Just in time for the madhouse summer reading list: Bacon’s classic text in a lovely illustrated edition.
Number 16 in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series. Limited edition: 60 copies. $10.
Category: book launch
NOIR is Born!
Better not answer it, you never know who’s calling. Wait until the shadows pass. It’s safer in the light. John Nickle is a master of shadows. With colored pencils and acrylic paint he has created moody crime scenes for novels by the likes of Ross MacDonald, James Swain, Sjöwall and Wahlöö, and many others. He’s well known for his distinctive, cinematic style—creepy and comic. A dark sense of humor lies just beneath the surface like a hastily buried corpse. 
Even the artist’s popular children’s illustrations posses sinister overtones. Then again, it’s a dangerous world out there. 
Black Scat Books proudly announces a limited edition collection of John Nickle’s best cover art and illustrations produced over the past 25 years—Nickle Noir: The Art of John Nickle—featuring a revealing introduction by the artist and full color reproductions. 144 pages to die for.
“Nickle is a conjurer of dread and remembrance. His works quickly bypass conscious examination and lodge themselves in the space between sleep and wakefulness. This is a book of dark joy. Welcome and beware.”
—p.g. sturges, author of Shortcut Man and Angel’s Gate
THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT
Stars and Stripes Forever!
Strike up the band . . . stand and salute . . . a new book by experimental writer and critic Richard Kostelanetz has just rolled off the press in all its patriotic splendor. The Works & Life of Kosty Richards: An American Career will be an inspiration to every red-blooded American—especially those who aspire to the heights of literary celebrity.
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CLICK HERE to order a copy of this limited edition.
The Idiot Hath Arrived!
No, not that idiot, this idiot…
Esteemed French drama critic (and the butt of derision at the cabaret Le Chat Noir), Francisque Sarcey reviewed the premiere of Alfred Jarry‘s Ubu Roi with this visionary verdict: ”…a filthy fraud which deserves nothing but the silence of contempt.”
Writer and humorist Alphonse Allais transformed Sarcey into an Ubuesque piñata in a series of wicked columns published under Sarcey’s name in the newspaper Le Chat Noir.
Never before in English, this rare collection is introduced and translated from the French by Doug Skinner. Edition limited to 60 printed copies. #00 in our Black Scat Classics sub-series.
“How I Became an Idiot reminds me of Félix Fénéon’s excellent Novels in Three Lines… the unexpected is suddenly present, and there is rudeness, as well as a savagery of attack that we simply can’t imagine anyone doing to any well-known columnist of today and getting away with it.”
—Jeff Bursey, author of Verbatim: A Novel
Prepare yourself for some nasty laughs.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT.
M. Kasper Pub Party at Amherst Books
M. Kasper will be signing copies of Kirghiz Steppes: Accumulated Verbo-Visuals this Thursday, the 25th, at 4:30 pm, at Amherst Books (8 Main St. Amherst MA).
If you’re in western Massachusetts, don’t miss this bash.
Kirghiz Steppes is a unique, limited edition album featuring the artist’s one-page pieces mixing words and pictures—parodies, comics, captioned collages, concrete poems, etc.—made since the 1970′s.
OUT OF PRINT
Is God Dead Again?
That question will be answered in the order in which it was received. But if you can’t wait that long, pick up a copy of C. S. Hibbard‘s THE OTHER SIDE: THE SHOCKING TRUTH BEHIND 100 CLASSIC PAINTINGS—just out from Black Scat.
Upon its release in the U.K. in 2009, The Other Side quickly became a bestseller. It has been translated into half a dozen languages and over two million copies have sold worldwide. Black Scat Books is honored to offer this provocative work to the American public in a new trade paperback edition—featuring 100 color reproductions, as well as a foreword by noted art historian Paul Forristal.
Includes paintings by 40 of the world’s greatest artists: Allais, Altdorfer, Bosch, Botticelli, Bruegel, Caravaggio, Chagall, Cranach, Dali, DeVries, Ernst, Giacometti, Giotto, Goya, Greco, Holbein, Klee, Klimt, Leonardo, Magritte, Memling, Michelangelo, Millet, Monet, Paolo Uccello, Raffaello, Rembrandt, Renoir, Rousseau, Rubens, Schiele, Seurat, Tansey, Uccello, Van der Weyden, Van Eyck, Van Gogh, Velasquez, Vermeer, Veronese.
Cecil Sears Hibbard is the author of the acclaimed study Art & Religion: The Bohemian Divide (2005), and a collection of incendiary essays: Leonardo’s Smile & Other Seductions (2007). His novel The Architect was nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize.
***UPDATE***We regret to announce that C. S. Hibbard has cancelled his U.S. book tour due to concerns for his personal safety. He will not be signing copies of The Other Side at City Lights in San Francisco (May 1); Book Soup in Los Angeles (May 3); Barnes and Noble / Mission Valley, San Diego (May 4). If you purchased tickets for the party at Chateau Marmont on May 6th, refunds will be provided here.
Captain Cap Sails Again!
Climb aboard and pop your corks, Captain Cap (Vol II) sets sail today!
We recognize the inherent risks of launching a book on the first day of April, yet we’ve decided to push ahead—(or should we say shove off?)—since it’s entirely appropriate when the author is Alphonse Allais, the great French innovative humorist. Moreover, on this very day in 1897, Paul Ollendorff christened Allais’s Album primo-avrilesque (April Foolish Album)—a portfolio featuring seven monochromatic paintings which anticipated abstract art. Sadly, the album has gone unnoticed by so-called “art historians,” but we’ll leave that fight for another day.
Presently, this second volume—(two more to follow!)—gets down to the nitty-gritty, i.e., Allais’s legendary stories peppered with bizarre inventions, tall tales, philandering, and—oh yes—frequent liquid refreshments. Come to think of it, the phrase “traveling the high seas” may well have been coined in honor of the good captain’s bar-hopping.
Now’s your chance to discover a whole world of exotic trivia, such as…
- THE SECRET BEHIND MEAT-LAND
- UNKNOWN FACTS ABOUT GIRAFFES
- HOW TO PAY ONE’S AMOROUS DEBTS
- EXPERIMENTS IN HYPNOTISM
- NAME THAT ORANGUTAN
- INTERSTELLAR COMMUNICATIONS
- HOW TO RECYCLE CONFETTI
And much, much more.
The Apparent Symbiosis Between the Boa and Giraffe has been painstakingly translated by the versatile Doug Skinner. who has illustrated the book with 17 original drawings done in true Allaisian spirit. He also provides an enlightening introduction and extensive notes containing historical tidbits that bring La Belle Époque alive.
At over 100 pages, this collectible edition marks a watershed moment for the Absurdist Texts & Documents series, and is one of several reasons why the word “chapbook” should be thrown overboard.
So don’t miss out on this gala voyage. Click here and order a copy.
We wish you all a happy April Fool’s! (And that’s no joke.)
blackscatbooks.com 