June 6th Newsletter

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Torn Light Records
1855 N Milwaukee
Chicago, IL 60647
312.955.0614
Open Everyday
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  • Pierre Senges – Ahabs (Sequels)
    Pierre Senges – Ahabs (Sequels)
    $30.00 | ,

    The reader will find here the true aftermath of the adventures of Ahab, self-described captain, survivor of his last fight against a giant fish. We will see how this retiree […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Louis-Auguste Blanqui – Eternity by the Stars: An Astronomical Hypothesis
    Louis-Auguste Blanqui – Eternity by the Stars: An Astronomical H…
    $20.00 | ,

    In a century replete with radical politics, final liberations, historical codas, and dreams of eternity, the shadowy figure of Louis-Auguste Blanqui, the constant revolutionary, wrote Eternity by [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Alain Mabanckou – African Psycho
    Alain Mabanckou – African Psycho
    $16.00 | ,

    Its title recalls Bret Easton Ellis’s infamous book, but while Ellis’s narrator was a blank slate, African Psycho’s protagonist is a quivering mass of lies, neuroses, and [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Gabriele Tinti – Bleedings – Incipit Tragoedia
    Gabriele Tinti – Bleedings – Incipit Tragoedia
    $20.00 | ,

    Bleedings – Incipit Tragoedia is a series of poems Tinti composed in the spring of 2020. The epigraphic collections of the National Roman Museum, the Capitoline Museums, and the National [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Richard John Parfitt – Stray Dogs
    Richard John Parfitt – Stray Dogs
    $17.00 | ,

    Turner is a high school dropout newly arrived in Toronto. After taking a job selling dictionaries for a local grifter named Romeo Silva, the day goes wrong and Turner gets […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Lemuria: A True Story of a Fake Place
    Lemuria: A True Story of a Fake Place
    $25.00 | ,

    Is Lemuria a real place or the fever dream of crackpots, mystics, conspiracy theorists, and Bigfoot hunters? Below the waters where the Pacific and Indian Oceans lies a lost continent. […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Corpses, Fools And Monsters
    Corpses, Fools And Monsters
    $20.00 | ,

    A radical history of transness in cinema, and an exploration of the political possibilities of its future. In the history of cinema, trans people are usually murdered, made into a […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • The Wire Primers: A Guide to Modern Music
    The Wire Primers: A Guide to Modern Music
    $25.00 | ,

    Since it was founded in 1982, The Wire magazine has covered a vast range of alternative, experimental, underground and non-mainstream music. Now some of that knowledge has been distilled into [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • A Complicated Passion: The Life and Work of Agnès Varda
    A Complicated Passion: The Life and Work of Agnès Varda
    $30.00 | ,

    The first major biography of the French filmmaker hailed by Martin Scorsese as “one of the Gods of cinema.” Over the course of her sixty-five-year career, the longest of any […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Blake Butler – Aannex
    Blake Butler – Aannex
    $19.00 | ,

    Incorporating hundreds of characters and cultural entities, spanning innumerable locations and billions of years, Aannex is a future-hacker’s maze-map meant to have already been [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Adam Pendleton – Pasts, Futures, and Aftermaths: Revisiting the Black Dada Reader
    Adam Pendleton – Pasts, Futures, and Aftermaths: Revisiting the …
    $45.00 | ,

    The sequel to Pendleton’s acclaimed Black Dada Reader, compiling an anti-canon of radical experimentation and thought In 2011, artist Adam Pendleton (born 1984) assembled Black Dada Reader, [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • A Record Could Be Your Whole World: Vinyl Records as the Total Artwork Of The Late 20th Century
    A Record Could Be Your Whole World: Vinyl Records as the Total Artwork…
    $50.00 | ,

    This is a book about records considered ‘in themselves’. It is not about musicians, or music, or design, or music history — though all those things are considered at various […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Martin Wong: Footprints, Poems, and Leaves
    Martin Wong: Footprints, Poems, and Leaves
    $20.00 | ,

    A rich and engaging facsimile of the artist’s first visual poetry book, self-published in 1968 The paintings of Chinese American artist Martin Wong (1946-99) are celebrated for their [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Marcel Schwob – Spicilege
    Marcel Schwob – Spicilege
    $17.00 | ,

    Exquisitely crafted essays on medieval criminal slang, ancient Greek prostitution, laughter, anarchy and more from the endlessly influential Marcel Schwob “All over the world,” wrote [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction, Weird Fiction/Sci-Fi/Unexplained Phenomena
  • Hamlet in Purgatory: Expanded Edition
    Hamlet in Purgatory: Expanded Edition
    $21.00 | ,

    In Hamlet in Purgatory, renowned literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt delves into his longtime fascination with the ghost of Hamlet’s father, and his daring and ultimately gratifying journey [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Remedios Varo – On Homo Rodans and Other Writings
    Remedios Varo – On Homo Rodans and Other Writings
    $18.00 | ,

