Guided by Voices was one of the most popular indie-rock bands of the 1990s. Critics internationally have lauded the band’s brain trust, Robert Pollard, as a once-in-a-generation artist. Pollard has been compared by The New York Times to Mozart, Rossini, and Paul McCartney (in the same sentence) and everyone from P. J. Harvey, Radiohead, R.E.M., the Strokes, and U2 has sung his praises and cited his music as an influence. But it all started rather prosaically when Pollard, a fourth-grade teacher in his early thirties from Dayton, Ohio, began recording songs with drinking buddies in his basement. James Greer, an acclaimed music writer and former Spin editor, enjoys a unique advantage in having played in the band for two years. This personal connection grants him unparalleled insight and complete access to the workings of Pollard’s muse.

Guided by Voices: A Brief History: Twenty-One Years of Hunting Accidents in the Forests of Rock and Roll

Biographies & Memoirs

Greer, James

Arts & Literature

Grove Press/ Black Cat

Everything Flows is the first collection of short fiction by novelist and screenwriter James Greer. The nineteen stories range from short and surreal to long and surreal, but all share a consistency of intent: to fracture traditional narrative tropes and reassemble the shards into coherent, if occasionally undulant and meandering forms (see: the title). Greer mixes anachronistic pseudo-history and unserious/serious digressions into pop culture, pop physics, pop philosophy and pop music (see: the title), to arrive at something both universal in scope and intensely personal, twisting language(s) into sometimes-strange shapes to devise new ways of looking at familiar things. Everything Flows also features the art of Guided by Voices front man Robert Pollard. Besides being known as one of today's most prolific song-writers, Mr. Pollard's irrespressible creativity has been an inspiration to many. His stunning color collages make a fantastic compliment to Greer's writing.

Everything Flows

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Curbside Splendor Publishing

The 8th issue of Sensitive Skin, a journal of post-beat, pre-apocalyptic art, writing, music and whatnot, features a rare interview with William S. Burroughs, by Allen Ginsberg, from the early 90s, with previously unpublished photographs of Burroughs by Ruby Ray, as well as her photos from the original SF punk scene, including shots of X, The Dead Kennedys, and Sid Vicious. We’re also proud to present writing by: • Mike Hudson, founder and lead singer of seminal seventies punk rock band The Pagans;. • James Greer, author of the novels Artificial Light, The Failure and the non-fiction book Guided By Voices: A Brief History, a biography of a band for which he played bass guitar; • Thaddeus Rutkowski, the author of the innovative novels Haywire, Tetched and Roughhouse; • Karen Lillis (aka Karen the Small Press Librarian), author of Watch the Doors as They Close; • Chavisa Woods, whose debut collection of short stories, Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind was a Lambda Literary Award finalist; • Jim Feast, a founding member of the Unbearables writers group; • Rob Hardin, author of Distorture, winner of the Firecracker Award; • and Mark McCawley, editor of the Canadian litzine Urban Graffiti. • Todd Colby, who has published four books of poetry: Ripsnort, Cush, Riot in the Charm Factory: New and Selected Writings, and Tremble & Shine, all by Soft Skull Press. Colby has been broadcast nationally on PBS, MTV and NPR for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. Plus music from: • contemporary jazz combo The New Monsters, featuring Steve Horowitz, Dan Plonsey, Scott Looney, Steve Adams and Jim Bove. And artwork from: • Tom McGlynn, whose work is represented the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. • Justine Frischmann, former front woman and guitarist for iconic ’90s brit-pop band Elastica • James Romberger, artist for the critically acclaimed Seven Miles A Second, in collaboration with David Wojnarowicz. Plus more fiction, poetry, photographs and illustrations from Ray Jicha, Su Byron, Jennifer Adams, David West, Les Bridges, Chris Bava, Jeff Spirer, Charlie Homo, Cédric Monot, Kym Ghee, Ted Barron and Marcin Owczarek. Sensitive Skin magazine began as a print venture from New York’s Lower East Side in the 1990s, and published such literary luminaries as Richard Hell, Jack Micheline, Penny Arcade, Eileen Myles, Lynne Tillman, Patrick McGrath, Bob Holman, Maggie Estep, Emily XYZ, Herbert Huncke and Joel Rose, with art by Andres Serrano, Ari Marcopolis, Andrew Castrucci and James Romberger, to name but a few…. Sensitive Skin was reborn in the summer of 2010, and has already presented work by such esteemed artists as Justine Frischmann (Elastica), Craig Clevenger (The Contortionist’s Handbook), Darius James (Negrophobia), Stewart Home (Pure Mania), Michael A. Gonzales (Vibe magazine regular), Drew Hubner (American By Blood), Jonathan Shaw (Narcissa), Melissa Febos (Whip Smart), Max Blagg (Bald Ego), Patricia Eakins (The Hungry Girls), Díre McCain (publisher, Paraphilia Magazine), Rob Roberge (Working Backwards from the Worst Moment of My Life), Kurt Wolf (Pussy Galore), Erika Schickel (You’re Not the Boss of Me: Adventures of a Modern Mom), John S. Hall (King Missile), Kevin Rafferty (Atomic Café), and downtown NYC avant-garde music legend Elliott Sharp.

