Many years back, we always thought that David Byrne should have written a children's book – a volume to convey the best themes of some of the Talking Heads tunes to a younger, impressionable generation. And while that never actually happened, this beautiful edition of work released in conjunction with the American Utopia stage performance may be the next best thing – all sorts of lovely little illustrations from Maira Kalman, interspersed with text from Byrne from the performance – brought together in a volume that's as much a pleasure to flip through as the larger performance on stage. This isn't an attempt to capture the show in a book – but instead kind of a sidebar, almost a distillation of the ideas taken into a cool new format – served up in a hardcover volume, with full color illustrations throughout! Book

A crazy idea for a book, but a great one too – and maybe the coolest so far from Jonny Trunk, the man who's given us lots of visual pleasure with his volumes on record store bags, candy bar wrappers, and automobile advertisements! This really beautiful book features four decades' worth of images used to promote stereos, turntables, and all things audio – tracing shifts in both style and technology, and advertising modes as well – all presented with an eye for the sensuous, as you might guess from the title! The ad selection is totally cool, and includes images from the US and UK, plus some key European audio companies too – all of whom are introduced with a bit of historical text that really helps you understand their contributions to the field. But even without that, this is still one hell of a book – like pulling all the best pages out of forty years of stereo magazines, and putting them together. Softcover, 239 pages, and full color throughout! Book

Writer Nelson Algren is one of our hometown heroes, and spent most of his key years right around the corner of Dusty Groove – so we're always a bit biased when it comes to his work – but you can trust us when we say that this well-done biography is almost as fantastic as some of Algren's classic books! Algren knew the streets of Chicago like the back of his hand – and his interaction with the city and its characters provided Algren with a life's worth of pain and pleasure – a richness of experience that really comes through in the biography. Nelson had a quick rise to fame with the success of The Man With The Golden Arm and a few other key books – but was also the subject of a long FBI investigation, and a number of other political pitfalls too – all documented here in great detail, along with his famous love affair with Simone DeBeauvoir. There's as much sadness and struggle to Algren's life as you'll find in one of his books – and the well-researched volume looks at a stunning array of material to give a full picture of his time and writing. 543 pages, hardcover, with some black and white images. Book