"People come to my door—too many of them really—and knock to tell me Notes of a Dirty Old Man turns them on. A bum off the road brings in a gypsy and his wife and we talk . . . . drink half the night. A long distance operator from Newburgh, N.Y. sends me money. She wants me to give up drinking beer and to eat well. I hear from a madman who calls himself 'King Arthur' and lives on Vine Street in Hollywood and wants to help me write my column. A doctor comes to my door: 'I read your column and think I can help you. I used to be a psychiatrist.' I send him away . . ."

After toiling in obscurity for years, Charles Bukowski suddenly found fame in 1967 with his autobiographical newspaper column, "Notes of a Dirty Old Man," and a book of that name in 1969. He continued writing this column, in one form or another, through the mid-1980s. "More Notes of a Dirty Old Man" gathers many uncollected gems from the column's twenty-year run. Drawn from ephemeral underground publications, these stories and essays haven't been seen in decades, making "More" a valuable addition to Bukowski's oeuvre. Filled with his usual obsessions--sex, booze, gambling--"More" features Bukowski's offbeat insights into politics and literature, his tortured, violent relationships with women, and his lurid escapades on the poetry reading circuit. Highlighting his versatility, the book ranges from thinly veiled autobiography to purely fictional tales of dysfunctional suburbanites, disgraced politicians, and down-and-out sports promoters, climaxing with a long, hilarious adventure among French filmmakers, "My Friend the Gambler," based on his experiences making the movie "Barfly." From his lowly days at the post office through his later literary fame, "More" follows the entire arc of Bukowski's colorful career. Edited by Bukowski scholar David Stephen Calonne, "More Notes of a Dirty Old Man" features an afterword outlining the history of the column and its effect on the author's creative development. Born in Andernach, Germany in 1920, Charles Bukowski came to California at age three and spent most of his life in Los Angeles. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994.

From Publishers WeeklyMaster mystery writer Block has dabbled in his time in many genres, and early in his career, back in 1971, he published a handful of paperback erotic novels under a pseudonym; this is one of them. He wanted, he says, to have fun with an epistolary novel, and this is written entirely in the form of letters by a fired magazine editor, Larry Clarke, to his former wife, his previous employers, his previous wife's lover and so on. Block's knack of keeping things moving was prodigious even then, and the novel is a rapid and often amusing read, in which Larry Clarke takes sharp potshots at all and sundry, to often delicious effect. The erotic part is less successful, however; Larry (Clarke or Block) was under the impression, common to pornographers, that women crave anal penetration, which makes some of the sex scenes rather distasteful and far from aphrodisiac in effect. It's an interesting glimpse, nonetheless, of the early skills of one of our great noir stylists. (Feb.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc.Review“Block is one of the best!” —The Washington Post