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.
1993, English
Softcover, 216 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Cornell University Press / New York
$35.00 - In stock -
First 1993 Cornell edition.
"Who or what the other is, I never know. But the other who is forever unknowable is the one who differs from me sexually. This feeling of surprise, astonishment, and wonder in the face of the unknowable ought to be returned to its locus: that of sexual difference." Thus Luce Irigaray undertakes a searching inquiry into what may be the philosophical problem of our age.
Irigaray approaches the question of sexual difference by looking at the ways in which thought and language--whether in philosophy, science, or psychoanalysis--are gendered. She juxtaposes evocative readings of classic texts, including Plato's Symposium, Aristotle's Physics, Descartes's "On Wonder" in The Passions of the Soul, Spinoza's Ethics, Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible, and Levinas's Totality and Infinity, with meditations on experiences of love: between fetus and mother, between heterosexual lovers, between women, and between women and their own bodies.
Exploding traditional dualities such as inside/outside, form/content, subject/object, and self/other, Irigaray shows how an understanding of such experiences points to gender blindness in both classic and contemporary theory. Asserting that women have never known a love of self out of which a non-dominated love of the other is possible, Irigaray argues that only when women insist on the integrity of their own spaces of embodiment can love become the basis of a revolution in ethics.
Published in French in 1984, An Ethics of Sexual Difference is now available in English in a superb translation by Carolyn Burke and Gillian C. Gill. Readers interested in feminist theory, literary theory, and philosophy--indeed anyone deeply concerned with gender relations--will be challenged by the brilliance and boldness of Irigaray's analyses.
Luce Irigaray (b. 1930) is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist who examined the uses and misuses of language in relation to women.
Very Good copy. Light (erasable) pencil marginalia.
1985 / 1988, English
Softcover, 222 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Cornell University Press / New York
$25.00 - Out of stock
First 1985 Cornell edition, 1988 printing.
In This Sex Which Is Not One, Luce Irigaray elaborates on some of the major themes of Speculum of the Other Woman, her landmark work on the status of woman in Western philosophical discourse and in psychoanalytic theory. In eleven acute and widely ranging essays, Irigaray reconsiders the question of female sexuality in a variety of contexts that are relevant to current discussion of feminist theory and practice.
Among the topics she treats are the implications of the thought of Freud and Lacan for understanding womanhood and articulating a feminine discourse; classic views on the significance of the difference between male and female sex organs; and the experience of erotic pleasure in men and in women. She also takes up explicitly the question of economic exploitation of women; in an astute reading of Marx she shows that the subjection of woman has been institutionalized by her reduction to an object of economic exchange. Throughout Irigaray seeks to dispute and displace male-centered structures of language and thought through a challenging writing practice that takes a first step toward a woman's discourse, a discourse that would put an end to Western culture's enduring phallocentrism.
Making more direct and accessible the subversive challenge of Speculum of the Other Woman, this volume—skillfully translated by Catherine Porter (with Carolyn Burke)—will be essential reading for anyone seriously concerned with contemporary feminist issues.
Luce Irigaray (b. 1930) is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist who examined the uses and misuses of language in relation to women.
Very Good—Fine copy. Light (erasable) pencil marginalia.
1985 / 1987, English
Softcover, 416 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Cornell University Press / New York
$35.00 - Out of stock
First 1985 Cornell edition, 1987 printing.
Speculum of the Other Woman by Luce Irigaray is incontestably one of the most important works in feminist theory to have been published in this generation. For the profession of psychoanalysis, Irigaray believes, female sexuality has remained a "dark continent," unfathomable and unapproachable; its nature can only be misunderstood by those who continue to regard women in masculine terms. In the first section of the book, "The Blind Spot of an Old Dream of Symmetry," Irigaray rereads Freud's essay "Femininity," and his other writings on women, bringing to the fore the masculine ideology implicit in psychoanalytic theory and in Western discourse in general: woman is defined as a disadvantaged man, a male construct with no status of her own.
In the last section, "Plato's Hystera," Irigaray reinterprets Plato's myth of the cave, of the womb, in an attempt to discover the origins of that ideology, to ascertain precisely the way in which metaphors were fathered that henceforth became vehicles of meaning, to trace how woman came to be excluded from the production of discourse. Between these two sections is "Speculum"-ten meditative, widely ranging, and freely associational essays, each concerned with an aspect of the history of Western philosophy in its relation to woman, in which Irigaray explores woman's essential difference from man.
