A crucial look at these key years of artist Vito Acconci – a time when the artist was becoming a key figure in the emerging world of performance art, and using his own body as a canvas to communicate with the world! Most of Acconci's important "pieces" from this time involved him ... read moreBook
The paper print was a key political force in Mexico during the 20th Century – explosive in its power during the revolution of the teens, with a continuing impact over decades that's well-documented here – in a lavish book that's filled with vintage images, as well as some surprisingly ... read moreBook
One of the best-remembered features of the Golden Age of comics – presented here in a beautiful hardcover package! Airboy was part aviation adventure – ala Blackhawk – and part young male fantasy – ala Terry & The Pirates – but the strip was something special all ... read moreBook
The birth of a legend – the first two issues of All Star Comics, the important Golden Age publication that soon gave birth to the Justice Society Of America! These first two issues feature individual stories from later JSA members The Spectre, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Johnny Thunder, ... read moreBook
One of our favorite sci-fi comics artists ever – presented here in a short but wonderful run on the Buck Rogers Sunday pages of the late 50s! Murphy Anderson is a genius – an artist whose work on DC titles like Hawkman, Strange Adventures, Mystery In Space, and even Superman helped ... read moreBook
A pretty great book about the wonderful songwriter Johnny Mercer – key force behind the birth of Capitol Records, and a whole host of songs and careers in the 20th Century! The book's about the size of a songbook, and does include lyrics to a number of classic Mercer tunes – but it's ... read moreBook
Rare work from the great Matt Baker – a cartoonist best known for his sexy superhero Phantom Lady in the 40s, and for a number of other "good girl" features during the golden age of comics! Canteen Kate comes from a few years later – all these strips ran in the first few ... read moreBook
Totally cool outside ads from around the world – some of recent vintage, others from many years back – all laid out in a lavish book of full color images that shows a huge range of totally groovy billboards and posters! The contents are great – and lots of the campaigns featured ... read moreBook
A postwar sci-fi classic from Alfred Bester – a hell of a writer, and one with a long legacy of great work in both comic books and magazines! Yet The Demolished Man is just one of a few novels that Bester ever gave us – a stunning story about murder in the 24th Century, at a time when ... read moreBook
A surprisingly candid look at one of the most important musical couples of the 20th Century – Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin – a duo who made some incredible sounds together in the French scene of the 60s and 70s – and who were equally important to larger French culture as well! ... read moreBook
One of the biggest early DJs in rock and roll – the mighty Jerry Blavat, aka The Geator With The Heator – telling the tale of all of his many years in music, all with the same panache he brought to his on-air persona! Blavat's story is the stuff of legend – told around the ... read moreBook
A beautiful book that certainly lives up to the "chaos to couture" in its title – as it traces the fashion of punk from the early DIY days of the London scene to its elevation to high fashion on the runway! The book's smarter than you might guess – put together by MOMA, and ... read moreBook
Remember when guys used to be butch? Remember when they weren't fussing over their hair, their skin care, or aromas – and instead just needed a handful of objects to state their identity! Those objects took on different categories – a cool car, a nice watch, hunting togs, or drinking ... read moreBook
A great book that details the story of modern dance music – as told by the DJs who've spun it into such expansive cultural significance – the DJ Revolutionaries! Authors Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton have years on the beat – having edited and/or written for Mixmag, Wax ... read moreBook
A beautiful collection of images by Ivan Brunetti – a cartoonist we've followed for decades here on the Chicago scene, and have watched with great appreciation as he's gotten worldwide attention for his work in the New Yorker and numerous other publications over the years! Brunetti's an ... read moreBook
William S Burroughs —
Soft Machine ... Book Fourth Estate (UK), 1961. New Copy ...
