and-tumble marketplace, the writers learned they had to earn every reader’s attention” and follow one rule: “always be interesting.” They were also the last gasp of mass marketed books for the working class (the prototypical leading man is tanned and blue-collar; the prototypical leading woman is white-collar and works outside the home).

Paperbacks from Hell really has four component parts, which leads to a somewhat disjointed reading experience. There are long, funny riffs on works or series or particular trope. These are largely adapted from Hendrix’s Tor.com blog posts, and if all you really want is more of these, you won’t find it here. There are also rapid-fire examples of various tropes. These, I think, will be interesting to collectors and people interesting in finding books featuring something in particular (Hendrix manages to mention an enormous number of books), but they overall do a mediocre job of serving their apparent intended purpose of stitching the rest of the book together. Much more interesting are the bits of publishing history interwoven into the book. There are also dozens and dozens of covers, including many blurbs on prominent cover artists. For once my advance reading copy included artwork, for which I am very thankful. Even better would have been to have it in paperback.

The narrative is disjointed, sure. The stitches still show, and there really isn’t a way the book could have been organized that would make complete sense. But it is a heck of a book, nonetheless. Hendrix is very, very funny:
“But when plants mind-control us so that they can feed on our blood, it’s hard not to be offended. After all, most of us don’t eat plants if we can help it, and then it’s mostly vegetarians who do the eating. If the plants want to murder them, something could probably be arranged.”
Books are vividly described:
“Campbell’s stories feel like week-old newspapers, swollen with water, black with mold, forgotten on the steps of the abandoned tenement.”
Hendrix is having a whole heck of a lot of fun. He freely mocks the excesses of the boom, but always good-naturedly and without looking down his nose at things. Nor is he ashamed to tout the best books of the lot. I had a lot of fun reading despite not having read any of the books discussed, or having much interest in reading most of them.

There is a set of creator and publisher biographies after the main text. I passed on it during my initial read but paged through it before writing this review. Read it and find out which romance and men’s adventure publisher was started by a mobile home and concrete pipe manufacturer! There is also an afterword with recommended reading by Will Errickson.

I don't know exactly who the target audience for Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix is, but I'm definitely part of it. When I was a teenager I worked part time at a used bookstore and wound up meeting my husband there. I also read a lot of horror novels.

The books that Paperbacks from Hell talks about are the same books I was shelving and reading back then. I think I probably owned about half of the books mentioned and read quite a few of them. This book brought back all sorts of memories of the books I enjoyed and couple that scarred me for life.

Paperbacks from Hell was a fun walk down memory lane and I wound up calling my mother more than once to see if she still happened to have a specific title. I also wound up bringing home a huge stack of cheap books from the humane society's thrift shop. Paperbacks were three for a dollar and I grabbed up everything I could remember seeing mentioned.

This book was great fun. Having been a major horror fan in the '80s, I was surprised to see quite a few book covers that I had never seen before. It was also nice getting to find out something about the all-but-invisible popular authors and cover artists of the era, such as William W. Johnstone. The subject breakdowns by chapter were also well-done.

Absolutely fantastic. Like a slighter DANSE MACABRE, PAPERBACKS FROM HELL zeroes in on the rise of horror paperbacks in the 70s and 80s through to its decline in the 90s. I especially appreciated the attention given to the cover artists responsible for some of the truly masterful and evocative covers that had me grabbing these books in my formative years.

Well worth a look, but be warned, you'll immediately want to go on a book-buying spree after reading it.

As the cover blurb says, take a tour through the horror paperback novels of the 1970s and ’80s with Grady Hendrix . . . if you dare! Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction is a gloriously grotesque trip down nostalgia lane that works on multiple levels.

First off, let's talk about the visuals. Browsing through all those bold, garish, blood-soaked covers is worth the price of admission alone. There are so many covers here that I recognized from my younger years, many of which I still have on the shelf today - books like Isobel, Dark Advent, The Possession of Jessica Young, Cellars, Hot Blood, Animals, Ghoul, and XY. Then there were others that caught my eye, making me want to run out and hit the used bookstore to dig them up - books like The Little People, Satan's Love Child, Orca, Slither, and Obelisk. It's not just book cover porn, however, Hendrix also provides some insights and backstories of the artists behind them, many of whom have surprising pedigrees or quirks.

Next, let's talk about the narrative of horror publishing, where Hendrix walks us through the rise and fall of horror publishers, whether they be major or niche. Having read so many of them, and having followed some of them as closely as authors, it was fascinating to learn about who was behind them, how they came to be, and what market pressures and personnel changes led to their demise. As a horror-addicted teenager, the business of publishing was the farthest thing from my mind, even as I noticed the best publishers disappearing from the shelves, but in hindsight I can understand what was happening.

Lastly, and this is the true glory of the book, we need to talk about the evolution of horror themes and tropes. I remember so many of these fads coming and going, seeing similar covers on the shelves, and reading the same stories under different titles, but Hendrix does a great job of setting the stage and exploring the social/political background. From the Satanic panic, through creepy kids, man-eating animals (and plants), haunted houses, mad scientists, serial killers, and more, he explores how each came to be and how the themes develop. Thanks to his insights, I've added The Guardian, Scared Stiff, The Devil's Kiss, Toy Cemetery, and Soulmate to my used bookstore shopping list.