Luce Irigaray (b. 1930) is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist who examined the uses and misuses of language in relation to women.
Very Good copy. Previous owner's name.
1993, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Columbia University Press / New York
$30.00 - In stock -
First 1993 Columbia edition.
In the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray is one of France's most versatile feminist critics. Sexes and Genealogies, a collection of lectures delivered throughout Canada and Europe, introduces her writing to a wider American audience.
Irigaray's most famous work, Speculum of the Other Woman, prompted her expulsion from the Lacanin Ecole Freudienne because of its searing depiction of Platonic and Freudian representations of women. Now Sexes and Genealogies analyzes sexual difference according to what she terms the double dimension of gender and ideology.
Irigaray covers major issues in religion, the law, psychoanalysis, and literature, such as: the continued neglect by psychoanalysts of the sexual and gender dimensions of therapy, the urgency of female divinity for contemporary feminist movements, and a reconsideration of women's relation to the market economy. Sexes and Genealogies also includes Irigaray's dazzling reading of the Oresteia, "Body Against Body: In Relation to the Mother," now acknowleged as a feminist classic.
Luce Irigaray (b. 1930) is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist who examined the uses and misuses of language in relation to women.
Very Good copy. Light (erasable) pencil marginalia.
1991, English
Softcover, 244 pages, 22.7 x 15.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Blackwell / Cambridge
$25.00 - Out of stock
First 1991 edition of The Irigaray Reader, edited by Margaret Whitford. Luce Irigaray is one of the leading French feminist philosophers and psychoanalysts. Her work is concerned primarily with the construction of femininity and sexual differences in Western philosophy and with the exploration of new psychoanalytical and feminist perspectives on sexual differences. She has written a number of influential books, notably Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not One, both translated into English. The Irigaray Reader is a collection of Luce Irigaray's most important papers to date. They range across feminism, philosophy, psychoanalysis and linguistics, and are grouped here into three broad sections: The Critique of Patriarchy, Psychoanalysis and Language, and Ethics and Subjectivity. Each section begins with an introduction by Margaret Whitford, and the book also includes bibliographies of works by and about Irigaray. A number of pieces in The Irigaray Reader appear for the first time in English. This is the most comprehensive collection available of Irigaray's work, work which has profoundly influenced contemporary debates across a range of disciplines.
"A magnificent sample of the best and the boldest of Irigaray's writings and the projects she calls for and calls forth. An excellent text for both introductory and advanced work on Irigaray."—Choice
Good copy with some wear.
1974, English / French / Japanese
Softcover (silkscreened handmade paper w. inserts), 80 pages, 30 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Crafts Council of Australia / Sydney
$50.00 - In stock -
Wonderful 1974 publication — a pictorial anthology of Australian Crafts — published by the Crafts Council of Australia on the occasion of the first World Crafts Exhibition, Toronto, Canada, 1974. Edited by Joy Warren and designed by artist John Reid and Douglas Annand, Crafts of Australia is a lavishly tactile production, issued in unique silkscreened handmade paper covers (with inserted handmade paper map and letter to the reader) pressed by Kayes van Bodegraven, International College of Papermakers, Melbourne, and made from recycled envelopes from The Crafts Council of Australia offices, and containing paperbark from coastal Melaleuca trees, Cleveland Bay, Queensland. The Map paper containing clays from Scorsby, Knox Shire, Victoria. The book itself traces the historical background of indigenous crafts, modern attitudes and national identity in Australian craft, with texts by Marea Gazzard, Dr. H. C. Coombs, Mary White, Felicity Abraham, Ray Norman. Heavily illustrated in colour an b/w with the featured artists: Beryl Anderson, Douglas Annand, Vicky Barth, Frank Bauer, Robert Bell, Les Blakebrough, Janet Brown, Polly Blakney, Richard and Dilys Brecknock, Joan Campbell, Eric Car, Rinske Car, Margaret Dodd, Jutta Feddersen, Heather Dorrough, Susan Forsyth, Marea Gazzard, Elena Gee, Gary Greenwood, Joan Grounds, Ragnar Hansen, Mona Hessing, Harold Hughan, Jolanta Janavicius, Heather Joynes, Patricia Langford, Helge Larsen and Darani Lewers, Colin Levy, Ken Leveson, Janet Mansfield, Paula Martin, Ivan McMeekin, Pru Medlin, Hal Missingham, Mitinari, Milton Moon, Tim Moorhead, Joyce Noble, Ray Norman, Ewa Jarosynska Pachucka, Jan Strang Priest, Cedar Prest, Ron Rowe, Peter Rushforth, Tor Schwanck, Penny Smith, Pru Socha, Albert Steen, Hiroe Swen, Peter Travis, Kayes van Bodegraven, Wal van Heeckeren, Joy Warren, and many more.
