World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
CLOSED FOR SUMMER.
RE-OPENING 01.02.24
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
Art
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World Food Books Gift Voucher
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Australian Art
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Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
2005, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 160 pages, 21.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Futami Shobo / Japan
$160.00 - In stock -
Rare, controversial photo book of Ikko Kagari, publisher of a number of these extraordinary, extremely questionable, surreptitious infrared photography collections in the 1980's—1990's, including the controversial coveted classic "Molester Rush" and "Document Commuter Train". This 2005 collection was published by Futami Shobo, collecting his colour and b/w photography from the streets of Shinjuku and Kabuki-cho areas of Tokyo. Candid and voyeuristic, this is the side of Tokyo usually hidden from view — violence, despair, gluttony and perversion — street photography behind the veil. While many are sexual in nature, in the same vein as his earlier photo books documenting clandestine sexual activities in public places, others show various human dramas unfolding on the street, like unauthorised photo journalism capturing the violent and desperate side of Tokyo. Homicide, suicide, gang violence, overdoses and intoxication, homelessness... Human behaviour seldom published. File alongside the works of Kohei Yoshiyuki, Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, and ¡Alarma!.
Very Good—Near Fine copy.
1994, Japanese / English
Slipcase (w. obi), corrugated envelope, unpaginated book, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
B-Sellers / Japan
$200.00 - In stock -
First book edition of Scene of Death, a rare 1994 death photo collection, published by B-Sellers in Japan only, compiled by Noriaki Nakagawa, Hitomi Komukai, and Yoichi Shihata. An elaborate and beautiful production of the macabre. Housed in an illustrated slipcase with illustrated obi-strip and further within a stamped, labelled, corrugated envelope, housing the bound book containing 64 monochrome photographic plates reproducing images from "Atlas der Gerichtsmedizin", an absolutely fascinating collection by Weiman / Prokop, first published in 1963. Atlas der Gerichtsmedizin was originally a serious German scientific reference book for criminal investigators and those in the medical field — a photo book scrapbook of thousands of images of graphic human death scenes — suffocation and strangulation, drowning and death by water, death by burning and electrocution, crimes of passion, abuse and neglect, and more. In turn, this visual opus became a bible of reference imagery to a wave of musicians, artists and authors during the industrial avant-garde, from Throbbing Gristle to Paul Buck to Atrax Morgue. This meticulous and unique Japanese offering further influenced many Japanese artists in the 1990's.
"We believe the scenes of death is, in one sense, the most erotic of human nature. It is at the time of death that man no longer can attempt to control his inner self and therefore the real self appears vividly. Here we have opened the doors to a topic that is usually not only hidden but also shut out of the minds of man. Please share our excitement and take a glance into the world of hidden eroticism"—Scene of Death blurb.
Very Good copy throughout. some edge wear and damage to obi strip, light tanning to box.
1994 / 1995, Japanese / English
2 Vol. set, hardcovers (w. corflute envelope slipcases) in box, 196 + 182 pages, 32.5 x 23.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sequoia / Tokyo
$500.00 - Out of stock
"I dedicate this book to all lives"
Very rare, highly collectible cult classic two-volume death photo book series, SCENE Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, published in 1994 and 1995 in Japan only. A lavish production, with both heavy books printed in hardcover filled with high-quality reproductions of anonymous, uncredited corpse photography, seemingly sociopolitical photo-journalism of human massacre stripped of text/language as a confronting stream of graphic images in conceptual photo book form. SCENE presents an unwavering, unapologetic exploration of a world usually hidden from view — the dead and death. Not for the faint of heart. Compiled by Kunio Shimizu and Yoichi Shibata for publisher Hirofumi Nagashima, each book is housed in elaborate button-and-tie-bound corflute envelopes, Vol. 1 in black, Vol. 2 in silver. Select plates have been featured in the pages of Kotaro Kobayshi’s underground publications TOO NEGATIVE and ULTRA NEGATIVE from the same period.
This extra special copy was issued as both volumes together in publisher's printed box with seldom seen single promo sheet included for each book (inserted into each book). The ultimate complete edition of this underground photo classic. HEAVY in every sense.
Both books 1990's dead stock with only standard storage wear from button-bind pressure to envelopes/wear to button metal, box with yellowed tape seal (opened) and general storage wear/age.
2024, English
Softcover, 248 pages, 21.0 x 14.3 cm
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$52.00 - In stock -
Tracing the relation between fascism and settler colonialism.
Ever since neofascist movements began to surge across the globe, liberal commentators have tried to put a name to what they are defending from these illiberal ideologies. The consensus is reason or rationality—after the Second World War, mainstream scholarship has supported the view that adherence to fascism is a thing of unreason. This distinction between reason and unreason, a tenet of Enlightenment thought, sustains the universal appeal of liberal democracy but leaves unexamined the paradoxes that haunt modernity, particularly its colonial foundation, thus obscuring the continuities between fascism and imperial policies.