$6.9912.99
One of the greatest novels ever from the legendary William S Burroughs – a book that was written very much under the influence of the cut-up technique, but which also still retains some of the pulp prose of Burroughs' 50s material too! The book is a roller coaster of a read – one of ... read moreBook
William S Burroughs is best known as an artist with his pen – a writer who gave the world Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, and a number of other groundbreaking books – plus some important cut-up recordings, made from his original text! Yet Burroughs was also fascinated with the visual, ... read moreBook
A really cool book that's way way more than just what you'd expect from the title – as the writing is surprisingly deep, with lots of little sidebars that illuminate the contents – and the whole thing is put together with lots of images, in a very vivid way! The volume goes year by ... read moreBook
Elias Canetti gave the 20th Century one of its greatest novels – the classic Auto Da Fe, a book that should be required reading for any obsessive collector of records – and he's equally well-remembered for the memoirs of his youth in Berlin and Vienna – three books that are easily ... read moreBook
Elias Canetti gave the 20th Century one of its greatest novels – the classic Auto Da Fe, a book that should be required reading for any obsessive collector of records – and he's equally well-remembered for the memoirs of his youth in Berlin and Vienna – three books that are easily ... read moreBook
Jeff Chang's given us some of the most thoughtful writing we've ever read on hip hop and its history – and this time around, he turns his talents towards larger issues of race and culture on contemporary America – at a level that's surprisingly prescient, given the struggles of the past ... read moreBook
One of the few English language looks we've ever seen at the music of Serge Gainsbourg – a well-penned biography that covers all of his classic years in a fair bit of detail! Author Alan Clayson does a good job of paying as much attention to the music as he does to Serge's celebrity – ... read moreBook
One of our favorite graphic novels by the always-wonderful Daniel Clowes – a work of subtle beauty, and an offbeat story that's told in a very compelling format! The town of Ice Haven is presented in a series of shorter comic strips that fit the sideways rectangle style of the book – ... read moreBook
A great look at the 70 year legacy of Heaven Bound – the gospel folk drama that's played on stage in Atlanta for decades, and which has had an undeniable influence on the growth of African American theater in the 20th Century. The book offers a history of the stage presentation, as well as a ... read moreBook
Amazing images from the universe of Sun Ra – a mixture of rare photographs and mural images painted by Aye Aton – sometime percussionist with the Arkestra, and a heck of a great painter too! The book begins with these stunning full color photographs of Ra on the set of Space Is The ... read moreBook
As folks in the know have always known, the city of Nashville isn't the only hotbed of country music – as California's Bakersfield brought the world plenty of great sounds too – music from Tommy Collins, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and others – a very important tradition, presented ... read moreBook
The story of one of the most legendary nights in Chicago music – told by the man who made it all happen! Disco Demolition was conceived as a one-off joke about the popularity of disco music in the late 70s – but the event, which involved attendees bringing records for destruction to a ... read moreBook
Pretty great horror comics from the early 70s – the surprisingly long, healthy run of Gold Key's Dark Shadows comic books – which actually ran longer at the newstand than the show did on TV! The comic's strength comes from some great talents – 50s horror artist Joe Certa, still ... read moreBook
Pretty great horror comics from the early 70s – the surprisingly long, healthy run of Gold Key's Dark Shadows comic books – which actually ran longer at the newstand than the show did on TV! The comic's strength comes from some great talents – 50s horror artist Joe Certa, still ... read moreBook
An amazing collection of 40s and 50s jazz drawings by Gene Deitch – the complete anthology of his work for legendary jazz magazine Record Changer! Gene was an amazing artist and cartoonist, whose work helped solidify the legacies of some of the most famous cartoon characters in the American ... read moreBook
Complete compendium of the 1970s pre-punk fanzine Denim Delinquent– a Canadian DIY zine which originally ran from 1971-1976 and is a HUGE pre-cursor to some of the greatest rock zines to come! DD covered a wide range of wild rockers with equally unruly writing and art – and this ... read moreBook
Formica may seem like an everyday surface to some – but at the time of its creation, it was a pretty revolutionary development – one that allowed household and business spaces to step free from longer-term care – giving the workers and residents lots more time to pursue their ... read moreBook
Much more of an art book than the usual music book on a band – as the pages are filled with a beautiful range of artwork created by Destroy All Monsters during their brief time together as a group! The full color book features over 300 images – photos, drawings, prints, paintings, and ... read moreBook
Tremendous work from the legendary sci-fi scribe Philip K Dick – a book that begins in normal enough territory, but soon steps into the sort of psycho-shifting landscape that can make the writer so great! The narrative is situated in a post-Earth version of Mars, but one in which the human ... read moreBook
