Books about Brothels from Amazon.com

Step into the perfumed parlors of the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in American history–and the catalyst for a culture war that rocked the nation. Operating in Chicago’s notorious Levee district at the dawn of the last century, the Club’s proprietors, two aristocratic sisters named Minna and Ada Everleigh, welcomed moguls and actors, senators and athletes, foreign dignitaries and literary icons, into their stately double mansion, where thirty stunning Everleigh “butterflies” awaited their arrival. Courtesans named Doll, Suzy Poon Tang, and Brick Top devoured raw meat to the delight of Prince Henry of Prussia and recited poetry for Theodore Dreiser. Whereas lesser madams pocketed most of a harlot’s earnings and kept a “whipper” on staff to mete out discipline, the Everleighs made sure their girls dined on gourmet food, were examined by an honest physician, and even tutored in the literature of Balzac.

Not everyone appreciated the sisters’ attempts to elevate the industry. Rival Levee madams hatched numerous schemes to ruin the Everleighs, including an attempt to frame them for the death of department store heir Marshall Field, Jr. But the sisters’ most daunting foes were the Progressive Era reformers, who sent the entire country into a frenzy with lurid tales of “white slavery”——the allegedly rampant practice of kidnapping young girls and forcing them into brothels. This furor shaped America’s sexual culture and had repercussions all the way to the White House, including the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

With a cast of characters that includes Jack Johnson, John Barrymore, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., William Howard Taft, “Hinky Dink” Kenna, and Al Capone, Sin in the Second City is Karen Abbott’s colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters, their world-famous Club, and the perennial clash between our nation’s hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots. Culminating in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers, Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America’s journey from Victorian-era propriety to twentieth-century modernity.

Visit www.sininthesecondcity.com to learn more!

“Delicious… Abbott describes the Levee’s characters in such detail that it’s easy to mistake this meticulously researched history for literary fiction.” —— New York Times Book Review

“ Described with scrupulous concern for historical accuracy…an immensely readable book.”
—— Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal

“Assiduously researched… even this book’s minutiae makes for good storytelling.”
—— Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Karen Abbott has pioneered sizzle history in this satisfyingly lurid tale. Change the hemlines, add 100 years, and the book could be filed under current affairs.” —— USA Today

“A rousingly racy yarn.” –Chicago Tribune
“A colorful history of old Chicago that reads like a novel… a compelling and eloquent story.” —— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Gorgeously detailed” —— New York Daily News

“At last, a history book you can bring to the beach.” —— The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Once upon a time, Chicago had a world class bordello called The Everleigh Club. Author Karen Abbott brings the opulent place and its raunchy era alive in a book that just might become this years “The Devil In the White City.” —— Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine (cover story)

“As Abbott’s delicious and exhaustively researched book makes vividly clear, the Everleigh Club was the Taj Mahal of bordellos.” —— Chicago Sun Times

“The book is rich with details about a fast-and-loose Chicago of the early 20th century… Sin explores this world with gusto, throwing light on a booming city and exposing its shadows.”
—— Time Out Chicago

“[Abbott’s] research enables the kind of vivid description à la fellow journalist Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City that make what could be a dry historic account an intriguing read."
– Seattle Times

“Abbott tells her story with just the right mix of relish and restraint, providing a piquant guide to a world of sexuality” —— The Atlantic

“A rollicking tale from a more vibrant time: history to a ragtime beat.”
– Kirkus Reviews


“With gleaming prose and authoritative knowledge Abbott elucidates one of the most colorful periods in American history, and the result reads like the very best fiction. Sex, opulence, murder — What's not to love?”
—— Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants


“A detailed and intimate portrait of the Ritz of brothels, the famed Everleigh Club of turn-of-the-century Chicago. Sisters Minna and Ada attracted the elites of the world to such glamorous chambers as the Room of 1,000 Mirrors, complete with a reflective floor. And isn’t Minna’s advice to her resident prostitutes worthy advice for us all: “Give, but give interestingly and with mystery.”’
—— Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City


“Karen Abbott has combined bodice-ripping salaciousness with top-notch scholarship to produce a work more vivid than a Hollywood movie.”
—— Melissa Fay Greene, author of There is No Me Without You


“Sin in the Second City is a masterful history lesson, a harrowing biography, and - best of all - a superfun read. The Everleigh story closely follows the turns of American history like a little sister. I can't recommend this book loudly enough.”
—— Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng


“This is a story of debauchery and corruption, but it is also a story of sisterhood, and unerring devotion. Meticulously researched, and beautifully crafted, Sin in the Second City is an utterly captivating piece of history.”
—— Julian Rubinstein, author of Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
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Price: $8.36 [Notify me when price goes down.]

As seen on TV, The Hedonist is the ultimate Sports and Sex Vacation Guide. Written for the guy who knows exactly what he wants, is willing to pay for it, and loves to spoils himself rotten. If you love exotic tropical getaways with Ocean Lined Golf, Deep Sea Fishing, Casinos, and pay for play girls who always say yes, this book is for you. Experience the Ultimate Fat Cat Vacations that can be pulled off on a fraternity tight budget. Get your BS stories for the old lady at home, it's time to be the fearless weekend warrior who indulges in balls to the wall hedonistic lust.

