- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; 1st edition (8 May 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0575063882
- ISBN-13: 978-0575063884
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 13.4 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
659,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #33 in Books > Biography > Social & Health Issues > Pornography
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A revealing account of the author's years in the offices of two soft-porn magazines. It describes encounters with crank callers, models, postboys, readers' wives, saucy crossword compilers and sex-publishing barons. It aims to demystify the glamour and sleaze surrounding the soft-porn industry.
About the Author
Nicholas Whittaker is the author of Platform Souls: The Trainspotter as Twentieth-century Hero, Blue Period: Nots from a Life in the Titillation Trade, Sweet Talk and Toys Were Us. As well as single-handedly writing the 1984 Pontin's brochure, he has contributed to a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, including Company, Arena, Punch, the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Express. Nicholas Whittaker lives in north London.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
A very revealing view of the soft porn industry in the UK in its "glory days". It shows that there were big profits to be made, but that the office floor workers were in a grim and downtrodden position. The author reveals how he made up letters for the mags and this and other stories are very funny. This is a good book to take on holiday with you and have a chuckle on the beach. If you liked Platform Souls by the same author you will like this.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
Demystification.
20 Mar 2002
Format:Paperback
Nicholas Whittaker, Blue Period: Notes from a Life in the Titillation Trade (Gollancz, 1997)
Nicholas Whittaker, just out of school, jobless, and dreaming of writing the Great British Novel, answered a small ad for an assistant editor in the Sunday paper. This started him on a seven year career at two of Britain's men's magazines, Fiesta and Razzle. He distilled the essence of those seven years into this little autobiographical yarn. And having finished it, I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it.
Whittaker strikes me as the self-deprecating type, and that tends to bleed over into his descriptions of his co-workers and office areas. Obviously, it's a different-colored lens than that of the usual self-aggrandizing autobiographer, but it still telegraphs to the reader to take everything herein with a grain of salt. It also says quite a bit about what working in the porn industry did to Whittaker; it always seems as if he's just this side of uncomfortable talking about sex, whether he was involved with it or not.
That's not to say the whole book has the "nobody knows the trouble I've seen" pall cast over it. Whittaker is possessed of a quick wit, even if it is usually turned on himself, and there are parts of the book that are laugh-out-loud funny. The balance is a bit rigged, it seems, but the attempt is there, and for the most part it succeeds. There's never quite so much despair that the reader stops caring.
Whittaker's ultimate aim, when one reads between the lines, is the demystification of the porn industry. He often compares himself and his workmates to the more public porn barons (for Americans, the comparison would be the guy in the copy room looking at his life as it relates to Hugh Hefner's), and wonders how the rest of the world can think everyone who works at a magazine could possibly live like that. But it's the illusionary atmosphere of the whole thing that keeps people buying the magazines, and Whittaker shows us the illusion time and again. It is in this where the book best succeeds; Whittaker relates his anecdotes and lets the reader's mind make all the necessary connections. One thinks that, after he's done with the Great British Novel, he'd probably make a fine living as a barrister. Assuming, of course, they don't castigate him for his shady past. ***
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