Perfect Philip K Dick – from a time when the writer just couldn't miss! Our Friends From Frolix 8 tells of the clash between the Old Men and New Men in the coming future – but, like the best of Dick's writing, the tension is one more of anxiety in the workplace and in romance – ... read moreBook
A haunting version of the future from Philip K Dick – one in which humanity is shuttled off the overcrowded earth into a range of dismal space colonies – addicted to the drug Can-D, which frees them to play and partner up in these imaginary worlds, and escape the shabbiness of their ... read moreBook
One of the most personal books ever on the legendary Gram Parsons – told by friend and early musical collaborator Ian Dunlop, who recounts both his music-making with Parsons, and their time on the road in late 60s America! Dunlop presents many conversations and experiences he had with ... read moreBook
A very striking portrait of the price of freedom – a book that features police mug shots of Freedom Riders who helped break down boundaries during the key years of Civil Rights – folks whose sacrifice and struggles opened the door to freedoms we enjoy today ! The oversize book is way ... read moreBook
Cartoons, magazine covers, and other illustrations from the fantastic Jaro Fabray – pulled from a range of publications in the 30s and 40s, and laid out alongside with other archival drawings as well! The book's as beautiful as its cover – and offers up a modern take on a changing ... read moreBook
Dishy dames galore – all delightfully delineated by 60s cartoonist Don Flowers – and lovingly re-presented in this sweet little volume from Fantagraphics! The book follows in the same series the publisher did with Dan DeCarlo – and like that volume, this one features the best of ... read moreBook
A very unusual volume in this classic series – one that features the last half of the original cartoony take on Frankenstein by artist Dick Briefer, then follows with the re-worked series from 1952 – which moves into much more horror-based artwork overall! Briefer's original run is one ... read moreBook
Excellent work from the "second chapter" of Dick Briefer's classic Frankenstein comic – pulled from a time when the publication had left behind the cartoony style of Briefer's original run, and moved into much starker horror territory for the big early 50s boom in the format! The ... read moreBook
Excellent work from the "second chapter" of Dick Briefer's classic Frankenstein comic – pulled from a time when the publication had left behind the cartoony style of Briefer's original run, and moved into much starker horror territory for the big early 50s boom in the format! The ... read moreBook
That VU isn't the Velvet Underground – but instead the title of an amazing French magazine from the prewar years – still a landmark in graphic design, and presented here in a very large, very vivid book that offers up pages and pages from the original publication! The book begins with ... read moreBook
Lordy – this is the kind of book we've been waiting for! This lovely little volume is a Japanese guide to funky 45s – one put together by a team of funky collectors, but with input from experts in the field like Keb Darge, Muro, and DJ Shadow. The main section of the book breaks down ... read moreBook
An incredible book on Sun Ra & The Arkestra – one that's got all the beauty and heft of one of his rare albums on the Saturn Records label! This is the second edition of Omniverse (the first went out of print almost 20 years ago, and now goes for fabulous sums) – and it's even ... read moreBook
Alex Chilton has quite a long resume – from early work in the Box Tops, key years as a member of Big Star, and a huge solo career that continued through the punk years and beyond – all of which is chronicled here by author Holly George-Warren, a writer who's got a very personal take on ... read moreBook
A book that's as beautiful as the subject it covers – the changing world of graphic design in the past hundred years or so – served up with beautiful images of the best examples! The book takes key work from the past and juxtaposes it with the present – offering dates and ... read moreBook
A deep look at the Lost Quintet of Miles Davis – a group who earned that name because they never recorded a full studio album, yet made some very important waves with their live work at the end of the 60s! The lineup featured key electric Miles musicians Chick Corea on keyboards, Dave ... read moreBook
Group soul harmony gets some great treatment here – in a well-done book that follows the music from the street corner to the airwaves – all with a thoughtful mixture of oral history and the larger issues of the time! Author Stuart Goosman focuses especially on harmony groups on the ... read moreBook
Newspaper comics historian Ron Goulart has turned us onto many great strips over the years, and this time around he presents an overview of the key decade of the 30s – which gave rise to some of the best adventure work to grace newsprint in the 20th century – a long legacy that includes ... read moreBook
Vintage photos of the New York Dolls – mostly from their seminal years of 1973 and 1974, when they were a key force in transforming the energy of the New York scene, and instrumental in paving the way for the punk years to come! The photos are great – mostly in black and white, with ... read moreBook
Fantastic album cover art from UK designer Steve Hardstaff – an artist who has a great way of juxtaposing images and creatively reusing content! The book features loads of Hardstaff covers from the 80s and 90s – for musicians as diverse as Half Man Half Biscuit, Lee Scratch Perry, and ... read moreBook
