Feb 28th Newsletter

    No products in the cart.

Torn Light Records
1855 N Milwaukee
Chicago, IL 60647
312.955.0614
Open Everyday
10AM-7PM

FILTERS

Filter by

Filter by

Filter by

  • Blake Butler – Aannex
    Blake Butler – Aannex
    $19.00 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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
  • Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism
    Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism
    $23.00 | , Add to cart

    The now-classic exploration of the role of women and the feminine in Buddhist Tantra The crowning cultural achievement of medieval India, Tantric Buddhism is known in the West primarily for […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Expanded Cinema: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
    Expanded Cinema: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
    $34.00 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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
  • Rene Daumal – Pataphysical Essays
    Rene Daumal – Pataphysical Essays
    $16.00 | , Add to cart

    Essays reflecting on the science of imaginary solutions, from an influential figure in pataphysical thought Pataphysics: the science of imaginary solutions, of laws governing exceptions and of [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
    Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
    $19.00 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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
  • Heather Lewis – Notice
    Heather Lewis – Notice
    $18.00 | , Add to cart

    A classic queer text of trauma, written by one of the most talented novelists of her generation. The reason it’s never just once is the same reason money’s only a […]

    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 | , Add to cart

    “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 | , Add to cart

    January 6, 2024 Edition of 100 Alien Passengers #97

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

    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
  • Denis Johnson – Angels
    Denis Johnson – Angels
    $17.00 | , Add to cart

    The most critically acclaimed, and first, of Denis Johnson’s novels, Angels puts Jamie Mays–a runaway wife toting along two kids–and Bill Houston–ex-Navy man, ex-husband, [...]

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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
  • Michel Leiris – Aurora and Cardinal Point
    Michel Leiris – Aurora and Cardinal Point
    $25.00 | , Add to cart

    This volume collects two classics of Surrealist fiction, both long out of print, by the writer and ethnographer Michel Leiris (1901–1990). Close to Georges Bataille, Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre and [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • A Mammal’s Notebook: The Writings of Erik Satie
    A Mammal’s Notebook: The Writings of Erik Satie
    $32.00 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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
  • The Sacred Conspiracy: The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Acéphale and Lectures to the College of Sociology
    The Sacred Conspiracy: The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Ac…
    $40.00 | , Add to cart

    Georges Bataille’s secret society, long the stuff of legend, is now revealed in its texts, meditations, rules and prohibitions This book recounts what must be one of the most unusual […]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Maggot Brain #12
    Maggot Brain #12
    $12.00 | , Add to cart

    Crazy Doberman ? Erick’s Bradshaw delivers an epic, well-illustrated tour diary of a brief jaunt with these noise greats. Composer TAYONDAI BRAXTON by Katy Henricksen! A meaty, beautiful [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Ahmad Shamlou – Born Upon the Dark Spear
    Ahmad Shamlou – Born Upon the Dark Spear
    $13.00 | , Add to cart

    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
  • Giovanni Intra – Clinic of Phantasms: Writings 1994-2002
    Giovanni Intra – Clinic of Phantasms: Writings 1994-2002
    $13.00 | , Add to cart

    Artist, gallerist, and writer Giovanni Intra’s inventive approach to art writing provides a guide to the New Zealand and Los Angeles art scenes of his era. Everything you read about […]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Non-Fiction
  • Ishmael Reed – Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
    Ishmael Reed – Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
    $17.00 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    “[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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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
  • The Saddest Thing Is That I Have Had to Use Words: A Madeline Gins Reader
    The Saddest Thing Is That I Have Had to Use Words: A Madeline Gins Rea…
    $28.00 | , Add to cart

    A revelatory anthology of poems, experimental prose and previously unpublished work by Madeline Gins, the transdisciplinary writer-artist-thinker famed for her “Reversible Destiny” [...]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Avant-Garde Film: Forms, Themes and Passions
    Avant-Garde Film: Forms, Themes and Passions
    $16.00 | , Add to cart

    Avant-Garde Film: Forms, Themes and Passions examines the variety of concerns and practices that have comprised the long history of avant-garde film at a level appropriate for undergraduate [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Drama/Arthouse
  • The Wire – #463 September 2022
    The Wire – #463 September 2022
    $10.00 | , Add to cart

    On the cover… Neu! + 50 Years Of Motorik A special cover feature on the motorik rock originators Neu! to mark half a century since their game-changing debut album. This […]

    GENRE: Art Rock / Krautrock / Prog / Psych, Experimental / Noise, Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Simone Weil – Anthology
    Simone Weil – Anthology
    $19.00 | , Add to cart

    Philosopher, theologian, critic, sociologist, political activist — Simone Weil was among the foremost thinkers of our time. Best known in this country for her theological writing, Weil [...]

    GENRE: Non-Fiction
  • Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by Dick Higgins
    Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by …
    $35.00 | , Add to cart

    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 | , Add to cart

    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
  • Herve Guibert – Ghost Image
    Herve Guibert – Ghost Image
    $18.00 | , Add to cart

    Ghost Image is made up of sixty-three short essays―meditations, memories, fantasies, and stories bordering on prose poems―and not a single image. Hervé Guibert’s brief, literary rumination on [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Memoir
  • Maya Deren – Essential Deren: Collected Writings on Film
    Maya Deren – Essential Deren: Collected Writings on Film
    $18.00 | , Add to cart

    Until now, Maya Deren’s essays on the art and craft of filmmaking have not been available in a comprehensive volume equally handy for students, film enthusiasts, and scholars. Essential [...]

    GENRE: Art/Photography, Non-Fiction
  • 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 | , Add to cart

    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
  • Simone De Beauvoir – The Woman Destroyed
    Simone De Beauvoir – The Woman Destroyed
    $17.00 | , Add to cart

    These three long stories draw us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises. In the title story, the heroine’s serenity is shattered […]

    GENRE: Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive
  • Arkady & Boris Strugatsky – Roadside Picnic
    Arkady & Boris Strugatsky – Roadside Picnic
    $17.00 | , Add to cart

    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
  • The Wire  – #460 June 2022
    The Wire – #460 June 2022
    $10.00 | , Add to cart

    “On the cover: Phew. The Japanese punk survivor and intrepid vocalist/composer continues to build an impressive catalogue of collaborations, solo projects and band work in a career now [...]

    GENRE: Experimental / Noise, Fiction/Poetry/Essays/Criticism/Transgressive, Modern Composition / Musique Concrete / Electronic