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The
Book Of Execution |
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| The
History Of Punishment And Torture By Karen Farrington Hamlyn Publishing Group Amazon says, "The history of punishment and torture makes for macabre and mesmerizing reading: retribution without mercy, medieval justice, hellish prisons, and ingenious methods of inflicting torment upon the body and mind. Trace a path from the days of harshest penalties to more modern methods of reforming wrongdoers. Images graphically capture the plight of prisoners forced to walk treadmills till they went insane; bodies nailed to crosses; suspects tied to ducking stools; and the courts of the Inquisition, which left no stone unturned in their efforts to exact a confession. Discussions of human sacrifice, ordeal by fire or water, the dark days of juvenile justice, the pillory, and capital punishment reveal the astonishing array of clever and cruel sentences devised by those determined to deliver the ultimate punishments." Although I haven't read the book yet, I can vouch for a number of lovely photographs of various methods of torture. (Not Yet Reviewed) |
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History Of Torture By Brian Innes St. Martin's Press An exhaustive look at torture throughout the ages, packed with lots of wince-inducing illustrations. Often-gruesome, but never less than compelling. (Not Yet Reviewed) |
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| Last
Suppers: Famous Final Meals from Death Row By Ty Treadwell, Michelle Vernon Loompanics Unlimited "A most entertaining read! Not only does it list the often quite entertaining final meals of many death row inmates (inspired of course by the Texas Department of Justice which used to list the final meals on its execution page before sadly taking them down a couple of years ago), but it also provides many fun facts about executions, such as the one above. The book is filled with short little snippets which makes it the perfect bathroom reader. I highly recommend putting one in yours today!" Also recommended by the author herself, Michelle Vernon! "I am one of the authors (along with Ty Treadwell) of Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals From Death Row. It is an informative, but humorous book about the last meals of executed criminals. We include interesting tidbits about the death penalty and many of what I call My Exe-Cuties. It looks like it would be a good fit for your literary collections!" NNNN - Morbid Bathroom Fodder! |
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Rope, and Red-Hot Pincers: A History Of Torture and Its Instruments By Geoffrey Abbott Headline Book Pub Ltd Another easy to read, quickly digested, and entertaining volume chock full of torment, gore, and woe from Geoffrey Abbott. NNNN - A Red-Hot Read! |
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| Without
Sanctuary: Lynching Photography In America By Geoffrey Abbott Headline Book Pub Ltd "Without Sanctuary" is an amazing, but very upsetting, collection of lynching photographs and some of the stories that go with them. Although the images of the beaten, burned, mutilated, and hung victims are horrible enough on their own, the thing that truly disturbs me about these photographs are the spectators - men, women, and children - smiling, goofing off, and proudly posing in front of the corpses, just as if they were at a Fourth of July picnic or something. It's really frightening to think how cruel and vicious "good god-fearing citizens" behaved not so very long ago (the majority of the pictures date from the 1890's-1930's, though the most recent comes from 1960). I think this book is performing a great service by refusing to allow this country to forget its own barbarities of the not-so-distant past. Also recommended by Einstein Shrugged: "I picked up a copy of this one night in a fit of drunken Amazon shopping so when it turned up it was a bit of a surprise but morbid surprises are always the best kind. There's not much in the way of text (though what they have is pretty intense) and it mostly lets the photography speak for itself. I've had it for a little over a week and have already read and looked through it twice. The lynchings are bad enough, but the crowd shots of happy, smiling people make it one of the most disturbing books I've read in a long time." NNNNN - Upsetting But Essential! |
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Executioner Always Chops Twice : Ghastly Blunders on the Scaffold by Geoffrey Abbott (St. Martin's Press) Recommended by dyanna. Amazon.Com: "A morbidly fascinating mixture of bungled executions, strange last requests, and classic final one-liners from medieval times to the present day." |
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First Guidebook to Prisons and Concentration Camps of the Soviet Union by Avraham Shifrin (Bantam Books) Recommended by Ulf Rosvall: Here's a snippet of the review on Amazon.Com: "This book, written by a former inmate, describes no fewer than 1,976 concentration camps in the Soviet Union, as of early 1980. In the post-Stalin era alone, at least 1.6 million people died in these camps, and at the time of writing, inmates numbered in the millions... The author describes a world of watchtowers manned by guards bearing machine guns, and electrically charged barbed-wire fences; he portrays prisoners in columns or transport vehicles, prisoners attacked by dogs, prisoners in camp uniforms with numbers across their chests, women prisoners, child and teenage prisoners... Perhaps the most distressing part of this work is the very first section, which lists 119 prisons and concentration camps built specifically for women and children... these camps were characterised by extreme violence and sadistic cruelty: thus in Novosibirsk, club-carrying guards 'subject the young prisoners (aged 10 to 18) to merciless beatings' while children are sent to hard labour projects... Then there is the short section entitled 'Extermination Camps,' listing camps where prisoners, 'forced to work under dangerously unhealthy conditions for the Soviet war machine, face a virtually certain death'. The author identifies three categories: (1) camps where almost no-one ever comes out alive (the prisoners work in uranium mines and uranium enrichment plants); (2) camps where the prisoners are used for dangerous work in the arms industry (the prisoners perform high-risk duties in military nuclear plants); (3) camps where prisoners are used for dangerous work causing disability and fatal illness (the prisoners operate machines without ventilation). Next the author documents the existence of 85 psychiatric prisons, where mentally healthy human beings are administered heavy doses of neuroleptic drugs; where inmates are bound so that the victim's body becomes compressed as if in a vice; and where prisoners are beaten by criminals and subjected to electric shocks at the slightest provocation..." |
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| Lord
High Executioner: An Unashamed Look at Hangmen, Headsmen, and Their
Kind by Howard Engel (Key Porter Books) Recommended by Magdalene: "This has some very interesting illustrations." |
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| Meals
To Die For by Brian Price (Dyna-Paige Corporation) Recommended by Vickie: "'Meals to Die For,' a collection of 42 recipes for final meals requested by inmates on Texas' death row, by former prison cook Brian Price. "Featuring
such gems as: An
Amazon review states this additional information: |
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| Torquemada
and the Spanish Inquisition by Rafael Sabatini (Kessinger Publishing) Recommended by Vern on the lovely Gold Coast of Queensland: "I have a book, 'Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition' by the apologist catholic Rafael Sabatini first published in 1913 by Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd. If you can find a copy it's a very interesting read." |
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