Very good complete copy with some wear to the overhanging paper covers. Interior and inserts preserved.
1972, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 294 pages, 36 x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. / New York
$160.00 - Out of stock
First 1972 hardcover edition of Beyond Craft : The Art Fabric, edited by Mildred Constantine and Jack Lenor Larsen and published by Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York. A very important volume and authoritive survey of the Art Fabric movement of the 1960s, featuring leading artists working in fiber art from Europe and the United States that have liberated their work from tradition and thus heightened their international recognition by critics and public. Edited by Mildred Constantine, a curator of design at MoMA in the 1950s—1960s, and American textile designer, collector and author, Jack Lenor Larsen, noted for popularising the incorporation of textile art and fabric patterns into modernist architecture and furnishings of the 1960s, this authoritative coffee table survey captured the movement at its most robust and innovative and forms an important time capsule of the period. Lavishly illustrated throughout with beautiful colour and b/w artwork reproductions, installations, details and portraits, this heavy volume features chapters on Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks, Olga de Amaral, Susan Weitzman, Evelyn Anselevicius, Thelma Becherer, Tadek Beutlich, Lenore Tawney, Jagoda Buic, Zofia Butrymowicz, Marguerite Carau-Ischi, Barbara Falkowska, Claire Zeisler, Kay Sekimachi, Sherri Smith, Wojciech Sadley, Moik Schiele, Herman Scholten, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Richard Landis, Aurelia Muñoz, Debra Rapoport, Ed Rossbach , Ewa Jaroszynska, Wilhelmina Fruytier Ritzi, Peter Jacobi, Elsi Giauque, Françoise Grossen, Marguerite Carau-Ischi, Barbara Falkowska, Tadek Beutlich, Zofia Butrymowicz, Thelma Bechererand, many others. A gorgeous book printed and bound in Japan. A must for anyone interested in textile art.
Very Good copy with previous owner's name to title page, in Good dust jacket with minor chipping to extremities.
1975 / 76, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 150 pages, 25 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Mullaya / Canterbury
$120.00 - Out of stock
Rare first 1975 edition, 1976 printing of Alistair Knox's hardcover mud brick classic, Living in the environment, now a cherished bible in the library of any Australian bush-builder, and the first book by the pioneer of the Australian environmental building movement.
"Environmental building and environmental living are not a withdrawal from life, but a renewal of it. Neither is it a habit or fashion. It is a belief in action."—Alistair Knox (1912—1986)
"The history and progress of environmental building is synonymous with the history of modern mud brick building, but it is not confined to this alone. Earth-wall construction stimulates a point of view and a relationship with nature that no other material is able to do. The universality of earth-walling springs first from its availability, and secondly from the fact that it can be produced by human labour alone. It is the heart and soul of the Low Technology lifestyle that is so exercising the minds of conservationists today. The feeling of humanity of earth-walling is one of its greatest ingredients. It also has marvellous insulation qualities. But perhaps the greatest single quality of earth walls is found in the sense of serenity one feels within them. They are almost completely sound absorbent. They neither echo nor creak, but just remain as silent and immutable as the distant Australian landscape itself. In Living in the Environment Alistair Knox, who is considered to be the originator of the Australian environmental building movement, not only tells of his designing activities spanning half a lifetime, but also discusses with deep perception the conservation problems facing society today. In his far-ranging review of the Australian environmental building scene he discusses the influence of Francis Greenway and Walter Burley Griffin, relating their design concepts to their affinity with the Australian landscape."—book jacket
Alistair Samuel Knox (1912—1986) was an Australian designer, builder and landscape architect who used recycled materials and mudbrick in his constructions and is considered to be a pioneer of modern mudbrick building, having designed more than 1,000 houses throughout the Nillumbik region of Victoria as well as in other parts of Australia. Largely self-taught, Knox believed that houses should be built using available resources and by working in harmony with the environment. Knox's main influences were Justus Jorgensen at Montsalvat, Francis Greenaway, Walter Burley Griffin and Frank Lloyd Wright In landscape design Knox was particularly impressed by the work of Ellis Stones and Gordon Ford, whose espousal of 'bush gardens' he helped to promote. As a building practitioner Alistair Knox played a key role in encouraging and facilitating the self-builder movement. By demystifying the building process he helped empower people to build for themselves. Knox was a founding member and fellow (1983) of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. After more than 30 years of designing and building Alistair Knox was awarded an honorary degree as a Doctor of Architecture by the University of Melbourne in 1984.
