That's pulp fiction as in the literary genre, rather than the film of that title (which I must confess I STILL haven't got round to watching just yet - though I DO know that it was famous for Uma Thurman's black bob haircut, Uma Thurman's funky gothic nail varnish and saving John Travolta's career from the dustbin otherwise known as 'Battlefield Earth'. Oh, and nuclear briefcases and long conversations about cheeseburgers. See, I may be an intellectual - but you can't accuse me of neglecting my cultural references!).
As a life-long bookworm possesed of formidable stamina and endurance, there is nothing, but NOTHING, I like more than a guaranteed source of exciting and vital schlocky literature.
And if it's free, so much the better.
That is why the many sites on the Internet that aim to distribute free e-books to the masses are to be applauded.
If you want fine pickings without the danger of navigating the copyright minefield, then it's advisable to stick to works that are now firmly in the public domain.
Try taking a good browse through:
http://www.gutenberg.org/
http://www.openlibrary.org/
http://www.archive.org/
when you have a spare moment or three and your persistence will be rewarded with a fistful of (unjustly?) forgotten gems.
http://www.manybooks.net/
includes an extensive pulp fiction section, which they seem to be running in collaboration with Project Gutenberg.
Just yesterday, I downloaded myself copies of the following deathless tomes:
Initiative Psychic Energy - by Warren Hilton
'Being the Sixth of a Series of Twelve Volumes on the Applications of Psychology to the Problems of Personal and Business Efficiency' [yeah - RIGHT. But if by some unlikely chance any of the suggestions in the book do actually work, that's a cool £17.99 I've managed to save myself]
The Floating Island Of Madness - by Jason Kirby
'Far above the Arabian Desert, three Secret Service men find an aerial island whose inhabitants are —madmen.' [I defy you NOT to love a book with a logline like this!]
The Moving Picture Girls Under The Palms - by Laura Lee Hope
(aka Lost In The Wilds Of Florida)
'How they went to the land of palms, played many parts in dramas before the camera; were lost, and aided other who were also lost.' [Or this.]
The Man Whom The Trees Loved - by Algernon Blackwood
'An exquisitely wrought and truly imaginative conception.' [er, like WHAT, precisely? I suppose you have to download the book and read it in order to find out. Though if it lives up to the promise of the title ... ]
Three Weeks - by Elinor Glyn
'The world has felt upon its hot lips the perfumed kisses of the beautiful heroine of "Three Weeks." The brilliant flame that was her life has blazed a path into every corner of the globe. It is a world-renowned novel of consuming emotion that has made the name of its author, Elinor Glyn, the most discussed of all writers of modern fiction.'
[Yes, THAT Elinor Glyn. The one alleged to get up to no good on tiger skins on a regular basis.]
What a brilliant haul!
And they've got tons more, including some works by H P Lovecraft, E Doctorow Smith, Sax Rohmer and Clark Ashton Smith (Southern fried chicken, coffee milkshakes and overwrought sagas of astronauts getting their eyeballs sucked out by giant centipedes roaming round the craters on Mars - oh happy teenage Saturdays etc).
I'm off to see what's lurking in the corners of their banned books section ...
No comments:
Post a Comment