An incredible design team from the early part of the 20th Century – one whose work you've no doubt seen over the years, even if you didn't know the artists behind it! This book more than corrects that lack of fame – as it springs the duo of Dorothy and Otis Shepard into the limelight ... read moreBook
A great postwar adventure from Herge's Tintin – set in a small European nation that's clearly years behind the times, yet already caught up in some of the intrigue of the Cold War generation! The mix of ancient and modern is perfect for Herge's sharp-edged pen – and the story is one of ... read moreBook
Nintendo's Wii gaming system has gone onto transform the role of the TV screen in household activity in the past decade or so – with a legacy that's also touched the world of visual arts as well! This book is a lavish, oversized art book that presents a range of creative work inspired by the ... read moreBook
A totally wonderful little book – one that traces the relationship between culture, politics, and soul food during the Civil Rights era – a long legacy that continues to have strong local power all these many years later! The book is very lovingly done – rich in history, and ... read moreBook
A wonderfully detailed story of one of the coolest record labels ever – a book that really gets at the huge range of folk, blues, psych, and other wonderful sounds issued by Elektra Records! The tome is massive – big enough to feature a lot of full color pictures, but with a much ... read moreBook
The late 20th Century indie rock underground – served up here in a very refreshing format – a mode that focuses on six key cities, each written by a different author – in sections that are then broken down to focus on key bands and important records! Every chapter has a different ... read moreBook
The crazy, one of a kind life story of Rick James – you know you want read that – and it's coming from the man himself, as told to and co-written by David Ritz, who also worked on bios for Buddy Guy, Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin and other legends! As notoriously wild ... read moreBook
(Please note that there is a small remainder mark on the spine.)
The life and music of one of the founding fathers of bossa nova – and one of the most important composers on the global scene in the second half of the 20th Century! The book's penned by Jobim's sister, Helena – who's also a poet and novelist herself – and it features a mix of ... read moreBook
A great little book that shows a whole new side of 60s and 70s records for collectors to love – the original press ads and posters that were used to promote the music at the time! The book is Japanese, but it's filled with vintage images from the US as well – gorgeous ads from music ... read moreBook
A beautiful look at the American love of the exotic – served up in a stunning, oversized book that's overflowing with full color-images and a wealth of tiki-styled history! This book is way more than just another fluff piece on postwar tiki culture – and instead digs deep into the US ... read moreBook
Amazing – one of the most beautiful discographies we've ever seen, put together in tribute to one of the hippest labels ever! Vertigo Records was the prog/psych arm of Philips at the end of the 60s and start of the 70s – home to a huge range of sounds, from the fuzzy of Black Sabbath, ... read moreBook
Photographer Lewis Koch relies heavily on the art of creative juxtaposition – as you'll see in the wonderful cover image to this volume of his work – which is a great introduction to all the striking images inside! Koch presents each photograph on its own – often a black and ... read moreBook
A very cool discography – one that brings the hip Japanese format to the world of blues music – in a style that's similar to other books on jazz, funk, and soul! The approach here features hundreds of vintage album covers, each in glorious color – presented in small entries that ... read moreBook
The fascinating story of Clarence Birdseye – the man who found a way to freeze vegetables and ship them over the world, right to your freezer – written by food historian Mark Kurlansky, who really blew us away with his previous books Cod and Salt! Like those gems, this one does way ... read moreBook
We're not users of the stuff, but we'll be the first to admit that heroin has played a big role in some of the creative endeavors that have really moved us over the years – from art to music, to poetry and prose – and a number of other forms as well! Yet heroin's just the starting ... read moreBook
A huge book that not only looks at the importance of Zen Buddhism in the creative process of the legendary John Cage – but also shows the way that Cage's music and legacy helped spread Buddhist ideals throughout the art world of the late 20th Century! Cage's relationship to Zen was never ... read moreBook
Street art, public installation, creative photography, and more – all pulled from the pages of Modart magazine, and served up here in a heavy volume that offers up an artbook version of the regular publication! The well-done package features works by artists who include Morkcy Troubles, Roa ... read moreBook
The bronze age of comics finally gets its due – that time when sales were slipping and customers were aging – and comics had to change plenty in the process! DC Comics maybe changed more than most of its competition – as you'll see in this beautiful oversized book that documents ... read moreBook
The book that spawed a film – and which tells the surprisingly charming tale of Anvil – the Canadian metal group who broke big in the 80s, told by its founders Steve Kudlow and Robb Reiner! The pair have a friendship that goes way beyond their music – one that first got them ... read moreBook
Richard Matheson —
I Am Legend ... Book Gollancz (UK), 1954. New Copy ...