Very Good copy with VG dust jacket. Light sunning/jacket wear.
1971, English
Softcover, 448 pages, 36.5 cm x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Penguin Putnam / New York
$200.00 - Out of stock
Original 1971 edition of the Back-to-the-land bible and hippie homesteading encyclopedia, The Last Whole Earth Catalog. Considered "the internet before the internet", The Whole Earth Catalog was an important American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by author, editor and founder of the Long Now Foundation, Stewart Brand, between 1968—1972. The magazine, sporting the famous slogan "access to tools", promoted self-sufficiency, ecology, alternative education, "do it yourself" (DIY), and holism, through featured essays, articles, poetry, practical guides, plans, philosophies, artwork and most importantly, a huge catalog of product reviews (from books by Buckminster Fuller to synthesizers by Wendy Carlos) that formed an important directory and direct network of craftspeople, educators, artisans, nomads, growers, idealists and independent developers. "It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along."—Steve Jobs. Oh how the internet has turned on us.
"We are as gods and we might as well get used to it. So far remotely done power and glory - as via government, big business, formal education, church - has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing - the power of individuals to conduct their own education, find their own inspiration, shape their own environment, and share the adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by The Next Earth Catalog."
The back cover photo is of the earth from space. The caption reads, “We can’t put it together. It is together.”
VG copy, with exception of closed tear between front cover and bottom of spine only. Otherwise uncreased spine, only unusually light wear and tear and usual tanning to newsprint pages.
1969, English
Softcover (newsprint newspaper), 40 pages, 28 x 38 cm
1st Edition, third print,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Cookbook Fund — Lama Foundation / New Mexico
$490.00 - In stock -
The seminal, and very rare, Dome Cookbook — the first widely-read dome instruction manual, created by the founder of Zomeworks Corp, Solar Pioneer, a resident of Drop City, and beatnik architect and engineer Steve Baer in New Mexico in 1968, and a legendary piece of counterculture publishing. Baer’s eccentric, over-sized, hand-lettered 1968 work was written with daring, unskilled builders in mind as its audience — the back-to-the-land movement. "You don’t need to know that much, you just need to go ahead and try it out." Filled with diagram's and photographs, particularly in Drop City, a hippie community founded in 1966 in southern Colorado, Dome Cookbook encouraged the resourcefulness and innovation Baer found essential in his own experiments and elaborations on Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic forms and the creation of his own geodesic-inspired "zome". Published by Cookbook Fund — Lama Foundation, in New Mexico in 1969, in this first edition, third print.
Very Good copy with tanning and some light edge wear.
1970, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 236 pages, 26 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Paul Hamlyn / Sydney
$200.00 - Out of stock
First, only hardcover edition of the incredible "Australian Style", one of the great unsung interior books of the 1960s/70s. Published in 1970 this heavily-illustrated volume aims to survey what the "new" (c. 1970) Australian style of modern architecture and interior design looked like through profiles on prominent Australian decorators, designers, innovators and architects of the time, including Harry Seidler, Robin Boyd, Gordon Andrews, Babette Hayes, Neville Marsh, Florence Broadhurst, Marion Hall Best, Leslie Walford, Barry Little, Ken Woolley, and Neville Gruzman, amongst many others, lavishly illustrated with photographic reproductions by Rodney Weidland of their interiors, buildings, furniture, textiles, and more. Edited by April Hersey and Babette Haynes, Australia's first Design Stylist of the burgeoning 1960s decor scene.
