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:
OPEN 12—5 THU—FRI
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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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.
1955, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 208 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Routledge & Kegan Paul / London
$500.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1955 hardcover edition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, with introduction by Bertrand Russell, published by Routledge & Keegan Paul, London. The sixth impression of the first edition, which includes the index. Published for The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method. English translation by C. K. Ogden. Blue cloth covers with gilt lettering on spine.
The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus first appeared in 1921 and was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) published during his lifetime. Written in short, carefully-numbered paragraphs of extreme compression and brilliance it immediately convinced many of its readers and captured the imagination of all. Its chief influence, at first, was on the Logical Positivists of the 1920's and 30's, but many other philosophers were stimulated by its philosophy of language, finding attractive, even if ultimately unsatisfactory, its view that propositions were pictures of reality. Perhaps most of all, its own author, after his return to philosophy in the late 1920's, was fascinated by its vision of an inexpressible, crystalline world of logical relationships. The posthumous publication of other writings of his has, therefore, only served to reawaken interest in the Tractatus and to illuminate its more neglected aspects.
Very Good—Near Fine copy in Very Good dust jacket. Light age marking/wear to dust jacket extremities with clip to blank inner flap. Small pleasant bookseller sticker to lower first blank page — purchased at F. W. Cheshire Pty. Ltd, Little Collins Street in Melbourne. Frank Cheshire (1896–1987) was an Australian bookseller and publisher. His bookshop in Little Collins Street, Melbourne was described as a "gathering place for all interested in books and literature" in the mid-twentieth century. His publishing firm published Robin Boyd's The Australian Ugliness and Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock and "gave many Australian writers their first start". An incredible, tightly bound well preserved copy of this rare first edition, dust jacket now protected in archival mylar.
1997, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 286 pages, 23 x 19.2 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
$55.00 - In stock -
First 1997 hardcover edition.
In an 1828 letter to his partner, Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre wrote, "I am burning with desire to see your experiments from nature." In this book, Geoffrey Batchen analyzes the desire to photograph as it emerged within the philosophical and scientific milieus that preceded the actual invention of photography. Recent accounts of photography's identity tend to divide between the postmodern view that all identity is determined by context and a formalist effort to define the fundamental characteristics of photography as a medium. Batchen critiques both approaches by way of a detailed discussion of photography's conception in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He examines the output of the various nominees for "first photographer," then incorporates this information into a mode of historical criticism informed by the work of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The result is a way of thinking about photography that persuasively accords with the medium's undeniable conceptual, political, and historical complexity.
"Given its ambitious and groundbreaking scope, "Burning with Desire" is bound to become the touchstone for any further consideration of the topic of photography's invention."—Douglas R. Nickel, Assistant Curator of Photography, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
1997, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 440 pages, 15 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Kyoto Shoin / Tokyo
$70.00 - Out of stock
First 1997 edition of the hefty 440-page pocket version of what is now one of the truely iconic interior "design" books - Tokyo Style. Over a period of two years, Japanese writer-photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki visited apartments, condos and suburban homes in Tokyo, and documented exactly what he saw in colour photography. First published in 1993 in the larger format, Tokyo Style is a collection of these photographs along with Tsuzuki's texts. Divided into eight sections - Beauty in Chaos, The Fancy Fetish, Artsy Pads, The Traditional Touch, Monomaniacs, Kiddie Kingdoms, Inertial Living and Hermitages - the book shows readers a demystified Tokyo and the ordinary lifestyles of the Tokyo people. No wide-angles or post-production here, just the most amazing compendium of hundreds of tiny Tokyo living spaces, no two alike. Somehow this print format seems all the more appropriate!
Reprinted many times since, this is the first edition of this format, 2nd printing from 1997.
Good copy. Very Good book in Average—Good dust jacket with wear to extremities and light fading.
1961, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 90 pages, 28 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Bodley Head / London
$340.00 - In stock -
Rare first hardcover 1961 edition of this very important book of nude photography by British photographer Bill Brandt, published by Bodley Head, London, with a preface by Lawrence Durrell and an introduction by Chapman Mortimer. Fascinating Braque, Picasso, Dubuffet, Henry Moore, Edward Steichen, Eikoh Hosoe, Kishin Shinoyama, to name but a few, and having a profound influence on nude photography hence-forth, Brandt's nudes are as powerful and beautiful now as they were fifty years ago.