Although I enjoyed it as a digital ARC, Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction is one of those books I need to pick up in paperback, just to have on the shelf so I can revisit those covers and dig into some of those themes.

A book about the period of time when the horror genre ruled the paperback racks at the bookstore? A book about the period of time in my life, (about Carrie's age, in fact), when I felt like an outsider, and horror made me feel included? Sign me up! Luckily, Quirk books and NetGalley did just that, and here we are.

This book is a reference book, a guide to life and times in the United States in the 70's and 80's. Things going on in the world and in society always affect our fiction and those times were no different. Paperbacks from Hell puts it all into perspective in an easy to read and humorous way. All the while vividly punctuated with those freaking AWESOME horror book covers of that time!

I bet you remember those covers too. The Sentinel with the priest looking out at you; Flowers in the Attic with those children looking out at you...and ALL those children from the John Saul books, (though at least one was blind and was NOT looking at you.) I had a mad grin on my face the entire time I was reading this, and with its funny chapter titles like "What to Expect When You're Expecting (a Hell Baby)," and its funny observations about life back then, how could I not? I'd wager that you'll have a mad grin on your face too.

Contributing a great deal to this book was Will Errickson and his blog, Too Much Horror Fiction . You can and should (!) find it here: Too Much Horror Fiction

Paperbacks From Hell gets my highest recommendation! Period.

You can pre-order your copy here. (I did!): https://www.amazon.com/Paperbacks-Hel...

*Thanks to NetGalley and Quirk books for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review. This is it. *

Paperbacks from Hell is a short history of the dark and wild run of paperback original horror fiction in the 1970's and 1980's. It covers a lot of ground broken up by subject matter, and was quite fun to read. Copies of the often outstanding covers for many of the books are included. I really enjoyed this, and I've built up a large list of books to search out from it.

Paperbacks from Hell: A History of Horror Fiction from the '70s and '80s by Grady Hendrix is the history of the paperback horror novel. Hendrix is the author of the novels Horrorstör, the only book you'll ever need about a haunted Scandinavian furniture superstore, and My Best Friend's Exorcism.

In the mid-1970s I would go to the corner store, a Lawson, and raided the book rack. There was always a carousel of books near the front counter. Horror books took up most of the shelf space with everything from the Omen to countless barely remembered horror stories of all types. I remember a class mate, Pam, giving me her copy of Gary Brandner's The Howling. That book was a game changer for me. The Scholastic Books, an in school book sale, even had Stephen King's Carrie for sale. This caused a temporary ban of Scholastic Books in my school as some parents got very upset about the books available to 7th graders. There was something special about buying books that were not meant for school children.

Paperbacks from Hell is a return to that time with a detailed discussion and listing of books from that period. Hendrix provides a great refresher for those who loved the horror boom of the period. What subject defined horror changed over time. Satan and Satanists made an easy subject and a lasting one through books and even music in 1980s metal. David Seltzer's novelization of the movie The Omen started a string of books and the popularization of an obscure Bible passage. Knowing that 666 was the number of the beast suddenly became a Bible trivia everyone knew regardless of religious belief.

Damian also triggered the growth as a child being evil or a killer. Evil children were a shocking subject going back to the 1954 book Bad Seed. Books like The Crib and Spawn had a supernatural touch while Let's Play Games at the Adams' and The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane told of normal kids gone bad or take control of their own situation. There is also the far fetched fear mongering book Rona Joffee Mazes and Monsters which turned the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons into something that will damage and warp a teenager's brain.

Animals also were big sellers from Peter Benchley's Jaws to killer dogs, cats, rats, and even rabbits. Animals were killing people in untold numbers. Pick a seeming defenseless animal and there is probably a story of it being a mad killer (yes, butterflies too). If one thought animal killers wasn't quite over the top there were also killer plants. Jaws lead the escalation of wildlife killers.

If it wasn't an animal or child, it was probably a haunted property. Amityville Horror was the foundation for the haunted house. Amityville spawned six books in the series, each marketed as nonfiction. The premise of haunted houses being built over vortexes, graveyards, or other mystical places expanded into haunted train lines and hospitals. Anything could be haunted or possessed. Just ask Arnie Cunningham.

Hendrix starts his book with an introduction featuring The Little People who live in a basement of a bed and breakfast, Gestapochauns (Nazi leprechauns) and ends with a genre called Splatter Punk. Not much new has been developed since the late 80s death of paperback horror. Stephen King and others still write but the present generation would rather have movies and video games rather than a cheap paperback. I revisited the era re-reading Brandner's Howling series a while ago, but I did it on a Kindle. It just didn't seem the same. While today people look for special effects in movies today, we had cover art back then. Hendrix captures a multitude of the covers that got many people reading. Cover art at the time was important in making one book stand out from the rest. Foil covers, embossed covers, step back art, and die-cut covers became the norm and helped reveal some of the book's mystery or added a layer of shock. This was a time when horror brought entertainment to many readers. For those of us who had a library that was too far to walk to (or too dangerous to go to alone), the corner store became the early Netflix for many. Well written. Well illustrated. Well referenced. A welcomed walk down memory lane.