Featured: More Classic MOMA Catalogs!

Fauves

Illustrated paper wrappers

(out of print)

Miro

Illustrated paper wrappers

(out of print)

Frank Stella

Hardcover

(out of print)

These books, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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New Arrival: Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin

Hardcover

Gorgeously quiet in color and composition, Agnes Martin’s paintings have a distinctive grace that sets them apart from those of the Abstract Expressionists of her day and the Minimalist artists she inspired. Martin attributed her grid-based works to metaphysical motivations, lending a serene complexity to her oeuvre that has defied any easy categorization. Perhaps for this reason, critical and scholarly analysis of her paintings has been scarce—until now. This important new anthology brings together the most current scholarship on Martin’s paintings by twelve multidisciplinary essayists who consider various aspects of the artist’s four-decade career.

Organized by Dia Art Foundation, whose extensive holdings of Martin’s paintings and ambitions to support in-depth research on the works are unparalleled, the publication brings renewed focus and energy to Martin’s career and her contributions to the art historical narrative.

This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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Featured: Goethe's Urworte Orphische

Goethe, Urworte Orphische

Illustrated by Karl Thylmann

Published by Bei H. Hohmann, Darmstadt, 1921

This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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Featured: Vintage MOMA Catalogs

Futurism

Hardcover (out of print)

Art Nouveau

Hardcover (out of print)

The Art Of Assemblage

Hardcover (out of print)

GermanArt Of The Twentieth Century

Hardcover (out of print)

Textiles And Ornaments Of India

Hardcover (out of print)

 These books, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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Featured: Gustave Verbeek

The Upside-Down World Of Gustave Verbeek

Oblong Hardcover Folio

This new compilation from Sunday Press features a complete run of the "Upside Downs" (1903-1905), digitally restored and presented in their original size (11 x 16 inches) and colors. Also featured are a complete run of Verbeek's "Loony Lyrics of Lulu" (1910) and a sampling of his long-running, "Terrors of the Tiny Tads" (1906-1914). A collection of 25 paintings and drawings from books illustrated by Verbeek (1910-1915) fills out this large hard-bound volume. Included in the book ia a set of 12 Tiny Tads postcards, facsimilies of a series created by Verbeek as a promotional tool for retail stores around the U.S.

  This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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Featured: Two from Floating World

Jonny Negron, Adapt #1

Broadsheet newsprint (15″ x 22.75″), 24 pages,  full color and b&w

A giant sized double feature from the Grandmaster of modern art comics, Jonny Negron:

“Where Are We?” – part 1 of Jonny Negron’s sci-fi exploration of alienation in a utopian society. Inspired by Return From The Stars, by Stanislaw Lem.

 “Roses From Concrete” – Matt Seneca’s essay begins with a quote from Lord Jamar in Ice-T’s “The Art of Rap”, pulling back the curtain on the secret origin of hip hop. Hip hop was the creation of something from nothing; taking the materials at hand and turning them into instruments. Parallels are drawn between the outlaw artforms and their revolutionary heritage. Accompanied by over two dozen portraits of the greatest rappers in history as illustrated by Jonny Negron, and a 2Pac comic.

Simon Hanselmann, St Owl's Bay/Wet Swords

Broadsheet newsprint (15″ x 22.75″), 24 pages,  full color

 Simon Hanselmann’s latest comic is a full color, 8 page broadsheet newspaper called ST. OWL’S BAY / WET SWORDS. Owl takes “the gang” camping with hilarious and dark results. Printed on giant 15″x22″ pages, Simon’s gorgeous watercolor artwork is more detailed than ever before. 

These books, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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Featured: Grimm's Household Tales

Grimm's Household Tales, Illustrated by Mervyn Peake

Hardcover

This new edition of Peake’s illustrated Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm was originally published in 1946 and this is the first time it has been made available since then with the original colour illustrations. Like the Grimms’ stories, Peake’s illustrations combine the comic and the sinister and evoke a strong sense of childhood fear and humour.

The Juniper Tree

Translated by Lore Segal & Randall Jarrell

 Illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Hardcover

Originally published as a two-volume set thirty years ago, "The Juniper Tree "is distinguished first by the selection of stories. Lore Segal and Maurice Sendak have jointly culled 27 from
the 210 in the complete collection, and their contents page presents a fascinating critical statement. The translations are another distinguishing quality of the Segal/Sendak edition. Both translators have been painstakingly faithful to the German texts; they have not cut, "retold," or bowdlerized. In addition, Segal and Jarrell bring to their renderings of Grimm the grace and precision that are characteristic of their own original prose. This must-have edition for every home library is jacketed and cloth-bound and has a bookmark ribbon.

Dear Mili

Illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Hardcover (1st Edition)

Preserved in a letter written to a young girl, Mili, in 1816 and not discovered until 1983, the Grimm story is prefaced by a tender address in which he underscores the story's message: although there are many obstacles that can prevent people from being together, ``one human heart can go out to another, undeterred by what lies between.'' The story that follows implies that love transcends even death.

