Encounters with more than 80 blind bananas. “The first mature penis I actually held in my hand was an uncut one. I was about 13 at the time… He laughed and said, ‘I’ll bet you never saw a big cock like that. I got the biggest one in the high school.’ No, I had never seen one like that. Not only big, but strange to me. It somehow seemed to have no head… He said, ‘Do you want to touch it?’ I did and reached over and touched it with my finger. ‘No, hold it in your hand,’ he said… ‘I can get bigger if you move your hands up and down slow’… As it swelled, I was both frightened and fascinated… It didn’t go beyond that, but the experience was branded in my brain forever.” GR

Publisher: Leyland
Paperback

If you’ve had yours whacked off, now you can have your missing foreskin returned to its hang-dog glory. But first, check out these detailed descriptions of various surgical restoration methods. You can even do it yourself! GR

Publisher: Added Dimensions
Paperback: 112 pages
Illustrated

All-American clipcocks vs. the monk’s hood, the Roman shade, the anteater, the wingflap or the lace curtain, as foreskinned cocks have been called. “But even on the question of sensitivity, there is no universal agreement. Sex researchers Masters and Johnson, in their tests, found no difference in sensitivity between circumcized and uncircumcized penises. Most modern researchers agree that sensitivity is such a subjective perception that it would be difficult to measure. They also agree that premature ejaculation is primarily caused by psychological factors, not by differences in penile sensitivity.“ So what was everyone complaining about? Was there anything missing from the circumcized penis, besides the ‘superfluous’ foreskin? The men belonging to the USA (Uncircumcised Society of America) certainly argued that something was missing. One man wrote, ‘My foreskin is the best part of my penis.’” GR

Publisher: Alyson
Paperback: 208 pages

Traces the glory days of teen buggery, when a young boy’s ass was his ticket to the top. “Maintains the Cretan sages established a system under which a young warrior in his early 20s took a teenager of his own aristocratic background as a beloved until the age of 30, when service to the state required the older partner to marry. The practice spread to other Greek-speaking areas. In some places it emphasized the development of the athletic, warrior individual, while in others both intellectual and civic achievements were its goals. In Athens it became a vehicle of cultural transmission, so that the best of each older cohort selected, loved and trained the best of the younger.” Evidence is given to show that this popular brand of butt-busting male bonding gave rise to Hellas and the “Greek miracle.” It gave rise to something, that’s for sure. GR

Publisher: University of Illinois
Hardback: 261 pages
Illustrated

Sun, sand, surf—and sex organs! It’s bare as you dare in Sunny California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii, since nude bathing is still prohibited in all four states. The author visits dozens of famous bottomless beaches, providing history, tips and driving directions for each. Plus sidebars on nude resorts and a dozen clothing-optional hot springs. Perhaps the first book to show the author with his pants off. GR

Publisher: Bold Type
Paperback: 150 pages
Illustrated

History-making outbreaks of bubonic plague, smallpox, rubella, influenza, malaria, conjunctivitis, scarlet fever, cholera and diphtheria. Nature’s weapons of mass destruction, sneaking out from under Death’s door to bring humanity down. GR

Publisher: Facts on File
Hardback: 432 pages

“The Black Death came to England in 1348, and for over three centuries bubonic plague remained a continual and threatening presence in the everyday life (and death) of the country… Examines what it was like to live with the plague at all levels of society,” from village priest to abbot, from laborer to nobleman. Whole towns were wiped out, churches half built, never finished. The Dance of Death eventually joined the Gospel in stained-glass displays, and merchants were buried under memorial cadavers carved in stone, calling for friends’ compassion in mourning their hideous death. Everywhere it was a culture invaded by shrouds, skulls and the stench of death, until the industry of death itself became a “potent instrument of change.” GR

Publisher: University of Toronto
Paperback: 262 pages
Illustrated

Two liberal researchers do their level best to separate the left-wing nuts and the right-wing nuts that keep our country’s paranoia and misinformation flying. Hard Left, old and new: the Socialist Workers Party, Communist Party USA, Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panther Party. Hard Right: the John Birch Society (“A plot to sell books?”), the Christian Right, the militias, the Nation of Islam, the KKK, neo-Nazis (“assorted”), and the Jewish Defense League. “What sort of radical groups exist? What do they want and what are they willing to do to accomplish their goals? How serious is the danger?” Or are they only 10 percent committed and 90 percent “cowards, dopes, nuts, one-track minds, blabbermouths, boobs, incurable tight-wads and—worst of all—hobbyists: people who have to enjoy a perverted, masochistic pleasure in telling each other forever how we are all being raped by the ‘shh-you-know who,’ but who, under no conditions, would think of risking their two cars, landscaped homes or juicy jobs to DO something about it,” as George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party in 1959, said in disdain and disillusionment. In-depth histories, profiles of founding personalities, political agendas, and an appendix of fake quotes and fabricated documents. GR

Publisher: Prometheus
Paperback: 443 pages

The Continental twins of evil—fascism and racism—are back for another bite. “Charts the growth of fascism through the decades following the Second World War to its present-day resurgence in the aftermath of the Cold War. It paints a somber picture of Europeans threatened by racist politics and terrorism, and struggling to come to terms with the problems of living in a multiracial society.” Some issues covered are the rewriting of history, the rise of the new right, secret service corruption, and extreme-right terrorism in Italy. GR

Publisher: Columbia University
Paperback: 265 pages

Russian religioso Rasputin, Grigory Yefimovich (c. 1892-1916), proved a tough nut to kill. “At the party Rasputin drank glass after glass of poisoned wine and several cakes and chocolates spiked with murderous doses of potassium cyanide. The plotters watched expectantly for Rasputin to keel over dead, but he did not. Instead, Rasputin danced and sang and called on the Prince to play the guitar. According to one later medical theory, Rasputin suffered alcoholic gastritis, with his stomach failing to secrete the hydrochloric acid necessary to get the cyanide compound to work.
“Yusupov excused himself to go upstairs, allegedly to get his wife. The Prince returned with a pistol and shot Rasputin… According to some, Rasputin fell to the floor, but as the Prince knelt to examine him, the mystic’s eyes popped open and he seized the Prince by the throat. Yusupov tore himself free and ran to the courtyard with Rasputin in pursuit on all fours. As Rasputin rose to his feet, the Grand Duke shot him in the chest. Another conspirator shot him in the head. Many of the officers used their sabers on Rasputin, and the Prince seized an iron bar and struck the fallen victim several times with savage fury. Finally, the victim lay still, although it was said one eye remained open and staring. The conspirators trussed up the body and heaved it into the Moika Canal.
“Forty-eight hours later the body turned up in the ice of the Neva River. One arm had come free of the bindings, and Rasputin’s lungs were filled with water. Rasputin had still been alive when dumped in the canal and had finally died by drowning.” GR

Publisher: Facts on File
Hardback: 228 pages
Illustrated