"Australia is developing a style of living which is as unique as the country itself. With growing affluence and the aggressive assault of mass media on our sensibilities, we have emerged from the era of composite nothingness drawn from remembered lands across the sea, and are presently finding our own standards and our own likes and dislikes in everything from pepper grinders to fifty-storey buildings. This book opens communication with the people who are making the new Australia liveable. It shows in 236 pages of magnificent colour and black and white illustration just what is happening on the frontiers of our sophistication. It voices the opinions of the experts who create our shelters. Architects like Robin Boyd, Harry Seidler and Neville Gruzman; designers like Gordon Andrews and Florence Broadhurst; interior designers like Marion Hall Best, Leslie Walford and Barry Little and the dozens of other innovators and creators who are daily adding to our knowledge and our comfort. In compiling the text, April Hersey has drawn our domestic development briefly to this time and place and then pin-pointed the rooms of a house and the work of the various designers and architects. Babette Hayes and Rodney Weidland have found the perfect illustrations for everything, from the smallest device to the most extravagant decor, to show Australian homes as they look today."
Very Good copy, with G—VG dust jacket.
1975, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 21 x 21 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Idea Books International / London
$55.00 - Out of stock
"Author, Art Boericke and Photography Barry Shapiro have traveled for years to the ends of many rural road in order to visit and record the best owner-built structures they could. These words and images will not tell you what to build nor how to build it. We hope that the book will show you some neat solutions to old problems, with gorgeous embellishments, and it will tell you that you needn't be a titan of carpentry in order to have a sprightly outbuilding or a snug main house."
An classic book on wooden houses, lavishly illustrated with interior/exterior photography and details of the author's examples, captured in the early 1970s.
A copy of the less common Idea Books edition from 1975.
2023, English
Hardcover, 240 pages, 16 x 20 cm
Published by
Fuel / London
$60.00 - In stock -
Dachas - countryside houses, built from wood - are largely unknown outside the post-Soviet states. Photographer Fyodor Savintsev has documented these important architectural forms, creating a unique record of a vanishing world.
A 'dacha' is a country house, made of wood, used by Soviet citizens to escape the rigors of the city for rural idyll. Widespread in the countries of the former USSR, this important cultural and architectural form has been largely ignored academically. In Dacha Fyodor Savintsev documents this particularly Russian phenomenon, his photographs constitute a unique record of a rapidly vanishing fairytale wooden world.
The word 'dacha' has been used to describe constructions ranging from grand imperial villas to small sheds. Originally bestowed by the Tsar to reward courtiers, this custom continued following the revolution, with Soviet cooperatives building dachas for their members. Supposedly for the benefit of labourers, in reality they were destined for those favoured by the State, including famous writers, architects and artists - from Pasternak to Prokofiev. The fall of the Soviet Union accelerated their use, as economic uncertainty forced city dwellers towards self-sufficiency. The dacha tradition has survived Revolution, war and the collapse of Communism, becoming an integral part of life in the process.
Using contemporary photographs to showcase these uniquely individual buildings for the first time, alongside an introduction explaining their historical and cultural context, Dacha is the only publication of its kind.
1977, English
Softcover, 545 pages, 27.5 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Scribners / New York
$70.00 - Out of stock
First edition of Music of the Whole Earth from 1977.
"I look upon the musician/composer," David Reck has said, "as a carpenter of sound (also a poet/philosopher/and highwire artist). I am delighted by the processes of making and building (the bricks can be invisible) and doing and thinking. I like to be surprised (by myself and others). But I study music, and play it, primarily for that magical touch, an emotional contact with music itself that mystically makes me (and others) more human, more attuned to the ecology of ourselves and the world."