$5.9912.99
One of the creepiest books ever written – a story about the last guy on earth who's not a blood-sucking ghoul – left alone in the ruins of civilization to forage for his survival! The book's the inspiration for both the film of the same name, and the classic 70s flick Omega Man – ... read moreBook
An incredible lost side of the many talents of the great Les McCann – the ultra-hip pianist, singer, and jazz composer who we've loved for years! This book showcases McCann's lesser-known skills as a photographer – a subtle shutterbug who would often take pictures in the same spaces he ... read moreBook
Barn dance radio was a huge force in the growth of country music in the 20th Century – programs like the Grand Ole Opry, Louisiana Hayride, and other shows that reached out to huge regional audiences – and helped expose countless ears to the charm and creativity of the music! And while ... read moreBook
Alan McGee is one of the most compelling figures in the British indie scene of the 80s – as important to psych and Britpop styles as Tony Wilson was to the rise of Factory Records and The Hacienda! And like Wilson, McGee was always inextricably tied to the artists he worked with – a ... read moreBook
The history of women's rights in the 20th Century – presented here in a beautiful art book format that's filled with hundreds of stunning images throughout! The volume traces the evolution of different strands of struggle and victory in the past 100 years – and uses an amazing array of ... read moreBook
Groundbreaking work from the world of the newspaper comic strip – one of the first important strips to feature a female lead character, created and presented by a female artists as well! Brenda Starr opened plenty of doors when it first appeared in 1940 – and this book presents a ... read moreBook
Gritty crime photographs from the 40s – all pulled from the files of the St Paul Pioneer Press in the Twin Cities – which turned out to be a pretty dangerous place at the time! There's some great shots in here that rival the work of Weegee in New York – bodies and crime scenes, ... read moreBook
A very cool book – and way different than you might expect from the title – as the discography doesn't only focus on contemporary ambient albums, but instead traces a history of moody sounds from the late 50s onwards! The publication is one of the most interesting Japanese ... read moreBook
A great extension of Alan Moore's original League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen – one that has a version of the group emerging in the British scene in 1969 – in a mad mix of devil worship and psychedelic rock! The tone's a bit lighter than the earlier volumes, but no less compelling ... read moreBook
The new version of the League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen emerge in 2009 – in a post-911, post-recession world that's firmly entwined with the supernatural! Virginia Woolf's Orlando is the main character here – oddly very much in the right spot in space and time to deliver on all her ... read moreBook
A big beautiful book on the disco generation of the 70s – oversized, filled with color images, and broken into great little segments that serve up the period in sweet little slices! The book's a lot better than we might have guessed – thoughtfully put together, with a look at disco ... read moreBook
The second volume in this series of completely essential books for collectors of Brazilian music! Like the first volume, this one is overstuffed with images of hard to find Brazilian music albums – listings for hundreds of rare records – all the kind of albums that we almost never are ... read moreBook
Fantastic atomic age comics – a great anthology of the 60s fan favorite Doctor Solar – presented here in a well-done volume that brings out the best in the period artwork by Frank Bolle and Bob Fujitani! The Doctor's story is pretty typical for the time – nuclear power, gone awry ... read moreBook
A huge run of work from the best science fiction comic strip ever – the mighty Buck Rogers, which managed to pack a hell of a lot of narrative into a surprisingly small space six days a week! Sure, there were other space operas, but none could ever match Buck Rogers in terms of storytelling ... read moreBook
