Dandy in the Underworld by Sebastian Horsley (Sceptre)
A blazing memoir, witty and tragic, and offering a vibrant view of one man's sexuality. This is physically a beautiful volume and the writing is stylish and both believable and unapologetically shocking. It provides insight into some of the ways men perceive their failures but somehow can manage to triumph by default, and enjoy the life of pleasure that suits them. It is full of great quips and lines, like
‘Waking up with a morning erection, I politely suggested that Rachel might like to hop on.’
'”Sweetheart, I don't want to do this anymore, I really don't.”
“Check your pulse, darling. You may be dead.”’
Prohibitions Edited by John Meadowcroft (Institute of Economic Affairs)
Sex work and pornography are discussed, alongside other prohibited services such as drugs, gambling and guns, to prove that outlawing is bad public policy. This important book challenges the expanding ‘nanny state’, in which politicians and bureaucrats have increasingly sought to restrict what individuals are permitted to do with their own bodies on their own property. Prohibitions is a corrective to the prevailing support for such authoritarianism.
http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=book&ID=429
Award Statement ...
Sex work and pornography are discussed, alongside other prohibited services such as drugs, gambling and guns, to prove that outlawing is bad public policy. This important book challenges the expanding ‘nanny state’, in which politicians and bureaucrats have increasingly sought to restrict what individuals are permitted to do with their own bodies on their own property. Prohibitions is a corrective to the prevailing support for such authoritarianism.
http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=book&ID=429
Award Statement ...
Sex at the Margins – Migration, Labour, Markets and the Rescue Industry
by Laura María Agustín (Zed Books)
A gripping academic book that proves that those women and institutions who set out to ‘save’ sex workers are actually doing more harm than good. The New Statesman approves: ‘It is always refreshing to read a book that turns an issue on its head. Laura María Agustín's trenchant and controversial critique of the anti-trafficking crusade goes a step further: it lays out the matter - in this case, "human trafficking" - on the operating table, dissects it, unravels its innards, and shows the reader, in gory, sometimes eye-watering detail, why everything we think about it is Wrong with a capital W. It's a jarring read; I imagine that those who make a living from campaigning against the scourge of human trafficking will throw it violently across the room, if not into an incinerator. Yet it may also be one of the most important books on migration published in recent years.’
http://www.newstatesman.com/200803270046
http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/book.asp?bookdetail=4167
by Laura María Agustín (Zed Books)
A gripping academic book that proves that those women and institutions who set out to ‘save’ sex workers are actually doing more harm than good. The New Statesman approves: ‘It is always refreshing to read a book that turns an issue on its head. Laura María Agustín's trenchant and controversial critique of the anti-trafficking crusade goes a step further: it lays out the matter - in this case, "human trafficking" - on the operating table, dissects it, unravels its innards, and shows the reader, in gory, sometimes eye-watering detail, why everything we think about it is Wrong with a capital W. It's a jarring read; I imagine that those who make a living from campaigning against the scourge of human trafficking will throw it violently across the room, if not into an incinerator. Yet it may also be one of the most important books on migration published in recent years.’
http://www.newstatesman.com/200803270046
http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/book.asp?bookdetail=4167