These books, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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New Arrival: Arthur Magazine

Arthur No. 35 (August 2013)

Broadsheet newspaper

Contents:
ON THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME SNOCK
Wily folkplayer MICHAEL HURLEY (aka Elwood Snock) has charmed hip audiences for over fifty years now with his timeless surrealist tunes and sweetly weird comics, all the while maintaining a certain ornery, outsider mystique. Longtime Snockhead/Arthur Senior Writer BYRON COLEY investigates this Wild American treasure in an enormous 11,000-word, 8-PAGE feature replete with rare photos, artwork, comics... and a giant color portrait by Liz Devine. Snock attack!
CHEW THE LEAVES, GET IN THE TANK
Inside Baltimore’s T HILL, new kinds of experiments with salvia divinorum are going on. Journalist/photographer Rjyan Kidwell visits Twig Harper, Carly Ptak...and the Wild Shepherdess.
BURIED ALIVE BY THE SUFIS
Swap-O-Rama Rama founder WENDY TREMAYNE wanted to understand what motivated her life-long anti-consumerism. She found the answer underground. Illustration by Kira Mardikes
GASH, CRASH, ASH
Nobody rides for free. DAVE REEVES on the price motorcyclists pay for being better than you. Illustration by Lale Westvind.
THE BIOPHONIC MAN
Guitarist, composer and analog synthesizer pioneer BERNIE KRAUSE left the recording studio to find that really wild sound. What he discovered was far more profound. Interview by Jay Babcock. Illustrations by Kevin Hooyman.
GIANT STEPS FOR MANKIND
Stewart Voegtlin on JOHN COLTRANE’s startling 1960s ascension from space bebop to universe symphonies. Dual astral/material plane illustration by Beaver.
FLOWERS, LEAVES, ANARCHISM
Matthew Erickson on the J.L. Hudson Ethnobotanical Catalog of Seeds
Plus...
* Arthur’s new regular column “Come On In My Garden” debuts. This issue, Camilla Padgitt-Coles visits Enumclaw’s Norm Fetter at his family’s Pennsylvania mushroom farm. They’re medicinal!
* The Center for Tactical Magic on demons and drones...
* New full-page full-color comics: “Forgiveness” by Julia Gfrörer and Part 2 of Will Sweeney’s “Inspector Homunculus” serial.
* And, of course, the “Bull Tongue” exhaustive survey of underground cultural output by your intrepid hosts Byron Coley and Thurston Moore...

 This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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Featured:

Dice Magazine, Issue # 50

"If you have gearhead tendencies and want to see the sort of one off bikes that are being put together in the basements, garages, and woodsheds around the world. . . the bikes that are fondled by the wild-eyed and sleepless. . .then here you are on the right path to two-wheeled glory, before your annoying neighbour comes roaring up like he just came off the set of 'Scorpio Rising: part 2' and tries to talk to you about how cool his new factory endorsed riding jacket is. DicE takes a more casual approach to topics taken seriously by others. It makes your interests more fun and not just some facts thrown on the page for nerds. The general approach is along the lines of the early issues of Big Brother and music fan zines. Some words set to the printed images add so much to the story. DicE is hands down the coolest underground motorcycle magazines out there"

At last, it's finally here. New and improved!! It's bigger (9.5" x 7.75"), it's thicker (132 pages) and it's a whole lot sexier. Every issue comes in a cool canvas drawstring bag. This milestone issue is chock a block full of bikes and other great stuff. It's not just issue 50, it's Volume 2 Issue 1!

 This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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Featured: Three by Bolaño

The Unknown University

Hardcover

"Perhaps surprisingly to some of his fiction fans, Roberto Bolaño touted poetry as the superior art form, able to approach an infinity in which “you become infinitely small without disappearing.” When asked, “What makes you believe you’re a better poet than a novelist?” Bolaño replied, “The poetry makes me blush less.” The sum of his life’s work in his preferred medium, The Unknown University is a showcase of Bolaño’s gift for freely crossing genres, with poems written in prose, stories in verse, and flashes of writing that can hardly be categorized. “Poetry,” he believed, “is braver than anyone.”

The Secret Of Evil

Hardcover

 "Opening this book is like being granted access to the Chilean master’s personal files. Included in this one-of-a-kind collection is everything Roberto Bolaño was working on just before his death in 2003, and everything that he wanted to share with his readers. Fans of his writing will find familiar characters in new settings, and entirely new stories and styles, too.

A North American journalist in Paris is woken at 4 a.m. by a mysterious caller with urgent information. Daniela de Montecristo (familiar to readers of Nazi Literature in the Americas and 2666) recounts the loss of her virginity. Arturo Belano returns to Mexico City and meets the last disciples of Ulises Lima, who play in a band called The Asshole of Morelos. Belano’s son Gerónimo disappears in Berlin during the Days of Chaos in 2005. Memories of a return to the native land; Argentine writers as gangsters; zombie schlock as allegory…and much more."