The White West contends that, without confronting the structuring force of race in the production and reproduction of global wealth disparities, fighting for reason only leads to flawed utopias in which a critique or disruption of capitalism is easily inflected in the direction of neofascism. This collection of writing by leading historians, theorists, and scholars is an attempt to engage the overlaps between philosophical predicates and colonial legacies, as well as the undertheorized continuities between fascism and settler colonialism.
Contributors:
Larne Abse Gogarty, Norman Ajari, Ramon Amaro, Sladja Blazan, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Donna V. Jones, Nitzan Lebovic, Olivier Marboeuf, A. Dirk Moses, Rijin Sahakian, Nikhil Pal Singh, Kerstin Stakemeier, Felix Stalder
1988, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 200 pages, 22.5 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Weidenfeld and Nicolson / London
$40.00 - In stock -
First 1988 hardcover edition of Bodysnatchers: A History of the Resurrectionists , 1742—1832 by Martin Fido.
From 1740 to 1832, freshly buried corpses were dug up and surreptitiously hawked to surgeons and anatomists in London and Edinburgh to dissect for research and teaching purposes. The resurrection trade brought together Fellows of the Royal Society and slum-dwelling criminals in an unholy alliance. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the illicit trade had become one of London's most efficiently organized departments of crime, with gang-leader Ben Crouch securing a virtual monopoly of delivery to half the teaching hospitals. In Scotland, several surgeons of great eminence loved the adventure of association with desperadoes and willingly accompanied them on their nocturnal excavations. Not surprisingly, there was great public consternation about the activities of the bodysnatchers, but it was only when Burke and Hare introduced murder as a means of acquiring 'subjects' that the authorities acted to eradicate the ghoulish practice.
Martin Fido's book is an enthralling study of a strange byway of criminal low life. It provides the first full and accurate accounts of murderers Helen Torrence and Jean Waldie, Bishop and Head and El iza Ross. With sketches of the great surgeons who encouraged and sought to control the trade, 'Bodysnatchers' will interest many in the medical profession and social historians as well as devotees of the true crime genre.
Martin Fido is best known for his popular biographies of Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare and Rudyard Kipling. For twenty years he taught English literature in universities as far apart as Oxford, Michigan and the West Indies. His special field was the Victorian social novel. He has always been interested in true crime, and he is the author of the Murder Guide to London and The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper.
When in London, he devotes as much time as possible to his much-loved cabin- cruiser, and takes guided tours over the Jack the Ripper territory and into graveyards where the bodysnatchers worked. At home in Cornwall, his principal recreation is walking over the West Penwith moors.
Very Good in VG dust jacket, light spotting to book block edges.
1987, English
Softcover, 352 pages, 27 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
Autonomedia / New York
$80.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of one of the remarkable special book issues of the original Semiotext(e) journal — the notorious Semiotext(e) U.S.A., published in 1987, edited by Jim Fleming and Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey), and designed by Sue Ann Harkley. Complete with the unprintable 4-pages, in still-sealed plastic pocket. ("Calling it "subversive" and "obscene," five book printers in the spring of 1987 refused to print Semiotext(e) USA. A sixth printer agreed to do all but four pages, which we have printed separately and included here.") Semiotext(e) U.S.A. is an absolute treasure and time-capsule of subcultural publishing in the 1980s—1990s, centering around Autonomedia and Semiotext(e). The original publisher's blurb says it all:
"THE JOURNAL DENOUNCED IN THE U.S. SENATE FOR ITS ADVOCACY OF "ANIMAL SEX" PRESENTS..."
"A huge compendium of works in AMERICAN PSYCHOTOPOGRAPHY Areas not found on the official map of consensus perception — Maps of energies, secret maps of the USA in the form of words and images.
We are amazed. We are NOT BORED. We have discarded the outworn charm of post-modern incommunicadismo. Passion and involvement, self-abandoned craziness, funny, sexy, dangerous, unabashedly precious, punk, loud and direct. SF, speculative fiction, weird fantasy — Pornography — Other mutated genres — Sermons, rants, broadsheets, crackpot pamphlets, manifestoes — Xerox and mimeo zines — Punkzines — Mail art — Kids' poetry — Subverted advertisements — American samizdat — Astounding rhetoric, elegant propaganda — Underground comix — Geographical documentation (maps, monuments, guides to weird places, photographs) — Stolen top secret documents — And a special feature: scores of personal and classified ads. each one with a box-number or address, to connect YOU with the edges of the USA — Anarchists, unidentified flying leftists, neo-pagans, secessionists, the lunatic fringe of survivalism, cults, foreign agents, mad bombers, ban-the-bombers, nudists, monarchists, children's liberation, tax resisters, zero-workers, mimeo poets, vampires, feuilletonistes, xerox pirates, prisoners, pataphysicians, unrepentant faggots, witches, hardcore youth, poetic terrorists...