Spring Break, Cancun, and Hedonism are for wimps. This is the Big Leagues, the Adult Disneyland. Where every guy scores hot young girls every night, and the fishing and golf stories are all real. Covering 20 tropical cities, dive headfirst into hedonist insanity in Costa Rica, Rio de Janeiro, Cabo San Lucas, from Bangkok to the Caribbean, to a dozen untarnished island paradises in South America, Asia, and Europe, where you'll be treated like a King for $25! A fascinating read written from personal experiences, in a hysterical, Maxim-like sarcastic style that seems more like a Bachelor Party conversation than a travel guide. Golf, Fishing, Gambling, Beaches, and chugging umbrella drinks with Pay for Play hotties wearing nothing but a smile. Who could ask for anything more?

Learn the how, what, and where for all your daytime sports activities:

• Breathtaking world ranked Ocean-lined Golf Courses
  
• Big Game Sportfishing with Trophy-sized Marlin and topless horny shipmates
  
• Scuba diving, Windsurfing, Parasailing, Snorkeling, and Kayaking
  
• Jungle treks, rappelling, mountain climbing, insane Level 4 Whitewater Rafting

Learn the how and the where to meet your uninhibited "dates".

• Massive High Class discos where every girl is available and competes for you
  
• Full service, upscale Strip Clubs (incall/outcall), Massage Parlors and Roman Termas
  
• Sports bar Brothels, Red Light Districts, Escorts, endless local nymphos
  
• Topless beaches overflowing with sexy young Island girls who ALWAYS SAY YES
  
• The low down on the club procedures, pricing and terminology, w/local updated websites w/maps and details.

What can I expect to happen on these vacations?

• Expect Viagra to become a favorite new food group
  
• Expect girls to be walking with a limp after leaving your hotel room
  
• Experience first-hand the wisdom of the famous line "we pay them to leave."
  
• Discover a little late that "Drink Canada Dry" is just a slogan, and not a personal challenge
  
• Expect to feel 20 years younger, and to dread the day you have to return

A turnkey guide travel assistant, complete with reviews, addresses, phone numbers, and first hand field reports. Included is a must-read 30 pages of Sex Tourism 101 advice on mastering the games and psychology of the local women you'll meet. This is the taboo Bachelor's Vacation Guide that we've all been waiting for, without a single politically correct word in it. Nicknamed the Sex Bible for Men, over 200 pages of extensive, concise, well-researched advice, including tips for hotels, cabs, customs, currency, crime and scams, sightseeing advice and more. A real time and money saver. Why settle for anything but the best? Why gamble on hopes? Bet on the sure thing. The girls are waiting....
Price: $12.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A flame-throwing epidemiologist talks about sex, drugs, and the mistakes (dismal), ideologies (vicious), and hopes (realistic) of international AIDS prevention

When people ask Elizabeth Pisani what she does for a living, she says, "sex and drugs." As an epidemiologist researching AIDS, she's been involved with international efforts to halt the disease for fourteen years. With swashbuckling wit and fierce honesty, she dishes on herself and her colleagues as they try to prod reluctant governments to fund HIV prevention for the people who need it most—drug injectors, gay men, sex workers, and johns.

Pisani chats with flamboyant Indonesian transsexuals about their boob jobs and watches Chinese streetwalkers turn away clients because their SUVs aren't nice enough. With verve and clarity, she shows the general reader how her profession really works; how easy it is to draw wrong conclusions from "objective" data; and, shockingly, how much money is spent so very badly. "Exhibit A": the 45 billion taxpayer dollars the Bush administration is committing to international AIDS programs. 12 illustrations..
Price: $15.46 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"I know girls as young as 12 years old who have been forced to marry their stepfathers," Laura Chapman states in God’s Brothel For the first time, the stories of Laura and 17 other former polygamist wives are being told in book form. Unique among books on this topic, God’s Brothel presents accounts from 10 of the 11 major Mormon polygamist sects and several independent families. This thorough coverage reveals patterns of physical, sexual and emotional abuse common to these groups.

In addition to the women’s stories, God’s Brothel presents a fascinating discussion of polygamy’s history in America. Moore-Emmett recounts the prosecution of polygamists and current freedom of religion arguments used to justify its practice. She also provides a coherent breakdown of the major contemporary polygamist groups and places U.S. polygamy in a world context. This background information greatly clarifies much of the confusion surrounding this complex issue.

Far from affecting only Utah, Mormon and Christian fundamentalist polygamist groups are found in 30 U.S. states, Mexico, and Canada. Conservative estimates place those living in polygamy in North America at 50,000 to 100,000 and growing. Recently, members of Utah’s Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) moved to Texas to escape prosecution after first telling local officials that they were opening a hunting lodge. This event represents just one instance of polygamy’s spread across the country, a spread that could bring God’s Brothel to a neighborhood near you..
Price: $10.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When Harvard medical student Alexa Albert conducted a public-health study as the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada, the only state in the union where prostitution is legal, neither she nor the brothel could have predicted the end result. Having worked with homeless prostitutes in Times Square, Albert was intimate with human devastation cause by the sex trade, and curious to see if Nevada’s brothels offered a less harmful model for a business that will always be with us. The Mustang Ranch has never before given an outsider such access, but fear of AIDS was hurting the business, and the Ranch was eager to get publicity for its rigorous standards of sexual hygiene. Albert was drawn into the lives of the women of the Mustang Ranch, and what began as a public-health project evolved into something more intimate and ambitious, a six-year study of the brothel ecosystem, its lessons and significance.