A huge run of work from the best science fiction comic strip ever – the mighty Buck Rogers, which managed to pack a hell of a lot of narrative into a surprisingly small space six days a week! Sure, there were other space operas, but none could ever match Buck Rogers in terms of storytelling ... read moreBook
A huge run of work from the best science fiction comic strip ever – the mighty Buck Rogers, which managed to pack a hell of a lot of narrative into a surprisingly small space six days a week! Sure, there were other space operas, but none could ever match Buck Rogers in terms of storytelling ... read moreBook
A huge run of work from the best science fiction comic strip ever – the mighty Buck Rogers, which managed to pack a hell of a lot of narrative into a surprisingly small space six days a week! Sure, there were other space operas, but none could ever match Buck Rogers in terms of storytelling ... read moreBook
One of the best-written horror comics of the pre-code years – thanks to scripting from the great Richard Hughes, who has an uncanny sense of scene and character for these lurid tales! Out Of The Night is much less remembered than more famous horror work from publishers like EC or ... read moreBook
A beautiful book that brings together two different collaborations between these two key figures in postwar African-American culture – writings by Ralph Ellison, with supporting photographs from Gordon Parks – the award-winning journalist who also went onto a much larger role in film ... read moreBook
A beautiful tribute to the mighty photobooth – a machine that's lived long beyond its initial use in a time when most folks didn't have cameras, to almost become a visual medium in and of itself! The lavish, full-color book offers up not just a history of the photobooth – but also a ... read moreBook
A really wonderful little book – one that tells the tale of the early days of hip hop – but presents the story in the style of a Marvel Comics tabloid from the 70s! Ed Piskor's approach to the material is really unique – and he extrapolates historical details into an extended ... read moreBook
The fantastic second volume of the Hip Hop Family Tree – a beautiful graphic telling of the growth of hip hop on the New York scene – done in the style of some oversized Marvel Comics special edition from the 70s! The presentation is wonderful – and surprisingly really does the ... read moreBook
A mighty nice third volume of this excellent series – one that's getting better and better with each new book, and a lot more focused too! This time around, Ed Piskor hones in on the key hip hop years of 1983 and 1984 – a time when New York acts were breaking big nationally, local ... read moreBook
The incredible fourth book in the Hip Hop Family Tree series – artist Ed Piskor's madly brilliant, super fun take on hip hop history, in the style of classic comic books – and the wild styles and huge personalities of '84 & '85 provide the most fertile material of the series to date! ... read moreBook
The fantastic third & fourth volumes of classic comics-enamored/classic rap-reared artist Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree series – which really gets better and better with each new book as it goes deeper into early hip hop history! Books 3 & 4 hone in on the years 1983-1985, a time ... read moreBook
The history of hip hop – as anthologized in one of the coolest comic series of the new millennium! Hip Hop Family Tree #11's cover hero is a fuzzy young Rick Rubin – not the latter day music industry Zen Master Rick Rubin we know today, but the hungry, young Beastie Boys producer era ... read moreBook
A landmark science fiction publication from the earliest days of comic books – presented here in a heavy, hardbound format! The book is a great way to experience this otherwise-rare comic – and it's done in the heavy style of DC's Archive Editions, or the Marvel Masterworks volumes ... read moreBook
Guys who make pictures – pictured – in this beautiful oversized volume that features photos of a cast of dozens of important cartoonists and illustrators – one that runs the gamut from Jack Kirby to Carl Barks, to Robert Crumb, Kyle Baker, Frank Miller, John Severin, Walt Simonson ... read moreBook
All Star Comics —
Archives Volume 0 (hardcover) ... Book 