    With the 2018 publication of Letters, Dreams, and Other Writings, Wakefield Press introduced the writings of Surrealist painter Remedios Varo into English for the first time. These texts, never [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Kate Zambreno – To Write As If Already Dead
    Kate Zambreno – To Write As If Already Dead
    $18.00 | ,

    To Write As If Already Dead circles around Kate Zambreno’s failed attempts to write a study of Hervé Guibert’s To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life. In this […]

    GENRE: Memoir, Non-Fiction
  • Expanded Cinema: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
    Expanded Cinema: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
    $34.00 | ,

    Fiftieth anniversary reissue of the founding media studies book that helped establish media art as a cultural category. First published in 1970, Gene Youngblood’s influential Expanded Cinema was [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Non-Fiction
  • Jimmy Desana: Salvation
    Jimmy Desana: Salvation
    $20.00 | ,

    Salvation is a previously-unpublished artist book by Jimmy DeSana that he conceptualized shortly before his death in 1990. The publication contains 44 of the artist’s late photographic [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
    Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
    $19.00 | ,

    A landmark work that demystifies the rich tradition of Indian art, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization analyzes key motifs found in legend, myth, and folklore taken directly […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Carmelo Bene – Our Lady of the Turks
    Carmelo Bene – Our Lady of the Turks
    $20.00 | ,

    Carmelo Bene (1937–2002) was a notorious Italian actor, writer, and director who inaugurated his theater in 1959 with Camus’ Caligula then exploded onto the artistic scene with his outré Christ [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • The Mysticism of Sound and Music: The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
    The Mysticism of Sound and Music: The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat K…
    $28.00 | ,

    “A modern classic of Universal Sufism that explores the mystical dimensions of music-and the musical dimensions of mysticism. Music, according to Sufi teaching, is really a small expression [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Mike Collino – Come The Maker Carcass
    Mike Collino – Come The Maker Carcass
    $10.00 | ,

    January 6, 2024 Edition of 100 Alien Passengers #97

    GENRE: Art/Photography
  • Harald Voetmann – Sublunar
    Harald Voetmann – Sublunar
    $16.00 | ,

    A great mind and a formidable personality, Brahe is also the world’s most illustrious noseless man of his time. Told by Brahe and his assistants–a filthy cast of characters– [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith
    Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith
    $31.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “The Harry Smith resurgence is upon us.” – Jack He was an anthropologist, filmmaker, painter, folklorist, mystic, and walking encyclopedia. He taught [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Folk / Country, Non-Fiction
  • Noel Meek & Mattin – Homage to Annea Lockwood Book + CD
    Noel Meek & Mattin – Homage to Annea Lockwood Book + CD
    $21.00 | ,

    Recital presents a book and CD homage to the New Zealand-born American composer Annea Lockwood (b. 1939). The unique concept for this album was conceived by artists Noel Meek (New […]

    GENRE: Experimental / Noise
  • A Mammal’s Notebook: The Writings of Erik Satie
    A Mammal’s Notebook: The Writings of Erik Satie
    $32.00 | ,

    This is the largest selection, in any language, of the writings of Erik Satie (1866-1925). Although once dismissed as an eccentric, Satie has come to be seen as a key […]

    GENRE: Modern Composition / Musique Concrete / Electronic, Non-Fiction
  • Pierre Clastres – Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians
    Pierre Clastres – Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians
    $22.00 | ,

    Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians is Pierre Clastres’s account of his 1963–64 encounter with this small Paraguayan tribe, a precise and detailed recording of the history, ritual, myths, and [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Ahmad Shamlou – Born Upon the Dark Spear
    Ahmad Shamlou – Born Upon the Dark Spear
    $13.00 | ,

    Chasm. Mist. Dark Song. Hour of Execution. Behind the Wall. These are just some of the poetic titles of Ahmad Shamlu (1925-2000) that together form the cipher to one of […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Ishmael Reed – Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
    Ishmael Reed – Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
    $17.00 | ,

    Ishmael Reed’s classic Neo-HooDoo Western, a classic from the Dalkey catalog, is presented here in a long-awaited republication with a new introduction.

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Anselm Hollo – The Tortoise of History
    Anselm Hollo – The Tortoise of History
    $8.00 | ,

    Anselm Hollo (1934–2013) authored more than forty books and was an award-winning translator. Born in Helsinki, Finland, he was fluent in German, Swedish, Finnish, and English by age ten. Hollo [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Try to Tell a Fish about Water: The Art, Music, and Third Life of Norma Tenega
    Try to Tell a Fish about Water: The Art, Music, and Third Life of Norm…
    $15.00 | ,

    In addition to her accomplishments as a gifted musician and songwriter, Norma Tanega was a noted gallerist, teacher, and a central figure in the vibrant and homegrown creative scene of […]