"These startling images rewrote the language of nude photography ... Brandt's approach was primarily formal, but his own sensibilities, combined with photography's tendency to overwhelm form's purity with life's impurities, ensured that his nudes are as interesting for their psychological undertones as for the wealth of unexpected forms he conjured. He did so with a camera that was devoid of a practicable viewing mechanism [a shutterless old Kodak he found in a secondhand shop] and thus reduced him, in effect, to working by blind instinct. ... At close range, his ancient camera yields a Venusian giantism, where sometimes sharply defined, sometimes blurred mountains of flesh loom over the artist/observer." (The Photobook A History Volume I, Parr & Badger)
Bill Brandt, best known for his photographs of London, his landscapes and portraits of celebrities, publishes here, for the first time, a selection of nudes, a subject which has obsessed him since 1945. Brandt used an old wooden camera with a wide angle lens for most of the pictures. Instead of making the camera register what he saw, he let himself be guided by the lens and made use of its acute distortion and unrealistically steep perspective. Thus the camera produced new anatomical images and shapes which his eyes had never observed. The lens helped him 'to get rid of the accepted image and to view his subjects without the cellophane-wrapping of conventional sight'. Chronologically arranged, the photographs record the transition from an early romantic style to more radical themes, ending with the pure form of extreme close-ups, taken on the beaches of East Sussex, Normandy and the Mediterranean. The pictures have fascinated Braque, Picasso, Dubuffet, Henry Moore and Edward Steichen, and had a profound influence on nude photography hence-forth.
Good—Very Good ex-libris copy w. associated markings not affecting content pages. Good dust jacket with light wear and repaired tear, preserved under mylar.
1975, —
Softcover (staple-bound), 16 pages, 10.5 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
De Harmonie / Amsterdam
$100.00 - Out of stock
Rare 1975 edition of the mysterious artist's book and "Fluxus" classic conceived in 1971 by Roland Topor. All sentences were scratched, making this "Fluxus" book unreadable and therefore "unsaleable".
In 1971, the artist was talking with publisher Jaco Groot in a Paris cafe. The conversation was about illegible books. "I made a book like that," said Topor, "tomorrow, same time, same cafe, I'll bring it." When Groot saw the book the next day, he said to Topor's stupid astonishment: "We'll publish it!"
Three years after, Topor was interviewed by Adriaan van Dis in his book program. Van Dis handed Topor the illegible book and asked him to read a piece. Topor, unprepared for this, spontaneously put a hand to his mouth and began to read, muttering and incomprehensible.
Roland Topor (1938—1997) was one of the most unique and versatile French artists of the second half of the 20th century, working prolifically as a provocative and spirited illustrator, author, humorist, satirist, poet, painter, performer, sculptor, playwright, film and TV writer, filmmaker and actor, and much more. A founder of the Panic Movement, an art collective formed by Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Roland Topor in Paris in 1962, Topor was known for the surreal and absurdist nature of his work.
Very Good copy with edge tanning.
1978, French
Softcover, 80 pages, 9.5 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Chez Yves Rivière / Paris
$150.00 - Out of stock
Very rare first (only) 1978 edition of Roland Topor's artist book, Laid Poulet, a unique book of illustrated oblique absurdist rebuses, beautifully lithograph printed on the presses of the Arte printing company (Adrien Maeght) with the legendary Yves Riviere and filled with Topor's colourful illustrations made specifically for this publication. Published by Chez Yves Rivière, Paris. Edition of 1950 copies, after an initial 50 numbered and signed.
Roland Topor (1938—1997) was one of the most unique and versatile French artists of the second half of the 20th century, working prolifically as a provocative and spirited illustrator, author, humorist, satirist, poet, painter, performer, sculptor, playwright, film and TV writer, filmmaker and actor, and much more. A founder of the Panic Movement, an art collective formed by Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Roland Topor in Paris in 1962, Topor was known for the surreal and absurdist nature of his work.
Fine copy with light tanning.
1996, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 23 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Atlas Press / London
$90.00 - Out of stock
First edition of the incredible and sadly long out-of-print Encyclopedia Acephalica, published by Atlas Press in 1996 as part of their mighty Atlas Arkhive : Documents of the Avant Garde series.
