A huge array of photographs from the golden years of 90s hip hop – all captured within a few short years by Peter Spirer, at a time when he was diving deep into the scene to really document the sort of energy that's made this stretch such a legendary one for the music! These photos are way more than standard portraits or stage shots, as Peter managed to really penetrate the everyday lives of the artists, to a point where you'll find some very surprising, and very striking images of figures who aren't always captured without striking a pose. The book features over 130 photographs, with subjects who include Dr Dre, Das Efx, Biz Markie, Busta Rhymes, Notorious BIG, Method Man, Nas, Q-Tip, Tupac, Guru, KRS-One, and dozens of others – and the heavy hardcover book is 240 pages in length – with added text from Soren Baker, and an introduction from Ice T. Book

A totally cool book – one that offers up full-size reproductions of the eleven different newspapers published by the legendary Fluxus art group in the 60s and the 70s! If you know Fluxus, you know that they're not just artists, but tricksters as well – a group dedicated to causing slight disruptions in the public sphere through their creative activity – in ways that are sometimes subtle or whimsical, but which have a larger challenge to power behind them. That's definitely the case here with their newspapers – sporadic publications that sometimes take on the look of a more conventional paper, sometimes have a more artistic approach – and which take the format to offer unique takes on culture and society, but in the inventive approaches of the artists. Between them, the issues feature work by over 60 artists – including La Monte Young, Joseph Beuys, Christo, Alice Hutchins, Nam June Paik, George Maciunas, Gyorgy Ligeti, Yoko Ono, and others – all serve up here on oversized black and white pages, but in a much more durable format than the original papers. Book

A very different sort of book on bebop – one that looks at the music during its key years of midcentury, but through a very different prism than the sorts of all-star players who usually get most coverage by jazz writers! Author Jonathan Leal digs very deep to uncover three obscure players who cross race, cultural, and creative lines – Raul Salinas, Harold Wing, and James Araki – figures who were not huge on the scene, but who intersected with some very big names – and whose experiences here really enrich an understanding of the social possibilities offered by jazz at the time. Leal gets past the platitudes about the music and opens up the communities and opportunities created by jazz – tracing the histories of each of these three unique and overlooked players, while also putting their individual experiences in a larger context too. The notes alone are huge – really showing the work that Leal put into the project – and the book is 238 pages, softcover, with a small amount of black and white images. Book

An insanely detailed book on the role of drugs in American music – written by a guy who's already written a fair bit about drugs and culture! This time around, Martin Torgoff turns his eye towards the postwar years – looking at the interwoven landscapes of jazz, underground culture, and drugs from the late 40s through the 60s – with chapters that look at both famous figures and lesser-known personas – in a list that includes Billie Holiday, Lester Young, William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Charlie Parker, and many more. The book's filled with short chapters that almost each read like a story themselves – never too exploitative, and often never with any sort of judgement at all – just surprising detail about the relation between drugs and performance, writing, or other artistic creation. These short chapters work well to weave together a world behind the scenes – subtle forces that later shaped more famous creations – and the book is a hefty 412 pages, with some black and white images. Book