The Insufferable Gaucho

Paperback

"A trove of strange, arresting, short masterworks – five stories and two essays – by Roberto Bolaño, a writer who pulls bloodthirsty rabbits out of his hat

As Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation, one of the remarkable qualities of Bolaño's short stories is that they can do the "work of a novel." The Insufferable Gaucho contains tales bent on returning to haunt you. Unpredictable and daring, highly controlled yet somehow haywire, a Bolaño story might concern an elusive plagiarist or an elderly lawyer giving up city life for an improbable return to the family estate, now gone to wrack and ruin. Bolaño's stories have been applauded as "bleakly luminous and perfectly calibrated" (Publishers Weekly) and "complex and provocative (International Herald Tribune), and as Francine Prose said in The New York Times Book Review, "something extraordinarily beautiful and (at least to me) entirely new." Two fascinating essays are also included. "

These books, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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Featured: Two from Nobrow

Atak, Topsy Turvy World

Hardcover

A fantastical illustrated book where mice chase cats, penguins live in the jungle, cars fly and aeroplanes float!

It’s a time-honoured children’s game – catching out the grown-ups when they’re telling lies. Atak’s just given it a new twist, using lots of classic tall tales, and adding a few new ones as well. By seeing what’s obviously wrong, kids will learn what’s really right.

This luxuriously varnished book is beautifully drawn by Atak, one of Germany’s top illustrators.

Julia Wauters, One Night, Far From Here

Hardcover

This beautiful book cleverly combines printed acetate and paper pages to educate children about the animal kingdom.
It’s pitch dark and a nighttime hush has descended. But as the pages of this beautiful book turn and day breaks, the animals within begin to stir.
A magical bestiary filled with transparent pages that slowly reveal the magical and mysterious animals that live in the savannah, the forest, the desert, the jungle and even deep beneath the ocean.
Guess who’s hiding in the dark.

These books, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

Brickbat Books
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215 592 1207

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Sunday: 11am to 6pm
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New Arrivals: Two from Le Dernier Cri

Donato di Nunno, Sandwich #7: Des Plantes

Silk-screened accordion book

Produced by Le Dernier Cri. Number seven in the Sandwich series: Small accordion hardcovers with silk-screened innards. Limited print run . Plants in the head, plants growing inside of you. By Donato di Nunno.

 

Jean Kristau, Sandwich #4: "It's a very big & funny parade party"

Silk-screened accordion book 

Number 4 in the Sandwich series. Another silk-screened accordion hardcover. Again limited print run . "It's a very big & funny parade party" sez one of the deformed characters by Jean-Kristau.

These books, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

Brickbat Books
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215 592 1207

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Tuesday: thru Saturday, 11am to 7pm
Sunday: 11am to 6pm
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Featured: Claes Oldenburg

Barbara Rose, Claes Oldenburg

(This book about the work of Claes Oldenburg was written by Barbara Rose for The Museum of Modern Art)

Soft, unstructured vinyl cover

(out of print)

As much an art object as a catalog, this 1970 publication has been in the shop for quite some time, due to the impossibility of either shelving or displaying it. The book completely collapses under its own weight, which is quite the structural feat!

This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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215 592 1207

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Tuesday: thru Saturday, 11am to 7pm
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Featured: Paper Folding

Miyuki Yoshida, The Art of Paper Folding for Pop-Up
Hardcover

A series of folded blank white pages that when opened reveal simple but ingenius pop-up paper folds. Page one deluded me into thinking I could do this, but by the time I reached page three I realized that as simple as it all looked, there was no way in hell I'd ever get past one or two very basic cuts and folds. Amazing book!

This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

Brickbat Books
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215 592 1207

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Tuesday: thru Saturday, 11am to 7pm
Sunday: 11am to 6pm
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New Arrival: Hideaki Otsuka

Hidaeki Otsuka, Mr. Tsuboi

A squid's amorous reveries are wiped out by a bunch of squiggly thought police creatures. The squid retaliates and things get out of hand...

This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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215 592 1207

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Featured: Napoleon

Description of the Vignali Collection of Relics of Napoleon

Staple-bound pamphlet

The Rosenbach Company, Philadelphia, 1924

A piece of Weird Philadelphia history. This is the catalog containing an entry for Napoleon's penis ("tendon.") After passing through various hands (sigh) it now resides with a uroligist in New Jersey.

This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

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Featured: Anouk Kruithof's A Head With Wings

Anouk Kruithof, A Head With Wings

Edition of 1000 designed by hans seeger publication date: october 2011 28 pages, of various size, 6.625″ by 7.875″, custom side stapled color offset with gatefold and various inserts.

(out of print)

This book, and thousands of others, can be purchased from:

Brickbat Books
709 South Fourth Street
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215 592 1207

Open:
Tuesday: thru Saturday, 11am to 7pm
Sunday: 11am to 6pm
Closed Monday