Pimp your coffee table - Read
READ covers fiction, fanzines, zines with no fans except for us, websites, blogs, magazines, artist's books and other independent releases. Chances are, if it's been published then we know about it and chances are, if it's not in ThreeThousand, then we didn't like it. READ is for people who were born with ink in their veins and a fat balding critic on their shoulder. READ has also created more best-sellers than Oprah's Book Club and more wannabe to be writers than Hunter S Thompson.
Summer reading
Nothing divides sentient humanity like a summer reading list, so I want to clarify that the following books have been chosen according to a unique set of criteria that I made up just then. Will it make me look smart if falls out my bag? Is it waterproof? Can I use it as an excuse for being disorganised about Christmas? In many cases below, the answer is yes.
Exact Change Rarities: Classics of Experimental Literature
The fiery breeze of psych-noise pleasers Galaxie 500 brought me to Exact Change Rarities: Classics of Experimental Literature, an independent publishing jaunt founded in 1989 by Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang of the same band.
Heads of their field, Exact Change specialised in re-publishing 19th and 20th century avant-garde literature with the belief that several important niche titles should remain available always.
POP Magazine
I religiously buy and read POP Magazine. I first came across it when browsing through the Transit News Stand in Hong Kong and have been addicted ever since. I even went as far as to order all the back issues. Yep, it's a problem.
I love POP's attitude and bravery, which leaps out of spreads like ‘Size Hero' (Issue 16, Autumn) featuring Beth Ditto in all her glory, photographed by Steven Klein.
'Les Cahiers Purple', ed. Elein Fleiss (English Version)
'Niche' magazines generally refer to topic-specific titles about cars, interiors, fashion, pets, helicopters, or pets flying helicopters in amazing fashion. This kind of niche is for people that know what they want and don't want to have to look too hard to find it.
Then, thankfully, there is the other kind of niche publication, like Les Cahiers Purple, which is much harder to find and is about an approach to content and not just the content itself.
In Conversation: Encounters With 39 Great Writers
The problem with the modern media age is that no matter how cool you think you are, there's always some irritating young oik biting at your heels reminding you that you're yesterday's news, that you have been usurped, replaced by the latest über-cool model. The trick is in recognising this, standing aside, buttoning up your cardigan and heading out into the freezing night, never to be seen again.
Vitalogy: An Encyclopaedia of Health and Home, Adapted for the Home, the Layman, the Family
It kills me that Pearl Jam will still be around when grunge comes back in. I died my hair green in year 8 to go see them just so I could stand three rows from the back and pretend to know the words. And no, I didn't see them at Myer Music Bowl when the crowd tore down the fence - I was at home playing Mortal Kombat.
Heeb, The Germany Issue
Even though the Jews control all of the media in the US, it still takes a lot of balls to publish a magazine called Heeb and basically straight take the piss out of your own religious culture. Thankfully, these nu-Jews are totally into that, and because they're already in the tribe, they have the security of not getting blacklisted and financially executed like an Irish-catholic twenty-something copy-writer.
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