Bataille’s thought is complex, and his books make few concessions to the reader. The first series of texts here, however, were written for a wider audience by Bataille and his friends, in the form of a Critical Dictionary, and they provide a witty, poetic and concise introduction to his ideas. The Dictionary appeared in the magazine edited by Bataille, Documents, in the early 1930s, and includes entries from prominent ethnologists and cultural commentators of the day. The second series of texts here, the Da Costa Encyclopédique was published anonymously after the liberation of Paris in 1947 by members of the Acéphale group and writers associated with the Surrealists. Both cover the essential concepts of Bataille and his associates: sacred sociology; scatology, death and the erotic; base materialism; the aesthetics of the formless; sacrifice, the festival and the politics of the tumult etc: a new description of the limits of being human. Humour, albeit, sardonic, is not absent from these remarkable redefinitions of the most heterogeneous objects or ideas: Camel, Church, Dust, Museum, Spittle, Skyscraper, Threshold, Work – to name but a few.
While the Documents group was celebrated for joining together artists, authors, sociologists and ethnologists (among the most important of their time) in a literary and philosophical project, the Acéphale group was more mysterious. Until recently even its membership was only vaguely known, and its activities remained secret (these are explored in detail for the first time in English in The Sacred Conspiracy, published by Atlas Press, also available at World Food Books). The origins of the Da Costa only became known in 1993, the present volume revealed for the first time its principal compilers: Robert Lebel, Isabelle Waldberg and Marcel Duchamp, but the identity of the authors of a large part of it is still unknown.
Texts by Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, Marcel Griaule, Carl Einstein, Robert Desnos and writers associated with the Acéphale and Surrealist groups.
Introduced by Alastair Brotchie. Translated by Iain White, Dominic Faccini, Annette Michelson, John Harman, Alexis Lykiard.
Good—Very Good copy, with edge wear to covers and corners, otherwise VG throughout. No spine creasing.
1994, English
Softcover, 236 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Routledge / London
$80.00 - Out of stock
Scarce first 1994 edition of The Female Grotesque by Mary Russo, published by Routledge and long out-of-print.
The cultural associations surrounding the grotesque are deeply embedded in Western consciousness. But what happens when we consider the grotesque from the perspective of gender? Mary Russo explores the idea of the "female grotesque" by embracing a wide array of theoretical, visual, literary, auto-biographical, and performance texts. The "female grotesque" can be found everywhere around-and even above- us, from the "aerial" sublime of Amelia Earhart to the provocative films of Ulrike Ottinger. Emphasizing the relationship between gender and the grotesque, Russo argues that the "female grotesque" is less a category than an operation through which genders and identities are both constituted and de- constituted, excluded or not. Drawing upon Bakhtin and Kristeva, Freud and Žižek, Russo traces the salient connection between abjection, the uncannny, and the grotesque. Exploring the double logic of the grotesque in the works of Angela Carter, David Cronenberg, and Georges du Maurier's Trilby, Mary Russo illuminates the grotesque as a process through which differently gendered bodies are deployed in provocative, new, and possibly transformative ways. The Female Grotesque proposes a new understanding of excess and transgres- sion in the gendered world of Western culture.
Near Fine copy.
1992, English
Softcover, 460 pages, 23.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Manchester University Press / Manchester
$65.00 - In stock -
First 1992 edition, long out-of-print.
In 1846, Edgar Allen Poe wrote that 'the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetic topic in the world'. The conjuction of death, art and femininity forms a rich and disturbing strata of Western culture, explored here in fascinating detail by Elisabeth Bronfen. Her examples range from Carmen to Little Nell, from Wuthering Heights to Vertigo, from Snow White to Frankenstein. The text is richly illustrated throughout with thirty-seven paintings and photographs.
The argument that this book presents is that narrative and visual representations of death can be read as symptoms of our culture and because the feminine body is culturally constructed as the superlative site of "other" and "not me", culture uses art to dream the deaths of beautiful women.
'Aside from the originality-or fearful finality -of its arguments, the book will be invaluable as an introduction to the use of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of cultural texts'—New Statesman & Society
'[Death] faces a similar taboo in our century to the one that sex suffered in the last... [Bronfen] addresses an important silence in contemporary culture'—The Times
Elisabeth Bronfen is Professor of English and American Studies at the University of Zurich
Good copy with some creasing (spine, corners).