In this extraordinary 545-page book, ethnomusicologist David Reck "invites you to discover the musical universe. MUSIC OF THE WHOLE EARTH explores the richness and variety of sound, instruments, and music from many different cultures and a great variety of musical traditions. Tribal, folk, and classical music of India, Tibet, China, Japan, the American Indians, Southeast Asia, Java and Bali, Oceania/Polynesia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas — including pop, rock, jazz, soul, and country. The mythical origins of music, endangered musics, ensembles, the ecology of sound, and music in relation to art, magic, ritual, theater, dance, and life-styles. The anatomy and mechanics of instruments, with special sections on how to make them yourself. Profusely illustrated with photographs, drawings, maps, and diagrams, MUSIC OF THE WHOLE EARTH narrows the gap between the audience and the performer and between our own musical culture and that of other peoples."
Very Good copy.
1994, Japanese
Softcover, 192 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$80.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.44 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. Each issue covers different themes and features, heavy on fetishism.
Issue No.44, the "normalabnormal" issue features "The Exhibitionist, Bondage, The Fetishist, The Transvestite, The Sadist, The Masochist", Gerard Malanga, Nobuyoshi Araki, Guido Crepax, Luc Sante's Evidence book, Carlo Mollino, fetish comix, Erotic Lactation, bondage catalogues, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
1992, Japanese
Softcover, 176 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$80.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.43 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. Each issue covers different themes and features, heavy on fetishism.
Issue No.43, the "Sexploitation Films" issue features "Biker Films, Beach Party Films, LSD Films, Women in Prison Films, Mondo Films...", a filmography from "A Taste of Flesh" (1967) to "The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield" (1968), a long interview with cult director Herschell Gordon Lewis, Russ Meyer, plus Carlo Mollino, Pierre Molinier, John Willie, Guido Crepax, Irving Claw, Betty Page, Gilles Berquet, and periodicals such as Sweet Gwen's, Bizarre, Gwendoline, Rigorosa Disciplina, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
1990, Japanese
Softcover, 176 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$80.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.39 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘erotisism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.39, the "Lesbianism" issue features writings by Rita Mae Brown, Alice Walker, Simone de Beauvoir, and many more, interspersed with erotic female imagery (photography, film stills, drawings, paintings) with facing images of flowers by famed German photographer Karl Blossfeldt. Also includes John Kacere, and catalogue/advertisments/clippings of Nobuyoshi Araki, Richard Cerf, Carlo Mollino, Pierre Molinier, Irving Claw, Jim, Betty Page, Sweet Gwen, Diva Bizarre, Centurian, Bizarre Comix, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy.
1991, Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$80.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.40 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. Each issue covers different themes and features, heavy on fetishism.
Issue No.40, the "Skin To Skin" issue features collected writings and images around the themes of body art, tattoo, piercing, bondage, "modern primitivism", etc. including Masami Akita (Merzbow), Mari Akasaka, Kyoko Okazaki, performance artist Fakir Musafar, Irving Klaw, Betty Page, many artists, plus imagery/advertisements/clippings/artworks by Carlo Mollino, Pierre Molinier, John Willie, Guido Crepax, more Irving Claw, more Betty Page, comix and periodicals such as Sweet Gwen's, Bizarre, Gwendoline, Rigorosa Disciplina, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
1990, Japanese
Softcover, 176 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$80.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.40 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘eroticism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.40, the "FREAKS" issue features writings and artwork throughout by Fictcryptokrimsographs by Les Krims, Amputee Love comic by Rich and Rene, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Odilon Redon, Joel-Peter Witkin, Hiromi Itō, Masaaki Oba, Diane Arbus, Erving Goffman, Pierre Molinier, lots of mysterious vintage "freak" and erotic imagery and illustration, and catalogue/advertisments/clippings of Eric Stanton, Irving Klaw, John Willie, Bizarre Comix, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy, tanning to pages and some wear to cover.
1988, Japanese
Softcover, 168 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$80.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.33 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘erotisism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.33, the "Homosex Issue" features Quentin Crisp, Herbert List, Andy Warhol, Pierre Klossowski, David Hockney, Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden, Mel Odom, Jean Cocteau, Aubrey Beardsley, Guglielmo Plüschow, Vincenzo Galdi, and much more. It also features the Fiction, Inc. section that samples a cross-section of content from catalogue publications including the work of John Willie, Bill Ward, Carlo, Guido Crepax, Eric Stanton, Ruiz, Sally Roberts, Irving Claw, Betty Page, and periodicals such as Rubber Magazine, Amateur Bondage, Bizarre Comix, Bizarre Classix, Bizarre Fotos, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy with tanning and age to pages.
