Psychotropedia: A Guide To Publications On The Periphery

by Russ Kick

Psychotropedia is a massive survey of publications that exist outside the mainstream, providing reviews (and ordering information) for a breath-taking cross-section of books, zines, and other media. Learn about the skills no one wants you to have; get the inside stories on juror nullification, bestiality, and suppressed treatments for AIDS; and discover the work of taboo-shattering artists and writers. Psychotropedia covers hundreds of touchy and unorthodox topics. More importantly, it tells you exactly how to find out more for yourself. Russ Kick is editor of You Are Being Lied To.

Genres: Reference

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Editor of the website The Memory Hole which publishes and archives hidden US government documents, including scientific studies and reports, civil rights-related reports, intelligence and covert action reports.

He was also editor-at-large for The Disinformation Company, where he had published several books including The Book of Lists and 50 Things You're Not Supposed to Know.

Reviews

[El Rato Pequeño · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dense exhausting phonebook of literary (but not only; a few video productions as well) obscura of underground publications from up until 2002. The hit-and-miss ratio of genuinely intriguing curios vs milquetoast crackpot astrology-ufology among the 1000ish featured books is unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) rather weak, and the various zines on topics like drugs, LGBT and BDSM are actually rather tame by internet standards nowadays... but even then I've still managed to dig up a good 20 or so books here to save into my wishlist, especially from the chapters on art and comics. Russ Kick provides a short review column for every featured book (when the hell did he find the time to read through all this stuff?), and his summaries I thought did a good job on putting me off the majority of them (considering the aforementioned hit-miss ratio, actually a great thing); it's pretty funny how much enthusiasm he exudes in the reviews even for the most absurdly premised JFK and UFO conspiracy pamphlet, selling it like some mindblowing gospel even when it contradicts the one listed right next to it.