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This is an interesting sub-genre of adult publication, a combination of adult text (in most cases "non-fiction") with the use of sexually-oriented photographs. Usually, one would find sex photos in magazines, not books, and for good reasons -- simply, they are easier to look at when: A) they are reproduced larger and B) the photographs can be more easily seen without having to hold the book open with two hands. Nonetheless, these books combined the two aspects of print communication, text and imagery in a novel manner, that perhaps was less effective than either the large-format periodical medium for photos, or the simple book format for text, and thus the genre was born and died out in the the early 1970sThe main publishers of these materials were the very same dominant forces in adult print at the time -- PENDULUM (with its various imprints, CALGA, SECS, etc.), AMERICAN ART/PARLIAMENT (usually Academy Press, or ...), and GREENLEAF. Certainly the most significant of all the photo-illustrated book publications was Greenleaf's PRESIDENTIAL REPORT -- which lead to the downfall of the original publishing enterprise. Greenleaf continued publishing through to the late-1980s, but with an entirely different staff (??) The Photo-illustrated book was also the ideal venue to capitalize, recycle and cross-market the materials on hand from the production of adult films -- and some publishers made (such as Olympic (not to be confused with The Olympia Press) Foto-Readers) their names in putting out just these photo-saturated sleaze "movie-tie-in" books. And, of course, here (as with most adult publishing genres), we find the bottom-feeding bookleggers, whose imprints are anonymous, but whose books remain all the more intriguing for their mystery and their pervading aura of outlaw endeavour. These are the no-author photo-ridden paperbacks, whose covers, interior photos and text blocks must to have appeared faded from the start. And the photos inside were clearly not intended for book illustration purposes. They are all here to be appreciated in their odd glory. New books will be added as they become available.
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