Title: Psychotropedia

Author/Artist: Russ Kick

Publisher: Critical Vision

Media: Book

Reviewer: Pan

It’s difficult to write this review because every time I pick up ‘Psychotropedia’ I lose another hour or so. This ‘guide to publications on the periphery’ is readable, interesting and difficult to put down. Open the book at random and chances are you’ll find something that catches your attention, and one page becomes two becomes...

Psychotropedia - a conjunction of psychoactive and encyclopedia - is a massive (575 pages or thereabouts) compendium of book and magazine reviews, organised into fourteen categories including Sex, Freedom, The Body, Drugs, Conspiracies, Beliefs and others. The range of material covered is phenomenal, and suggests that Russ Kick is a socially dysfunctional print junky of the worst kind. He’s got a habit, but he can control it, honest.

With so much to chose from deciding what to highlight ought to be tricky, but then I’ve got my own obsessions to pander to...The Sex section of the book is pretty extensive and covers most bases - from foot fetishism to SM to scat to porn. Where else can you read about the American Sphincter Society, de-circumcision, solo oral sex and the fine art of vaginal fisting? No matter how obscure or deviant, chances are that someone somewhere writes about it, and that it’s reviewed here. A book like ‘Alternate Sources’ might be more comprehensive in this department, but Psychotropedia is not a listings directory and it’s a whole lot more readable and informative.

Another favourite area is the No Compromises chapter, which includes an eclectic and sympathetic section on Anarchism. Also covered are Animal Liberation, The Patriot/Militia Movement and Nazism amongst others. Of course there’s a degree of arbitrariness involved in these categories, and material from the Freedom section could quite easily fit into the No Compromises chapter. Similarly there’s a certain amount of cross-over between the sections on Sex and The Body. Luckily there’s an index included to help you navigate should you lose your way.

If there’s one conclusion to be drawn from Psychotropedia it’s that print has an enduring appeal that no amount of new technology can touch. No matter how many people get connected to the internet, and no matter how cheap web publishing becomes, people are still writing, publishing and reading books, magazines and pamphlets. Psychotropedia itself is the perfect example of this, the information’s all their on the internet - www.mindpollen.com to be precise - but a book makes more sense and is a lot more useable than any number of HTML pages.

Reading this book is a pleasure, and even if you have no intention of tracking down a single one of the goodies that it describes, it’s a pleasure you shouldn’t deny yourself.