For the realization of almost-unheard of desires"
Founded in 1974, Semiotext(e) began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Sylvère Lotringer at the Columbia University philosophy department. Initially, the magazine was devoted to readings of thinkers like Nietzsche and Saussure. In 1978, Lotringer and his collaborators published a special issue, Schizo-Culture, in the wake of a conference of the same name he had organized two years before at Columbia University. The magazine brought together artists and thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Kathy Acker, John Cage, Michel Foucault, Jack Smith, Martine Barrat and Lee Breuer. Schizo-Culture brought out connections between high theory and underground culture that had not yet been made, and forged the "high/low" aesthetic that remains central to the Semiotext(e) project.
Good—VG copy with some wear and creasing to the covers and a couple of loose pages at the end. Complete with still-sealed additional censored pages.
1995, Japanese
Softcover, 224 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Data House / Tokyo
$15.00 - Out of stock
"Sniff out!! Our fuckin' rotten brain.... Dedicated to all the gay guys in Japan"
???
The very controversial and very popular inaugural 1995 issue of Tokyo's Danger magazine. 90's nihilism publishing from Tokyo's "apocalyptic" Data House to file alongside Too Negative and End of The Century, Danger (or Dangerous), a "scientific" journal of lunatic subculture, launched onto newsstands with an in-depth international reportage on "Drugs", featuring articles on speed shooting, South American cartels, the world's rarest drugs, hallucinogenic plants from around the world from magic mushrooms to ayahuasca, how-tos/maintenance/cultivating knowledge, the history of ecstasy, sex on drugs, music on drugs, a drug slang dictionary, drug-related books and guides, world scene and dutch coffeeshop reports, xxx film director Fumiki Watanabe interview, an exploration of Japan's "dangerous documents", corpse museums, hitmen, sex criminals, "Your personality & cause of death", and genuinely horrible other tid-bits from the darker side of humanity.
Note: Aside from some photographs and violent and absurd cartoons, Danger is a "scientific" journal, filled with Japanese texts and info graphics.
Very Good copy, light cover/edge wear. 1995 edition, 1996 printing.
1985, English
Softcover, 385 pages, 20.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Oxford University Press / New York
$18.00 - Out of stock
First 1985 Oxford edition.
"Elaine Scarry has written an extraordinary book: large-spirited, heroically truthful. A necessary book."—Susan Sontag
"No one, with the exception of Freud, more persistently brings one back to the reality of the body.... a richly original, provocative book which makes one reconsider torture, war, and creativity from a new perspective."—Anthony Storr, Washington Post Book World
"Brilliant, ambitious and controversial... an all-encompassing discourse on creativity, imagination and the distribution of power."—Gwen Yourgrau, Los Angeles Times Book Review
The Body in Pain is a profoundly original meditation on the vulnerability of the human body and the literary, political, philosophical, medical, and religious vocabularies used to describe it. Elaine Scarry bases her analysis on a wide array of sources, including literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, and the writings of such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, and Kissinger. The author begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility, noting not only the difficulty of describing pain, but its ability to destroy a sufferer's language. She then analyzes the political consequences of deliberately inflicted pain, particularly in cases of war and torture, showing how regimes "unmake" an individual's world in their exercise of power. From the actions that "unmake" the world Scarry turns to a discussion of actions that "make" the world-the acts of creativity that produce language and cultural artifacts.
Elaine Scarry is William T. Fitts, Jr., Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.
"In its breadth and humaneness of vision, in the density and richness of its prose, above all in the compelling nature of its argument, this is indeed an extraordinary book."—Susan Rubin Suleiman, The New York Times Book Review
"A brilliant and difficult book... Scarry's compassionate linguistics docu- ments how [the] bridge between torturer and victim is cut."—Michael Ignatieff, The New Republic
Very Good copy, light wear/tanning.
1995, English
Softcover, 276 pages, 24.5 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Creation Books / London
$80.00 - Out of stock
From Peeping Tom to Videodrome, Mondo Cane to "shockumentaries", Faces of Death to live TV suicides.
The 1994 cult classic, in the updated and revised 1995 edition, Killing for Culture: Death Film from Mondo to Snuff by David Kerekes & David Slater, the definitive investigation into that controversial and inflammatory of all urban myths: the "snuff" movie. Including: Feature film, Mondo film, Death film, and a comprehensive filmography and index. Illustrated by rare and stunning photographs from cinema, documentary and real life, Killing for Culture is a vital book which examines and questions the human obsession with images of violence, dismemberment and death, and the way our society is coping with an increased profusion of these disturbing yet compelling images from all quarters.