1985, Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$80.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.29 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘erotisism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.29, the "Bondage" issue features collected writings and images around the themes of bondage, bdsm and more, including extensive features of photography and illustrations by John Willie, Irving Klaw, Eric Stanton, Carlo, Eneg, plus Andy Warhol and all the usual great advertisements/catalogue clippings, and much more... Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy with tanning to pages.
1991, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 15.2 x 22.9 cm
Published by
Zone Books / New York
$54.00 - In stock -
Most Anglo-American readers know Bataille as a novelist. The Accursed Share provides an excellent introduction to Bataille the philosopher. Here he uses his unique economic theory as the basis for an incisive inquiry into the very nature of civilization. Unlike conventional economic models based on notions of scarcity, Bataille's theory develops the concept of excess: a civilization, he argues, reveals its order most clearly in the treatment of its surplus energy. The result is a brilliant blend of ethics, aesthetics, and cultural anthropology that challenges both mainstream economics and ethnology.
Georges Bataille (1897-1962) was a French writer, essayist, and philosopher whose works include The Story of the Eye, The Blue of Noon, The Accursed Share, and Theory of Religion.
A serious book of political economy that also claims 'the sexual act is in time what the tiger is in space.'... The Accursed Share is a brilliant product of [Bataille's] loony-tunes coupling of critical genres: pseudo/antisurrealist manifestos, leftist political treatises, erotics, Hegel 'n' Nietzsche studies, mysticism, anthropology, and sun worship. - Erik Davis, The Voice Literary Supplement
1993, English
Softcover, 464 pages, 15.3 x 22.7 cm
Published by
Zone Books / New York
$69.00 - In stock -
The three volumes of The Accursed Share address what Georges Bataille sees as the paradox of utility: namely, if being useful means serving a further end, then the ultimate end of utility can only be uselessness. The first volume of The Accursed Share, the only one published before Bataille's death, treated this paradox in economic terms, showing that "it is not necessity but its contrary, luxury, that presents living matter and mankind with their fundamental problems." This Zone edition includes in a single volume a reconstruction, based on the versions published in Bataille's posthumous collected works, of his intended continuation of The Accursed Share.
In the second and third volumes, The History of Eroticism and Sovereignty, Bataille explores the same paradox of utility, respectively from an anthropological and an ethical perspective. He first analyzes the fears and fascination, the prohibitions and the transgressions attached to the realm of eroticism as so many expressions of the "uselessness" of erotic life. It is just this expenditure of excess energy that demarcates the realm of human autonomy, of independence relative to "useful" ends. The study of eroticism therefore leads naturally to the examination of human sovereignty, in which Bataille defines the sovereign individual as one who consumes and does not labor, creating a life beyond the realm of utility.
Georges Bataille (1897-1962) was a French writer, essayist, and philosopher whose works include The Story of the Eye, The Blue of Noon, The Accursed Share, and Theory of Religion.
1970, Japanese
Hardcover (w. illustrated slipcase), 266 pages, 23.5 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Asahi Sonorama / Tokyo
$200.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1970 slipcased hardcover edition of manga master Shigeru Mizuki's absolute classic illustrated encyclopedia of his beloved Yōkai (Japanese supernatural beings and phenomena), published in this gorgeous hardcover edition in illustrated slipcase by Ashahi Sonorama, here for the first time in 1970 and long out-of-print. A must for any lover of the illustrated weird by a master of the genre.
Shigeru Mizuki (1922–2015) was one of Japan’s most respected artists. A creative prodigy, he lost an arm in World War II. After the war, Mizuki became one of the founders of Japan’s latest craze—manga. He invented the yokai genre with GeGeGe no Kitaro, his most famous character, who has been adapted for the screen several times, as anime, live action, and video games. In fact, a new anime series has been made every decade since 1968, capturing the imaginations of generations of Japanese children. A researcher of yokai and a real-life ghost hunter, Mizuki traveled to over sixty countries to engage in fieldwork based on spirit folklore. In his hometown of Sakaiminato, one can find Shigeru Mizuki Road, a street decorated with bronze statues of his Kitaro characters.
VG in VG dj. Beautiful copy.