    GENRE: Folk / Country, Non-Fiction
  • Elfriede Jelinek – The Piano Teacher
    Elfriede Jelinek – The Piano Teacher
    $18.00 | ,

    The most popular work from provocative Austrian Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher is a searing portrait of a woman bound between a repressive society and her darkest desires. [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • George Melly – Don’t Tell Sybil: A Libidinous Memoir of the Unusual Impresario of English Surrealism
    George Melly – Don’t Tell Sybil: A Libidinous Memoir of th…
    $14.00 | ,

    Don’t Tell Sybil is a libidinous memoir by a master raconteur. George Melly (1926-2007) was impossible to ignore in London cultural circles between the 1950s and 90s. He first came […]

    GENRE: Memoir
  • Ibn Khald?n – The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History
    Ibn Khald?n – The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History
    $25.00 | ,

    The Muqaddimah, often translated as “Introduction” or “Prolegomenon,” is the most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Boris Vian – Blues for a Black Cat & Other Stories
    Boris Vian – Blues for a Black Cat & Other Stories
    $15.00 | ,

    “[This collection] displays Vian’s range from gallows humor to verbal fireworks, and happily serves to give visibility to this important writer.”- Publishers Weekly. [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • The 12th Annual International Sound Poetry Festival – Boxset & Book
    The 12th Annual International Sound Poetry Festival – Boxset �…
    $85.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “Almost 5 hours of recordings from the 12th Annual International Sound Poetry Festival on 4 cassettes and including a lovely 240 page book documenting […]

    GENRE: Experimental / Noise
  • Joseph Kessel – Army Of Shadows
    Joseph Kessel – Army Of Shadows
    $10.00 | ,

    Originally published in Algiers in 1943, Joseph Kessel’s Army of Shadows is one of the first books to have been written about the French Resistance. Now available in paperback, Contra […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Ann Quin – Tripticks
    Ann Quin – Tripticks
    $18.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “A joyful & experimental deathtrip of a science fiction novel” – Cleo First published in 1972, Ann Quin’s fourth and final novel was a […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by Dick Higgins
    Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by …
    $35.00 | ,

    What our staff has to say: “Fun book on one of the centers of the Fluxus movement. At the very least the one who helped create a written documentation of […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Greil Marcus – Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (Anniversary)
    Greil Marcus – Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentiet…
    $20.00 | ,

    Greil Marcus, author of Mystery Train, widely acclaimed as the best book ever written about America as seen through its music, began work on this new book out of a […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction, Post-Punk / Goth / Darkwave / Minimal Synth / Neofolk, Punk / Hardcore
  • Eileen Ormsby – The Darkest Web: Drugs, Death and Destroyed Lives . . . the Inside Story of the Internet’s Evil Twin
    Eileen Ormsby – The Darkest Web: Drugs, Death and Destroyed Live…
    $12.00 | ,

    Dark… A kingpin willing to murder to protect his dark web drug empire. A corrupt government official determined to avoid exposure. The death of a dark web drugs czar in […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction, True Crime
  • Arkady & Boris Strugatsky – Roadside Picnic
    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky – Roadside Picnic
    $17.00 | ,

    Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that […]

    GENRE: Weird Fiction/Sci-Fi/Unexplained Phenomena
  • Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation
    Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation
    $30.00 | ,

    This is the first cultural history of the world’s most common sexual practice: masturbation. At a time when almost any victimless practice has its public advocates and almost every sexual […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette
    The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette
    $20.00 | ,

    The Wicked Queen is not a biography of one of the most infamous queens in history. Rather, Chantal Thomas presents the history of the verbal and visual representations of Marie-Antoinette, […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Djuna Barnes – Nightwood
    Djuna Barnes – Nightwood
    $15.00 | ,

    The fiery and enigmatic masterpiece―one of the greatest novels of the Modernist era. Nightwood, Djuna Barnes’ strange and sinuous tour de force, “belongs to that small class of books [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Céline – Journey to the End of the Night
    Céline – Journey to the End of the Night
    $18.00 | ,

    Céline’s masterpiece―colloquial, polemic, hyper-realistic, boiling over with black humor Céline’s masterpiece―colloquial, polemic, hyper realistic―boils over with bitter humor and revulsion at [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Roberto Bolaño – 2666
    Roberto Bolaño – 2666
    $29.00 | ,

    Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño’s life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • William T Vollmann – Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means
    William T Vollmann – Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on…
    $21.00 | ,

    Twenty-three years in the making, Rising Up and Rising Down (the original, published by McSweeney’s in October 2003, spans seven volumes) is a rich amalgam of historical analysis, [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • David McGowan – Programmed To Kill: The Politics Of Serial Murder
    David McGowan – Programmed To Kill: The Politics Of Serial Murde…
    $26.00 | ,

    The specter of the marauding serial killer has become a relatively common feature on the American landscape. Reactions to these modern-day monsters range from revulsion to morbid [...]

    GENRE: True Crime