Very Good copy, light edge wear.
2000, English
Softcover, 458 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$80.00 - Out of stock
First 2000 edition of the second coming of America’s darkest shadow side, Apocalypse Culture II, the completely cult classic sequel edition to what was called by J.G. Ballard “the terminal documents of the twentieth century.” The original Apocalypse Culture, an underground bestseller since its emergence in 1987, has remained a huge influence on popular culture. The sequel delineates further regions of the Forbidden Zone, the psychic maelstrom that everyone knows exists but fearfully avoids.
Subject matter includes:
The biological resurrection of Jesus Christ via modern cloning technology
Interviews with a convicted murderer and cannibal turned celebrity
Recipes for cooking babies
Homunculi
Pedophilia
A re-enactment of the 914 deaths that occurred at Jonestown in 1978
A report on Bobby Beausoleil, his art, and his prison sex life
The farthest-out conspiracy of all with reasons to take it absolutely seriously
Letters sent to Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan
A sample necrocard for those who wish to donate their body to necrophilia
Steps to overcome masturbation
The replacement of human mates with expensive masturbatory devices
Fecal black magic
Mind control via advertising
And dozens of other compelling examples of our own Apocalypse Culture. Observing that society has been infantilized by being told at every opportunity how to think and what to believe, editor Adam Parfrey refuses to provide easy moral lessons in Apocalypse Culture II, though he supplies pertinent information before and after many articles to assist the interpretation of thoughtful readers. Some will find the contents quite shocking, but that, according to Parfrey, is not his primary purpose. This is an examination of sociological truths that speak of the culture that both created and ignore them.
Contributors include Colin Wilson, Ted Kaczynski, Pentti Linkola, Jim Goad, Peter Sotos, Michael Moynihan, Sondra London, Jonathan Vankin, Irv Rubin, George Petros, Chris Campion, Robert Sterling, David Woodard, Dan Kelly, Wes Thomas, Crispin Hellion Glover, Boyd Rice, Kadmon, Chad Hensley, James Shelby Downard, Rod Dickinson, Steve Speer, Sarita Vendetta, Ghazi Barakat, Kristan Lawson, Issei Sagawa, Rosemary Malign, Danny Rolling, Larry Wayne Harris, Nicolas Claux, Stu Mead, Trevor Brown, George LaMort, and Beth Love.
“This is a black box of a book, spuming to the brim with the overly articulate paranoias of our age. It is impossible to either put it down or keep yourself from throwing it against the wall. There is no denying its dense psychic substance, though. The dark angels sit crowded on every page.”—Andrei Codrescu, National Public Radio
“I write books, I read books, and Apocalypse Culture II is the best book I have ever read. Pardon me now if I go out on a limb, but if there is no Pulitzer for this man, this work, I will eat my own Nobel. Adam Parfrey is equal parts H.L. Mencken and P.T. Barnum.”—Richard Meltzer
“Apocalypse Culture II is an instant classic, blasting through the last frontiers of taboo.”—Rachel Resnick, author of Go West Young Fucked-Up Chick
“Salacious. Visceral. Great. With Apocalypse Culture II, Adam Parfrey immerses the reader in the deep dark sanguinary sanctums of the subconscious.”—Robert Williams
“Apocalypse Culture II is the New Testament, redefining and satirically exposing the mutations of consensus hypocrisy. Psychoses duel in the hilarious, absurd, provocative and incestuously urban litanies of deformed martyrs. An unexpectedly sacred alchemical tincture.”—Genesis P-Orridge
“Adam Parfrey’s astonishing, un-put-downable and absolutely brilliant compilation, Apocalypse Culture II, will blow a hole through your mind the size of JonBenet’s fist. This book should be in hotel rooms.”—Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight
“Adam Parfrey shows himself to be unique among investigative journalists: one unafraid to go where barkers fear to tread.”—Nick Tosches
“Apocalypse Culture II is a chaos bible of delightful forbidden information that falls somewhere between The Cat in the Hat and Mein Kampf. It’s also thick enough to leave a good-sized bruise on someone’s face after you get pissed-off by reading it.”—Marilyn Manson
Good copy with general wear/laminate wripples/"kinkiness".
1990, English
Softcover, 362 pages, 21.6 x 24 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$40.00 - Out of stock
"Apocalypse Culture is compulsory reading for all those concerned with the crisis of our times. An extraordinary collection unlike anything I have ever encountered. These are the terminal documents of the twentieth century."—J.G. Ballard
Two thousand years have passed since the death of Christ and the world is going mad. Nihilist prophets, born-again pornographers, transcendental schizophrenics and just plain folks are united in their belief in an imminent global catastrophe. What are the forces lurking behind this mass delirium?