1987, English
Softcover, 276 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Amok Press / New York
$90.00 - 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
Very first 1987 AMOK PRESS edition of this cult classic edited by Adam Parfrey.
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.
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.
"There is nothing more terrifying than stupidity"—Werner Herzog
Good copy with general wear/"kinkiness".
2000, English
Softcover, 458 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$90.00 - 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.
1995, English
Softcover (string-bound), unpaginated, 21.5 x 17.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Pace / New York
$110.00 $90.00 - In stock -
Beautiful exhibition catalogue, Beginnings and Ends, published in conjunction with Isamu Noguchi at Pace Gallery, New York, December 3 1994—January 21 1995. With unique hand-pulped thick textured "mossy" card cover, this special catalogue is string-bound with offset-printed internal fold-out pages of installation views in colour, "Ends" being photographed by celebrated Japanese photographer Shigeo Anzai, accompanied by excerpts from unpublished statements by Noguchi for the 1986 Venice Biennale. Designed by Tomoko Makiura and Paul Pollard.
Isamu Noguchi (1904—1988) prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. One of the greatest 20th-century sculptors, Noguchi is known for his sculpture and public works, creating innovative parks, plazas, playgrounds, fountains, gardens, and stage sets as well as sculpture of stone, metal, wood, and clay, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces, some of which are still manufactured and sold. In 1947, Noguchi began a collaboration with the Herman Miller company, when he joined with George Nelson, Paul László and Charles Eames to produce a catalog containing what is often considered to be the most influential body of modern furniture ever produced, including the iconic Noguchi table which remains in production today.
Near Fine copy.
1982, Japanese
Softcover, 180 pages, 21 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Flying '80 / Tokyo
$55.00 - In stock -
Issue no. 2 of only 3 issues ever published. SM Barbarella was launched in Tokyo in 1982 by Flying '80, who also published the SM and sex customs magazines Orange People, Fuuzoku Arts, and Monthly Secret. Wrapped in glossy illustrated covers, SM Barbarella embraced and devoted much of it's content to the secret worlds of its readers and amateur enthusiasts, with full-colour glossy spreads of SM parties, readers bondage photography, letters, classifieds, scene reports from Japan and abroad, etc. alongside professional glossy colour kinbaku shoots with pull-out spreads and illustrated articles on fetish culture, from the aesthetic of masks to rubber wear, ads, stories, illustrations, etc.
Near Fine copy.
1982, Japanese
Softcover, 182 pages, 21 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Flying '80 / Tokyo
$50.00 - In stock -
Issue no. 3 of only 3 issues ever published. SM Barbarella was launched in Tokyo in 1982 by Flying '80, who also published the SM and sex customs magazines Orange People, Fuuzoku Arts, and Monthly Secret. Wrapped in glossy illustrated covers, SM Barbarella embraced and devoted much of it's content to the secret worlds of its readers and amateur enthusiasts, with full-colour glossy spreads of SM parties, readers bondage photography, letters, classifieds, scene reports from Japan and abroad, etc. alongside professional glossy colour kinbaku shoots with pull-out spreads and illustrated articles on fetish culture, from the aesthetic of masks to rubber wear, ads, stories, illustrations, etc.
Near Fine copy.
1978, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 52 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Rock Magazine / Osaka
$60.00 - In stock -
Rare, new very collectible, early issue (October 1978) of Rock Magazine, founded in Osaka in 1976 by music critic, editor and Vanity Records label owner Yuzuru Agi. This issue with David Bowie cover by Masayoshi Sukita, Johnny Rotten (Sex Pistols) colour pin-up, features on UK label Chiswick Records (Motörhead, The Count Bishops, The Damned, Skrewdriver, The Radiators, etc), Europe/Kraftwerk, "The Black New Wave" or "Jah-Punk" (a huge feature with interviews, artist profiles and illustrated discographies — U-Roy, Lee Scratch Perry, Steel Pulse, Prince Far I, Third World, etc), the beginning of Vanity Records, reports from London, New York and Akron, Ohio, record reviews, columns, letters...