Sensitive Skin #8

Literature & Fiction

Woods, Chavisa

Hudson, Mike

Romberger, James

Kold, B.

Feast, Jim

Lessard, William

Bridges, Les

Hardin, Rob

McCawley, Mark

Contemporary

Sensitive Skin Books

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Three Wee Ulster Lassies: Or News From Our Irish Cousins (1883)

Literary

Kessinger Publishing, LLC

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Three Wee Ulster Lassies

History

Palala Press

A More Perfect Union

Genre Fiction

Independently published

Ties That Bind is a fascinating and timely study of the historical, cultural and political relationship between Scotland and Northern Ireland, at a seminal moment in the constitutional history of both places. It conclusively shows that both places have been politically, as well as culturally, entwined, even if this has often been unacknowledged and seldom explored in any depth. In the twenty-first century, devolution provided a new context for public discussion in Scotland of old questions of religious divisions and the extent and nature of sectarianism. This was a theme that clearly brought Scotland into a frame of comparison with Northern Ireland; issues around sectarianism in Scotland have roots in Irish influences in Scottish life and have fed off the conflict in Northern Ireland. In this compelling book by two leading authorities on the subject, it will be argued that the impact of the independence debate in Scotland has given a new twist to this phenomenon. All these themes are explored against the background of the deep historical and cultural links and bonds that bring together Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is a relationship which has always been a close one culturally, but an awkward and problematic one politically. This book deftly illuminates the complexities of the relationship and poses pertinent questions about its future in a period of intense political turbulence and uncertainty.

Ties that Bind?: Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Union

Walker, Graham

Europe

Merrion Press

Meet Vanessa Salomon, a privileged and misanthropic French-American translator hailing from a wealthy Parisian family. Her twin sister is a famous movie star, which Vanessa resents deeply and daily. The only man Vanessa ever loved recently killed himself by jumping off the roof of her building. It’s a full life. 
Vanessa has just started working on an English translation of a titillating, experimental thriller by a dead author when she’s offered a more prominent gig: translating the latest book by an Extremely Famous French Writer who is not in any way based on Michel Houellebecq. As soon as she agrees to meet this writer, however, her other, more obscure project begins to fight back―leading Vanessa down into a literary hell of traps and con games and sadism and doppelgangers and mystic visions and strange assignations and, finally, the secret of life itself. 
Peppered with “sponsored content” providing cocktail recipes utilizing a brand of liquor imported by the film director Steven Soderbergh, and with a cameo from the actress Juno Temple, Bad Eminence is at once an old-school literary satire in the mode of Vladimir Nabokov as well as a jolly thumb in the eyes of contemporary screen-life and digital celebrity.

Bad Eminence

Humor & Satire

And Other Stories

The Failure is a picaresque novel set in Los Angeles about two guys who conceive and badly execute a plan to rob a Korean check-cashing store in order to finance the prototype for an impossibly ridiculous Internet application."James Greer, one of the nimblest and most multilayered American fiction writers, has, with his latest novel The Failure, pulled off a sublime and shivery-smooth literary hat-trick-cum-emotional-gotcha. I defy anyone to come up with an equation to explain how this book's first impression as a ridiculously clever, funny crime story can gradually disclose a metanovel built from far more encyclopedic scratch only to reveal upon its conclusion a central, overriding thought so heartfelt literally it trembles your lower lip. This is one stunning piece of work." --Dennis Cooper, author of Ugly Man"James Greer's The Failure is such an unqualified success, both in conception and execution, that I have grave doubts he actually wrote it." --Steven SoderberghJames Greer is the author of the novel Artificial Light (Akashic Books), which won a California Book Award for Best Debut Novel, and the nonfiction book Guided By Voices: A Brief History (Grove Press), a biography of the band for which he once played bass guitar. He is currently working with director Steven Soderbergh on a rock musical about Cleopatra starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. He lives in Los Angeles.

The Failure

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Akashic Books Ltd

L'échec

JOELLE LOSFELD

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