APOCALYPSE CULTURE is a startling, absorbing and exhaustive tour through the nether regions of today’s psychotic brainscape.
First published in 1987, APOCALYPSE CULTURE immediately touched a nerve. Alternately excoriated and lauded as “epochal”, “the most important book of the decade,” APOCALYPSE CULTURE had begun to articulate what many inwardly sensed — the-fear inspired irrationalism and faith, the clash of irreconcilable forces, and the ever-looming specter of fin de race. In its present incarnation for Feral House, APOCALYPSE CULTURE has significantly increased in size, taking on new perspectives on our current crisis, with pertinent revisions of many articles from the original edition.—burb from this expanded and revised 1990 edition.
Good copy with general wear/"kinkiness".
2023, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 28 x 21 cm
Published by
Void / Reykjavík—Athens
$90.00 - In stock -
The Amazon Rainforest—often referred to as 'Lungs of our Planet'—has long been idealised as a dense, green expanse and a pristine sanctuary inhabited by isolated tribes. Terra Vermelha, the culmination of 10-years’ work by photographer Tommaso Protti, presents a raw and unfiltered, alternative portrait of the region. Depicting fields ablaze, the dark river as a conduit for cocaine trafficking and urban areas plagued by violence—the images in the book depict a dystopia, dispelling such romanticised notions.
“As I sat in my hotel room in Marabá, a city in the Amazon state of Parà, Jornal Nacional – Brazil’s flagship news program – transmitted images of the country’s newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro: “The indigenous in their reservations are like animals in a zoo,” he said. It was November 2018. […] It seemed like a threat, an omen of bad times ahead. I felt that the slow-motion social and environmental breakdown I had seen in the previous years in the Amazon was about to get worse.”
“Deforestation, unregulated development, pollution. All of these scenarios are driven by the same forces; poverty, weak institutions, corruption and savage self-interest. More than in other places, in the Amazon region it becomes clear that land is worth more than human life. And on the path towards the destruction of the planet, the first and closest step for mankind is still its own annihilation… The violence consuming the Brazilian Amazon affects us all and sometimes we are even the unknowing perpetrators of it.”
Tommaso Protti (Italy, 1986) lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. Tommaso Protti has documented the intersecting social and environmental crises plaguing the Amazonian states of Brazil, where the photographer has been based for almost a decade. He started his career as a photographer in 2011 after graduating in Political Science and International Relations. Since then, he has devoted himself on creating his own long-term projects focusing on themes such as crime, the environment, and rural conflict. His work has been featured in global publications and exhibited worldwide.
“This is the Brazilian Amazon today, where indigenous communities are fighting for survival in the face of rampant deforestation. What follows is a dense, disorientating and elliptical reportage that riddles through a conflict-stricken hinterland, unravelling – in the dead of night – stories about savage land-grabs, forest fires and brutal gang murders. […] Needless to say, few publishers could have taken us into the Amazon’s heart of chaos as nightmarishly as Void have.”—Alessandro Merola, 1000 Words
2015, English
Softcover, 336 pages, 21 x 14 cm
Published by
Other Press / US
$40.00 - In stock -
The Guilt Project examines the way in which the law has failed to anticipate the contemporary culture that creates, defines, and punishes rape.
"Rape is culture. There is no separate "rape culture" bubbling beneath our otherwise sunny American society, just as there is no rape culture that is not Indian culture, or British culture, or Mexican culture, at least not at this point. Fraternity culture is rape culture, celebrity culture is rape culture, sports culture is rape culture, university culture is rape culture, military culture is rape culture - even literary culture is rape culture."—from the author's new preface
"A sophisticated, brave look at a topic that too often provokes merely panic, prejudice, and posturing."—Kirkus Reviews
An English court in 1736 described rape as an accusation “easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, though never so innocent.” To prove the crime, the law required a woman to physically resist, to put up a “hue and cry,” as evidence of her unwillingness. Beginning in the 1970s, however, feminist and victim-advocacy groups began changing attitudes toward rape so the crime is now seen as violent in itself: the legal definition of rape now includes everything from the sadistic serial rapist to the eighteen-year-old who has consensual sex with a fourteen-year-old.
This inclusiveness means there are now more rapists among us. And more of rape’s camp followers: the prison-makers, the community watchdogs, law-and-order politicians, and the real-crime/real-time entertainment industry. Vanessa Place examines the ambiguity of rape law by presenting cases where guilt lies, but lies uneasily, and leads into larger ethical questions of what defines guilt, what is justice, and what is considered just punishment. Assuming a society can and must be judged by the way it treats its most despicable members, The Guilt Project looks at the way the American legal system defines, prosecutes, and punishes sex offenders, how this Dateline NBC justice has transformed our conception of who is guilty and how they ought to be treated, and how this has come to undo our deeper humanity.