Yuzuru Agi (1946—2018) was a singer turn visionary Japanese music critic, editor, producer, and Vanity label owner. Thanks to Agi's unwavering commitment to cutting-edge music, Rock Magazine (1976—1984) was Japan's leading magazine for "contemporary music", channeling the international musical vanguard into Japan every month. A crucial publication in the rise of avant-garde music from the West in Japan, Rock Magazine championed Progressive Rock, Free Jazz, Punk, Art Rock, New Wave, Industrial, Krautrock, Ambient, Reggae, Noise, and much between, charting the developments in Europe, UK, USA, etc., alongside the latest from Japan, through exclusive interviews, scene reports, articles, family trees, discographies, and extensive record reviews, littered with hundreds of photographs, record cover artwork, colour posters, and record label, store and venue advertisements. Wonderful Japanese "maximum data" magazine design throughout, with multiple stocks and colour-processes. Agi and his cohorts didn't miss a beat, and these magazines are as comprehensive a reference for anyone interested in historical "new music" as it gets (alongside Agi's EGO magazine, early Marquee Moon and Fool's Mate, Morgue, G-Modern...).
Good copy with tanning and general wear/spine pinches/foxing from age.
1979, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 52 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Rock Magazine / Osaka
$90.00 - In stock -
Rare, now very collectible, early issue (January 1979) of Rock Magazine, founded in Osaka in 1976 by music critic, editor and Vanity Records label owner Yuzuru Agi. This issue with Eno cover by Ritva Saarikko, features huge interviews with Brian Eno and Sid Vicious, a huge feature of multiple articles and illustrated discography of British and European Free Music (Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink, Steve Lacy, Hans Reichel, Keith Tippett, Lol Coxhill, Willem Breuker, Misha Mengelberg, Wolfgang Dauner, et al.), colour pin-up of English early punk/gothic rock band Gloria Mundi, Robert Fripp, "Mao Mao Pop": Andy Mackay (Roxy Music), record reviews, columns, letters...
Yuzuru Agi (1946—2018) was a singer turn visionary Japanese music critic, editor, producer, and Vanity label owner. Thanks to Agi's unwavering commitment to cutting-edge music, Rock Magazine (1976—1984) was Japan's leading magazine for "contemporary music", channeling the international musical vanguard into Japan every month. A crucial publication in the rise of avant-garde music from the West in Japan, Rock Magazine championed Progressive Rock, Free Jazz, Punk, Art Rock, New Wave, Industrial, Krautrock, Ambient, Reggae, Noise, and much between, charting the developments in Europe, UK, USA, etc., alongside the latest from Japan, through exclusive interviews, scene reports, articles, family trees, discographies, and extensive record reviews, littered with hundreds of photographs, record cover artwork, colour posters, and record label, store and venue advertisements. Wonderful Japanese "maximum data" magazine design throughout, with multiple stocks and colour-processes. Agi and his cohorts didn't miss a beat, and these magazines are as comprehensive a reference for anyone interested in historical "new music" as it gets (alongside Agi's EGO magazine, early Marquee Moon and Fool's Mate, Morgue, G-Modern...).
Good copy with tanning and general wear/spine pinches/foxing from age.
1976, English
Softcover, 428 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Penguin Books / London
$65.00 - Out of stock
Scarce first 1976 Penguin paperback edition of the first 1968 English translation. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.
Shunsuké, an ageing novelist, hits on a brilliant plan to avenge himself on womankind, who, he believes, have blighted his life. He bribes a beautiful homosexual student, Yuichi, to marry. The plan works, Yuichi's wife is made miserable. And Shunsuké gets Yuichi to compromise two of his past tormentors, the blackmailing Mrs Kaburagi and Kyoko, a dizzy socialite. But Yuichi, now the toast of Tokyo's 'gay people' and free of all moral restraint, refuses to be further manipulated. Soon the old writer sees his protégé, his creation, turn into a monster dangerously out of control.
Mishima's own superlative literary qualities... include a complete control of complex nárrative, the ability to convey psychological depths often far removed from the everyday, and a sense of total commitment and response to the experience of life, all of which transcend the author's personal obsessions'—New Statesman
Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.
Good—Very Good copy with general light cover wear and age. No spine creases.
1977, English
Softcover, 186 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Penguin Books / London
$40.00 - In stock -
Scarce first 1977 Penguin paperback edition. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.
Violence, homosexuality and the spiritual emptiness of post-war Japan: these were Mishima's key themes. But not all of these nine stories [and one play] exemplify them; for there was also in this remarkable writer a streak of wry, ironic humour. Here, then, is truly compelling reading. There is shock, explosion, illumination. Here is Mishima. Here is Japan.
