Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Nightstand Books

Click the link for an excellent article, not to mention a checklist with cover scans!

Lynn Munroe Books: "William L. Hamling started publishing Nightstand Books in Illinois in 1959. The little paperback originals with pink or yellow spines and titles like SEX GANG and SIN GIRLS were immediate best sellers, and Nightstand brought more out each month, a couple hundred of them over the next few years. And other lines were spawned by the same publishing house: first Midnight Readers, then Leisure Books and Ember Library and many more, a couple thousand of them over the next decade."

4 comments:

James Reasoner said...

Thanks for this link, Bill. I have some of those Reed Nightstand books, and while I recognized the ones by Clyde Allison, Andrew Shaw, etc., I always wondered what the story was behind the books by "Jeremy Dunn" and "Thomas Carr", two names I didn't remember at all from the original Nightstand Books.

Cap'n Bob said...

My older sister had some Midnight Readers stashed in the house when I was a teen. I thought they were hot stuff back then. I'd probably find them pretty lame these days. Pages and pages of YES, YES, YES, OH, OH, OH wouldn't do it for me now, jaded old roue that I am.

Unknown said...

Probably some info on Hamling can be found in Earl Kemp's fanzines. Here's one good article:
http://efanzines.com/EK/eI2/index.htm

Juri said...

Thanks, Bill! Very interesting!