Vanessa Place is an artist, poet, author and criminal appellate attorney practicing in Los Angeles. She has worked on the appeals of more than one thousand indigent felons, specializing in sex offenders and sexually violent predators. She is also a cofounder of Les Figues Press, an independent, nonprofit literary press. Vanessa Place was the first poet to perform in the Whitney Biennial, and has published numerous books of poetry and prose. She is the author of Dies: A Sentence, La Medusa, Exposé des Faits, Statement of Facts, and, with coauthor Robert Fitterman, Notes on Conceptualisms. Her performance venues include the Getty Villa (Los Angeles); Museum of Modern Art (New York); Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles); Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art; Mestno Musej (Ljubljana, Slovenia); New Holland (Saint Petersburg, Russia); Garage Museum (Moscow); Kunstverein, (Köln, Germany); Swiss Institute (New York); Silencio (Paris); and Whitechapel Gallery (London). Her art work has been exhibited at MAK Center/Schindler House (Los Angeles); Denver Museum of Contemporary Art; the Broad Museum (East Lansing, MI); the Kitchen (New York), Cage Gallery (New York), and Various Small Fires (Los Angeles).
1982/1992, Japanese
Softcover, 192 pages, 21 x 14.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo
$90.00 - In stock -
"Corpse" Special Feature Issue of cult Japanese underground magazine Yaso, first published in 1982, then re-printed in 1992, edited by Yuichi Konno and Atelier Peyotl (publishers of Night Vision/Yaso/Peyotl/Wave/Silvester Club...). Heavily illustrated with texts in Japanese that look at the theme of death and the dead in the arts, literature, occultism, ancient sciences, philosophy, mythology, poetry, film, crime, and much more. Features John Duncan, Tetsumi Kudo, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Masahisa Fukase, Franz Kafka, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Guillaume Apollinaire, Joe Potts (LAFMS), Takashi Ishii, Rudolf II — Holy Roman Emperor, Akinari Ueda, Marcel Duchamp, Chris Burden, Paul Celan, Alain Resnais, Gilyak Amagasaki, Shusaku Arakawa, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Shuji Terayama, Andy Warhol, Charles Manson, Brian Wilson, Kyoko Endoh, Princess Yongtai, Salvador Dalí, Ono no Komachi, Kiyoshi Kasai, Caravaggio, Throbbing Gristle, Takizawa Bakin, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Manson Family, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Wu Zetian, Genesis P-Orridge, Yusuke Nakahara, Ranpo Lagrange, Mitsusada Fukasaku, Nakai Hideo, Richard Wagner, and many more.
Very Good copy.
2023, English
Softcover (staple bound), 48 pages, 20 x 14.8 cm
Published by
Ex Film / Melbourne
$10.00 - In stock -
The body of a teenager found in bushland in 1986. The death of 5 tourists in a hotel fire. The death of Sally-Anne Huckstepp. The sickening details, the recurring characters and the small room in Kings Cross in which they all converge.
Another in a series of historical narrative news tracts from Ex Film.
2023, English
Softcover (staple bound), 48 pages, 20 x 14.8 cm
Published by
Ex Film / Melbourne
$10.00 - In stock -
A man found entombed in the basement of his house, his wife fleeing to the Philippines. Her extradition on murder charges opens up another tragedy and another mystery.
Another in a series of historical narrative news tracts from Ex Film.
2021, English
Softcover, 84 pages, 15 x 12 cm
Published by
Ex Film / Melbourne
$15.00 - In stock -
Leonard Schrader and Sheldon Renan's 1981 documentary on violence in American society was never released for almost 40 years in the country which it profiles, such was its visceral impact and blunt force message. The film was a major success in Australia, running for 3 weeks at Melbourne's Capitol theatre and huge sales on home video. For people of a certain generation, viewing was a rite of passage - an assemblage of various real-life footage in the peak era of the US serial killer, political assassinations and the post-Vietnam mayhem of American society.
Ex Film's Australian Blu-ray restoration and release was accompanied by this 84 page perfect-bound booklet containing liner notes by Dean Brandum (Technicolor Yawn) and Chris Desjardins (The Flesh Eaters, Slash magazine) accompanied by years of archival material collected from years of research, including, ad mats, theatrical and home video art and Japanese promotional material translated into English for the first time.
1980, English / Japanese
Softcover (w. acetate jacket and obi-strip), 190 pages, 30 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Byakuya Shobo / Tokyo
$1000.00 - In stock -
First edition. A seminal Japanese photo book and instant classic upon release, Flash up is one of the most remarkable photographic excursions into the seedy underbelly of 1970s Tokyo. Kurata (b. 1945—2020), one Japan’s formidable contemporary photographers who’s work is often referenced in the same circles as his "Provoke" teachers Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki, won the fifth Kimura Ihei Award in 1980 for this, his first book, his acclaimed collection of photographs of creatures of the night — gangsters showing off their full-length tattoos, youth styling themselves after the Hells Angels, self-professed ultra-nationalists from the notorious Black Dragon Society, transvestites drawing in crowds of men, cabaret girls...