Includes: Death in Midsummer, Three Million Yen, Thermos Flasks, The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love, The Seven Bridges, Patriotism, Dojoji, Onnagata, The Pearl, Swaddling Clothes.
Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.
Good—Very Good copy with general light cover wear and age. No spine crease.
1976, English
Softcover, 362 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Penguin Books / London
$40.00 - In stock -
Scarce first 1976 Penguin paperback edition of the first 1968 English translation. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.
In November 1970, Yukio Mishima committed suicide, in the old Japanese way, by disembowelling himself. His last years were devoted to the completion of a quartet of novels, The Sea of Fertility, of which this is the first volume.
'Spring Snow is a novel of considerable stature... it comes from the imagination of a writer whose work bears the same stamp of courage and truth as his own death'—The Times Educational Supplement
'Nowhere before in Mishima's writings is the style quite so dazzling... Nowhere has Mishima's imagination reached such powerful and complex heights''—The Times Literary Supplement
'Lucid, poignant and dramatic...The novel unwinds like a finely painted scroll, to reveal scenes and portraits with a distinctive poignancy of their own. Mishima is entirely successful'—Encounter
Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.
Good—Very Good copy with general light cover/corner wear and age, light moisture buckle. No spine creases.
1977, English
Softcover, 396 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Penguin Books / London
$45.00 - In stock -
Scarce first 1977 Penguin paperback edition of the first 1973 English translation. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.
In November 1970, Yukio Mishima committed suicide, in the old Japanese way by disembowelling himself. His last years were devoted to the completion of a quartet of novels, The Sea of Fertility, of which this is the second volume.
Isao is a young, engaging patriot, and a fanatical believer in the ancient samurai ethos. He turns terrorist, organising a violent plot against the new industrialists, who he believes are threatening the integrity of Japan and usurping the Emperor’s rightful power. As the conspiracy unfolds and unravels, Mishima brilliantly chronicles the conflicts of a decade that saw the fabric of Japanese life torn apart.
Mishima's own superlative literary qualities... include a complete control of complex nárrative, the ability to convey psychological depths often far removed from the everyday, and a sense of total commitment and response to the experience of life, all of which transcend the author's personal obsessions'—New Statesman
Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.
Scarce first 1976 Penguin paperback edition of the first 1968 English translation. Cover design by Tsutomu Harada.
Shunsuké, an ageing novelist, hits on a brilliant plan to avenge himself on womankind, who, he believes, have blighted his life. He bribes a beautiful homosexual student, Yuichi, to marry. The plan works, Yuichi's wife is made miserable. And Shunsuké gets Yuichi to compromise two of his past tormentors, the blackmailing Mrs Kaburagi and Kyoko, a dizzy socialite. But Yuichi, now the toast of Tokyo's 'gay people' and free of all moral restraint, refuses to be further manipulated. Soon the old writer sees his protégé, his creation, turn into a monster dangerously out of control.
Mishima's own superlative literary qualities... include a complete control of complex nárrative, the ability to convey psychological depths often far removed from the everyday, and a sense of total commitment and response to the experience of life, all of which transcend the author's personal obsessions'—New Statesman
Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.
Good—Very Good copy with general light cover wear and age. No spine creases.
1970, English
Softcover, 142 pages, 17.5 x 10.5 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Berkley Medallion / Berkley
$25.00 - Out of stock
Set in a remote fishing village in Japan, The Sound of Waves is a timeless story of first love. It tells of Shinji, a young fisherman and Hatsue, the beautiful daughter of the wealthiest man in the village. Shinji is entranced at the sight of Hatsue in the twilight on the beach and they fall in love. When the villagers' gossip threatens to divide them, Shinji must risk his life to prove his worth.
Yukio Mishima (1925—1970), one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.
Good—Very Good copy with page/edge tanning.
1990, English
Softcover, 170 pagers, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
University of Minnesota Press / Minnesota
$50.00 - Out of stock
First 1990 edition.
