from: Bloat Books
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.15230922
EAN num: 9780965032407
ISBN number: 096503240X
Label: Bloat Books
Manufacturer: Bloat Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 328
Printing Date: September 01, 1997
Publishing house: Bloat Books
Sale Popularity Level: 259174
Studio: Bloat Books
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
'Lustmord' is a compilation of essays, short stories, memoirs, confessions, letters, manifestoes, poetry, drawings, photographs and other works created by serial killers, mass murderers, cannibals, necrophiles, sexual sadists, psychopaths and assassins. These compelling, authentic documents are now available for the very first time in one volume - an aesthetic testimony to the emotion and logic of a murderer's mind, a mind filled with terror and hatred, absurdity and horror, pathos and iniquity. Illustrated. Preface written especially for 'Lustmord' by Herbert Mullin, a serial killer who murdered thirteen people in the Santa Cruz area of California between October 1972 and February 1973.
Amazon.com Review:
'Even the most imaginative writers of fiction cannot equal the stark intensity and demented enthusiasm evident in the authentic writings of murderers.' Thus Brian King introduces this collection of the writings and artwork of 37 men and women who expressed themselves primarily through the act of killing for pleasure (in German, Lustmord). The material includes diary entries, letters, scribbles found on walls or scraps of paper, poems, short stories, confessions, manifestoes, autobiographical statements, instructions on technique, maps, diagrams, drawings, photographs, and black-and-white photos of paintings and sculpture. John List, for example, uses words of eerie banality to explain why he killed his whole family: 'I didn't want them to experience poverty.' Charlie Starkweather, by contrast, conveys deep emotion: he says his heart has 'a wildcatten hatred burned into it ... turning dark grey with hate of rages.' Lustmord is testimony to the bizarre workings of the murderous mind.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This is a great book!
More horrifying than any fiction, and very sad, too.
Despite the print being very small, this is one of the best books I have purchased in years.
Rated by buyers -
"Lustmord" The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers" Edit. Brian King, Burbank: Bloat Publ. Co., 1996. ISBN number 0-9650324-0-X PB 314 pp., is a panoply of 37 murderers (with and without accomplices) whose crimes, chronicled in alphabetical order, are substantially written in the 1st person or snared from their confessions, self portrayls, or proclammations. The text is decently acccompanied by useful bibliography.
Unlike most books on crimes and criminals, Brian King (?fittingly) chose to have the book's preface written by serial killer Herbert Mullin. "Lustmord" is Germanic and candidly translates to "pleasure killing" -- the book is replete with such accounts, often told in such minute sordid details that elements of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) appear tantamount in a number of cases.
This is not a book one must read sequentially, i.e., cover-to-cover, since the organization is extrinsic, simply alphabetical. Most cases occurred after WW II, the majority were in the US, a few in the UK. In "Lustmord" the themes of gross sexual perversion and banality become entwined with a variety of schizophrenic and schizoid behaviours and oft times sheds suggestive insight into possible origins of goaded deviancy. I suggest the book be reserved for readers with at least a modest background in medicine or psychology - it is truly morbid. Alternativly, it does serve as an excellent reference source for information on the graceless and muddled deranged eccentricitiies of the "worst of the worst".
Rated by buyers -
Man I loved this book. First off the print is extra tiny--a bit of a strain on the eyes but otherwise allows HOURS of entertaining and disturbing reading. Among the absolutely incredible accounts are included a piece by Issei Sagawa (the Japanese Cannibal) who describes -- in DETAIL -- what it is like to kill and then EAT a woman (including spices and techniques, ugh!). Unforgettable. And by all means don't miss the sadistic creepiness of Gerard J. Schaefer, a real loser who was a deputy sherrif that stalked mostly teenaged girls...includes his depraved sketches as well. My other favorites are Albert Fish and Carl Panzram, but the overwhelming majority are quite fascinating.
Rated by buyers 
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Lustmord is a strange book to try to quantify. The book is a collection of the writings and artwork of thirty-seven murderers. Th writings reveal the inner workings of the disturbed mind in all of its forms. The writers are disturbed and often delusional in their outward view of the world.
There are a few problems with the volume. The editor, Brian King does not do such a great job af setting the stage in all cases. Often we are left with a group of writings taken out of context and hard to decipher. Many of the participants are illiterate or very nearly so. More editing is needed to make the reading easier. Also there is a feel of overkill about the book. We are presented with much more information than we really need to keep the material interesting. The book also uses a font style that is so small that the narrative is hard to read.
The reader needs to be warned that this is graphic material that is certainly not for everyone. The editor himself calls the material morbid in his brief introduction. With that warning the book does present a detailed look at the disturbed worldview of the murderer.
Rated by buyers 
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This compilation of extracts includes the scribblings, poems, memoirs, short stories, confessions and observations of real-life "pleasure-killers" or "lustmurderers". They range from the writings of killers who are sometimes professional writers, to the barely articulate and even the semi-literate. In a way that easily surpasses the best of what "sane" literature has produced in an endeavor to approximate the bestiality of crime, these documents are authentic descriptions of the violence, revenge, celebrity and anti-social dysfunction reaped by modern murderers. What makes this collection unique is that it magnifies what can be called "the fine art of murder", in delineating the "artistic" side of killing. In treating their atrocities and crimes in the spirit of literature, these killers, who comprise rapists, mutilators, cannibals and serial psychopaths, emphasise the act of murder considered for its decidedly "aesthetic" component, if one chooses to adopt this term as a synonym for the natural, the realistic, the sublime, or any term that otherwise serves to designate what moves us deeply. It can be unsettling that such confused, loveless, brutal and genuinely mad individuals can be placed in the category of "creative people", to share in the qualities that have distinguished true literary personalities: obssession, revolt, anguish, conscientiousness, paranoia, narcissim, even a sense of vision. From a clinical point of view, such literature is immensely rich and rewarding, in not only concretely illustrating various states of "pathology", but drawing to our attention a form of art that is simultaneously a weapon of psychic insurrection, or a uniquely transformative act of the criminal's stance towards society. Just as much as a deranged criminal a product of civilisation, so is he, in his efforts as an artist, also an endeavor to overcome it.
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