"The photographs of Seiji Kurata are striking for their violence. The viewer must be prepared to be hit by his flashgun along with the subjects. ‘Violence’, in this case, is not necessarily invoked by the scenes of blood-shed; rather, it is Kurata’s sharp-shooting ability to stop the flow of time, capture the moment, draw of details we would otherwise never see, then proffer them up before our eyes. Sometimes our response is to avert our eyes for fear of seeing too much. This is not to say that the images are not exaggerated; for after all, people tend only to see what they want to see. If there are those who find Kurata’s photographs ‘ugly’, it can only be said that he has succeeded in paradoxically pointing the finger at them: You who want to avoid ugliness, he says, this is reality and I have cut it out for you. [...] we must admit that the ugliness apparent in these photographs is our ugliness. Our failure to do so simply invites Kurata to deal us an extra-violent blow with his images."—Akira Hasegawa, from the afterword.
Included in Martin Parr & Gerry Badger, The Photobook, Vol. II.
Text in English and Japanese.
Very Good copy, wear and usual shrinkage to publisher's thick acetate dust jacket, VG original metallic obi-strip, Very Good book, light bump to one corner.
1983, Japanese / English
Softcover (w. original plastic cover and obi band), 138 pages, 22 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Asahi Shimbun / Japan
$180.00 - In stock -
Rare first edition of this compelling early 1980's photo book of violence and disaffection in American cities from Japanese photographer Shigemoto Nobi, printed by Asahi Shimbun in 1983.
Images of social unrest, gang warfare, prostitution, police precinct lockups, murder... the "poverty of the heart" real people must face behind the facade of America's boasted wealth of economic growth, something Japanese photographer Shigemoto Nobi (b. 1943) first encountered when he went to New York in his twenties to work as a freelance commercial photographer. Despite the implications of the title, Shigemoto Nobi visited and documented not only New York, but also Detroit, Chicago, Hawaii, the US/Mexican border and the Fort Apache Indian reservation, taking images primarily at night. Intense, lurid reportage on life in the United States of America in rich, saturated colour Kodochrome. File alongside Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, Seiji Kurata, or Bruce Davidson's "Subway".
First printing in original protective plastic sleeve with original obi band. Texts in Japanese and English.
Very Good copy with usual light damage/shrinkage to aged original plastic dust jacket cover/obi. Light edge wear.
2023, English
Softcover, unpaginated, 28 x 21.5 cm
Published by
Salitter Workings / New York
$55.00 - Out of stock
Number 09/2 of Salitter Workings' benign criminal enterprise in Lulu/Exoteric archiving, with additional press clippings.
"Proxy is a large-format compendium of five out-of-print and much-sought-after books by Peter Sotos: "Tick, "Lazy, "Index, "Tool, and "Special. "Proxy also includes a new introduction by Sotos. Peter Sotos is one of the most controversial authors in America. A former member of the noise band Whitehouse, he has also appeared in such volumes as "Apocalypse Culture. He recently provided the afterword to Feral House's "The Gates Of Janus by "Moors Murderer" Ian Brady."
2001, English
Softcover, 296 pages, 21.54 x 13.72 cm
Published by
Verso / London
$60.00 - In stock -
Since the 1948 war which drove them from their heartland, the Palestinian people have consistently been denied the most basic democratic rights. Blaming the Victims shows how the historical fate of the Palestinians has been justified by spurious academic attempts to dismiss their claim to a home within the boundaries of historical Palestine and even to deny their very existence. Beginning with a thorough exposé of the fraudulent assertions of Joan Peters concerning the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine prior to 1948, the book then turns to similar instances in Middle East research where the truth about the Palestinians has been systematically suppressed: from the bogus.though still widely believed.explanations of why so many Palestinians fled their homes in 1948, to today.s distorted propaganda about PLO terrorism. The volume also includes sharp critiques of the wide consensus in the USA which supports Israel and its territorial ambitions while maintaining total silence about the competing reality of the Palestinians.
"the wide-ranging scope and demythologising structure of Blaming The Victims makes it especially relevant at the present time when the actions of the state of Israel seem to contradict received opinion as to its nature. The book provides a great quantity of information, analyses it convincingly and, through an impressive body of notes on primary and secondary literature, points the reader in the direction of further information."—Middle East International
"These forcefully argued treatises will be as enlightening as they are disturbing for anyone with an interest in Middle East Politics."—ALA Booklist
1985 / 1993, Japanese
Softcover, 72 pages, 21 x 20 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Photographers' Association / Japan
$70.00 - Out of stock
First published in 1985 by the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Photographers' Association, Testament of The Atomic Bomb Survivor presents an unsettling and profound collection of photographs taken by the "hibakusha" (A-bomb survivors) to serve as a stark reminder of the devastation that befell the Japanese people when the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. Richly illustrated glossy b/w photo book, accompanied by captions in Japanese, introduction in Japanese and English, and further historical and biographical information in Japanese.