"Clarice Lispector...is the premiere Latin American woman prose writer of this century, but because she was a woman and a Brazilian, she has remained virtually unknown in the United States."—New York Times Book Review
The texts that compose this volume were selected from Hélène Cixous's seminars on Clarice Lispector given at the Université de Paris VIII-Vincennes at Saint Denis and at the Université de Philoso phie between 1980 and 1985. They reflect Cixous's ongoing medita tions on problems of reading, writing, difference, and related themes such as exchange and the gift, and love and passion, and trace the influence of Lispector's work on her own development. Reading Lispector from the vantage point of modern theory, Cixous draws her into the mainstream of current debates as she joins her own con temporaries, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Julia Kristeva, among others, in questioning the so-called rational, "Cartesian" sub ject and what she perceives to be the increasing power of the social and applied sciences that seek to establish control over the human being. In a mixture of improvisation and logic, of poetry and philoso phy, Cixous pays close attention to Lispector's technique and avoids easy conceptual summaries. She raises questions from Lispector's texts and, in accord with contemporary tactics, follows rather than answers them. Yet the simplicity and transparence are deceptive and her analyses always prove refined and complex.
Edited, translated, and introduced by Verena Andermatt Conley
Hélène Cixous chairs the Center of Research in Feminine Studies at the Université de Paris. A profile author, her works have been trans lated into Danish, German, and English. Verena Andermatt Conley is professor of French and Women's Studies at Miami University Oxford. Ohio. She is the author of Hélène Cixous: Writing the Feminine.
VG—NF copy, light erase-able pencil marginalia only.
1986, English
Softcover, 170 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Manchester University Press / Manchester
$45.00 - Out of stock
First 1986 English edition.
Published in France as La jeune née in 1975, and found here in its first English translation, The Newly Born Woman is a landmark text of the modern feminist movement. In it, Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément put forward the concept of écriture feminine, exploring the ways women’s sexuality and unconscious shape their imaginary, their language, and their writing. Through their readings of historical, literary, and psychoanalytic accounts, Cixous and Clément explore what is hidden and repressed in culture, revealing the unconscious of history.
Translation by Betsy Wing
Introduction by Sandra M. Gilbert
"If any one single text can be said to have had the greatest impact on the new French feminist theoretical movement, La jeune née is definitely this text. ... Focusing her investigations on the connections between sexuality and textuality, seeking to identify the neglected, suppressed, specificity of woman's sexuality, of her unconscious and of her fantasms, Cixous explores the ways in which these shape woman's imaginary, her language and her writing. This concept of écriture feminine-which generated passionate debates-was, and continues to be, the most revolutionary concept in French feminist theory."—Isabelle de Courtivron, MIT
Good—Very Good copy with some light erase-able pencil marginalia, light tanning to edges/spine, light cover wear.
1991, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 22.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
University of Minnesota Press / Minnesota
$45.00 - Out of stock
First 1991 edition.
Readings: The Poetics of Blanchot, Joyce, Kafka, Kleist, Lispector, and Tsvetayeva offers striking and novel textual studies of major literary figures and emergent authors. Selected from Cixous’s seminars taught between 1980 and 1986 at the Universite de Paris VII (Saint-Denis) and at the College International de Philosophie, the texts chronicle the French intellectual scene with its shifting tastes over the decade following May 1986.
In their simple and accessible language, the texts can be read as inspiration for Cixous’s fictional and critical practices. They not only introduce readers to emergent texts from Brazil and Russia, such as Clarice Lispector’s “Foreign Legion” and Marina Tsvetayeva’s “Mother and Music,” but also give new, incisive insights into Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist and Kafka’s “Before the Law.” Drawing from philosophy and psychoanalysis, Readings: The Poetics of Blanchot, Joyce, Kafka, Kleist, Lispector, and Tsvetayeva can be read side-by-side with Reading with Clarice Lispector, as an ongoing meditation on ethics and poetics.
Hélène Cixous is a Jewish-French, Algerian-born feminist well-known as one of the founders of poststructuralist feminist theory along with Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. She is now a professor of English Literature at University of Paris VIII and chairs the Centre de Recherches en Etudes Féminines which she founded in 1974. She has published numerous essays, playwrights, novels, poems, and literary criticism. Her academic works concern subjects of feminism, the human body, history, death, and theatre.
Edited, translated, and introduced by Verena Andermatt Conley
For Cixous, Lispector’s work represents one of the finest examples of ecriture feminine in that she practices, in writing, what Cixous is searching for in her theoretical practice: the giving, spending, and inscribing of pleasure; an apprenticeship in the lessons of life.
VG—NF copy.