The women of the Mustang Ranch poured their stories out to Albert: how they came to be there, their surprisingly deep sense of craft and vocation, how they reconciled their profession with life on the outside. Dr. Albert went as far into this world as it is possible to go — some will say too far — including sitting in on sessions with customers, and the result is a book that puts an unforgettable face on America’s maligned and caricatured subculture..
Price: $4.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A powerful story that unfolds in the red-light district of Calcutta: a photographer that becomes a teacher and the extraordinary children she meets who learn to dream with cameras in their hands. Accompanies an Academy Award-winning documentary.

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Price: $17.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

You know you're curious. Everyone is. You want to know what happens inside a Nevada brothel, where almost anything goes - and it's legal!


Laraine Russo Harper has the answers. In Legal Tender, she provides a firsthand look behind the scenes at a renowned legal house of prostitution. This fascinating and funny memoir uncovers it all: the working girls, the customers, the practices and pitfalls of a unique industry.


More important, Legal Tender puts a human face on the women who sell sexual services and the men who buy them..
Price: $10.67 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This comic masterpiece reimagines the American Revolution with a one-eyed spy, a heroic whorehouse madam, and a cunning George Washington.

Praised for one of the most "singular and remarkable [careers] in American literature" (Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World), Jerome Charyn now delights with this picaresque tour de force. He reanimates a war-torn Manhattan overrun by Redcoats and deserted by all but the Loyalists—and Mrs. Gertrude Jennings, the tempestuous, redheaded queen of Manhattan's most spectacular bordello. When the novel opens, young double agent John Stocking is being interrogated by Washington, a rebel commander far removed from the dour, silent man of most history books. As Johnny seeks to unlock the mystery of his birth and grapples with his allegiances, he falls in love with Clara, a gorgeous, green-eyed octoroon, the most coveted harlot of Gertrude's house. The wild parade of characters he encounters includes Benedict Arnold, the Howe brothers, "Sir Billy" and "Black Dick," and a manipulative Alexander Hamilton.

Not since John Barth's The Sotweed Factor and Gore Vidal's Burr has a novel so dramatically re-created America's historical beginnings..
Price: $5.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

'Lusty Traveler' is the world famous, all-inclusive sex tourism guide. Entertaining, informing and loaded with well-researched advice, this book is an absolute must-have for hedonistic adventurers. Don't waste time and money on another disappointing vacation. Release your inner porn star and experience the pleasures of Rio as a seasoned expert. From the upscale brothels to the dive sex shops; from the "guest" friendly hotels to the one-hour pit stops - no subject is taboo, and every moral line is crossed. Women are judged based on attractiveness, affection, and value. Reviews are firsthand, unscrupulous, and any trace of political correctness is left for dust. Want to negotiate a great deal? Read Wiley's invaluable advice. Humorous personal accounts amuse and polish off key points. Of course, less provocative topics, such as the best restaurants and "must see" attractions, are also covered. All the necessary details are provided - addresses, phone-numbers, websites, and prices. Even a brothel map is included to help you find your way. Use the list of "guest" friendly hotels and apartments to choose the perfect love den for late night trysts. Do you want to talk dirty in Portuguese, but do not have time to learn? Check out the chapter on Portuguese vocabulary and phrases. Your dates will be delighted by your mastery of their native tongue. This is the most accurate and up-to-date reference on the market; don't settle for anything less. The world's most beautiful women are waiting. Live the life you deserve..
Price: $14.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A seafaring story with a twist -- the incredible voyage of a shipload of "disorderly girls" and the men who transported them, fell for them, and sold them.

This riveting work of rediscovered history tells for the first time the plight of the female convicts aboard the Lady Julian, which set sail from England in 1789 and arrived in Australia's Botany Bay a year later. The women, most of them petty criminals, were destined for New South Wales to provide its hordes of lonely men with sexual favors as well as progeny. But the story of their voyage is even more incredible, and here it is expertly told by a historian with roots in the boatbuilding business and a true love of the sea.

SiGn Rees delved into court documents and firsthand accounts to extract the stories of these women's experiences on board a ship that both held them prisoner and offered them refuge from their oppressive existence in London. At the heart of the story is the passionate relationship between Sarah Whitelam, a convict, and the ship's steward, John Nicol, whose personal journals provided much of the material for this book. Along the way, Rees brings the vibrant, bawdy world of London -- and the sights, smells, and sounds of an eighteenth-century ship -- vividly to life. In the tradition of Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, this is a winning combination of dramatic high seas adventure and untold history. .
Price: $7.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]