"The thermal rays and the blast force from the atomic bomb took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed all the buildings in central Hiroshima in an instant, and turned most of them into ashes. In addition, those who were unharmed at the time of the explosion but exposed to the radiation suffered the symptoms of the A-bomb disease caused by the residual radioactivity, and died one after another. There are still many survivors all over Japan as well as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are suffering the aftereffects of the bombing. That is something that should never happen again. But we are in danger of having new destruction be- fore the old wounds are healed, and we cannot simply disregard the threat of human extinction. We, the Association of the Photographers of the atomic (Bomb) Destruction of Hiroshima, published a collection of photographs taken by us entitled, "The Time of the Destruction of Hiroshima," in August 1981. As hibakusha (A-bomb survivors) we cannot help but feel indignant at the present situation of the ever continuing production, testing, and de- ployment of nuclear weapons. The forty years following the destruction by the atomic bomb have seen seven of the twenty photographers who survived the bombing die. Those remaining are getting old and the average age of our group is above seventy years. We get impatient at the fact that the atomic bomb is the great enemy of humanity, but the people who can bear witness to what happened are fading out. Hundreds of thousands of people died in bitterness. I intend to offer my short remaining life to keep on telling the story as a witness, lest the death of those people be in vain, while I pray for the repose of their souls.—Yoshito Matsushige, Representative of the Association of the Photographers of the Atomic (Bomb) Destruction of Hiroshima
Very Good—NF copy of 1993 reprint of the 1985 edition. Only light wear.
2023, English
Hardcover, 554 pages, 23 x 15.24 cm
Published by
Lightning Source / Tennessee
$69.00 - Out of stock
Dogra Magra is an unclassifiable, surreal and haunting novel by Japanese author Yumeno Kyūsaku, without any equivalents in the history of Japanese and world literature. First published in 1935, this extremely disturbing work remained totally unknown to the general public for almost thirty years, although it was considered a pure masterpiece by the philosopher Tsurumi Shunsuke who, in a landmark article, placed its author Yumeno Kyūsaku on par with the works of Kafka and Poe. It is a complex and enigmatic work that combines elements of mystery, horror, and philosophy, and has been hailed as a masterpiece of Japanese literature. It is available in English here for the first time.
"An astonishing, unclassifiable work, Dogra Magra is both an unparalleled writing performance and an extraordinary detective novel with a paradoxial program: novel where detectives are criminals. Or rather where the murderer is a victim. An amnesiac wakes up in the middle of the night in the room of a psychiatric hospital. We will see him struggling in the middle of a spider's web woven by the institution's doctors, searching for his identity and possible connection to a mysterious criminal case [...] A masterpiece of parody writing where the Buddhist doctrine of karma and the psychoanalytic concepts of the unconscious rub shoulders, this disturbing novel to the extreme, published almost confidentially in 1935 was rediscovered in the sixties. Since then, it has become a cult book in Japan, and reviews and studies about it follow one another continuously. When we close the last page, we understand why it is now considered in his country as one for the major novels of the twentieth century."—back cover of book.
Translated from Japanese to French to English by Patrick Honnoré and Colton R. Auxier
2023, English
Softcover, 170 pages, 24 x 18 cm
Published by
Gallows Fruit / Thailand
$70.00 - Out of stock
Issue 1 of New Juche's journal HEAT DEATH, published by Gallows Fruit, Thailand. Text and image by New Juche; editorial assistance by Steve Finbow and Karolina Ursula Urbaniak; Design by Karolina Ursula Urbaniak and New Juche.
TOPOPHILIA; NOSTALGIA; ARCHITECTURE; LANDSCAPE; ZONE; RUIN; SEX; ENVIRONMENT; PHOTOGRAPHY; NON-AFFILIATED
"In a room on the top floor I closed the door behind me and took a photo album into the dusty bathtub and lent back with my knees up in front of me and my head on a greasy pillow. Light filtered very pleasantly down through the green vines that laced the unglazed window and the fulsome trees outside. A second shaft of light fell through a space in the torn ceiling. My body felt very still, apart from my heart which I could feel beating and also hear, and it was the only sound in the room apart from birdsong."
New Juche is a writer and artist based in Southeast Asia since 2003. Dennis Cooper has called him "one of the most inspiring, original and groundbreaking artists working today". New Juche's published books include Mountainhead, Bosun, The Devils, and The Worm.