Reading Frenzy ~ An Independent Press Emporium

Shoppe ~ Books

A selection of hand-picked gems from our downtown Portland store. Minimum order of $8.

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(1-11 of 19 items)

 
Access All Areas cover

Access All Areas

By Ninjalicious

Paperback 242 pages.

Ever wonder what lies beyond the doors, fences and ladders you pass every day?  A hidden world of mystery, beauty and free fun awaits the curious who choose to seek adventure off the beaten path, without even leaving their own city.  Access All Areas takes you behind the scenes to little-known urban spaces like utility tunnels, rooftops, abandoned buildings, construction sites and storm drains, unveiling the possibilities and perils of the world urban exploration.

$20.00

 
Applicant cover

Applicant

By Jesse Reklaw

From the publisher: 

"One night while rooting through the recycling bin for magazines, I found all the confidential Ph.D. applicant files for the biology department at an Ivy League university from the years 1965-1975. Stapled to many of the yellowed documents were photographs of the prospective students. They were treasures! I tore through the folders and rescued every portrait I could find. I had to have them. Only later did I realize I had to publish them."

So begins the preface to Jesse Reklaw's Applicant. A priceless time-bomb of pop culture, Reklaw serves a compelling and secret look into an impossibly lost era. The book collects photos from the 1970s paired with accompanying comments from employers and professors. The results are absurdist, confusing, often hilarious and disturbing.

Applicant provides unique insight into outdated 1970s social attitudes and ephemera (under one girl's photo: "Weakness: she is a female, and an attractive, modest one, so is bound to marry"). Much of the book's appeal however is found in what the book fails to say: the blank and despondent stares of it's subjects, the outdated fashions and hairstyles and it's understated text. Equal parts Ann Taintor and Found Magazine, Applicant is one of those books you read once and then want to show everyone. In fulfilling Jesse's dream, we've republished this as a tiny paperback book!

$5.00

 
Beach 90th cover

Beach 90th

By Justin Hocking

limited edition. handmade. letterpress cover. perfect bound. 33 pages

An excerpt from Justin's memoir-in-progress entitled The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld

$5.00

 
Constant Rider Omnibus cover

Constant Rider Omnibus

By Katherine Sharp /Kate Lopresti

128 pages, 1/2 size, paperback

From the publisher: For your reading and riding pleasure, we bring you an anthology of the Constant Rider issues #1-7! Mass transit maven Kate Lopresti spins stories of fights, intoxicated passengers, fellow travelers' reading choices, and even impromptu bus stop singers. Detailing countless years of riding buses, trains, and planes, these pages will leave you engaged and charmed. The cover is a beautiful 2 color illustration from Kalah Allen. New second edition has 64 additional pages!

$6.00

 
Degrassi Digest: Volume 1 cover

Degrassi Digest: Volume 1

298 pg. softcover

A collected edition of the free fanzine that appears magically in our free bins on a near weekly basis.  This book contains the full publication from October 2006-August 2008.
Get your fix of Degrassi news and cats.

$10.00

 
Doris: An Anthology 1991-2001 cover

Doris: An Anthology 1991-2001

320 Pages, paperback, 6.5x8"

An anthology of one of the first and best personal zines to come our way. I think Doris has been with us since the very beginning and will probably remain until the bitter end.

From the publisher, "Cindy writes her zine, DORIS, like she is figuring out the human condition. She makes writing about the simplest and most common things - playing music, childhood, cooking, or sex, resonate with universal understanding. She helps us make sense of more complex things like the satisfaction from doing useful work, natural curiosity, the ability to use logic, gender dynamics, introspection, the need for challenge and change, combating depression, and creating art and literature. She shares and explores the emotions that go along with having an abortion, rape, dealing with the death of family, or sexual harrassment in a context that is enlightening and personal, feeling like a close friend opening up to you. What's most impressive though is that she relates these things into every article in her zine seamlessly."

$14.00

 
Fushigi Circus cover

Fushigi Circus

By Mark Ryden

128 pages, 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches

A collection of the works of Mark Ryden. Features new works, including Blood, Sweat, Tears, and The Creatrix. A survey of 55 of Ryden's most impressive works from past shows to the present. 1st edition, mint condition, sealed.

$65.00

 
In Search of the Lost Taste cover

In Search of the Lost Taste

By Joshua Ploeg

"Joshua Ploeg's cooking blows my mind so much that a secret door opens in the back of my head and white doves, musical notes, and winged horses fly out. His cooking is transcendent: Dangerous, strange and perfect. It's full of colorful tastes that explode in your mouth like Pop Rocks flavor combinations you never thought possible. Crazy alchemy. Freaky magic.
Joshua's the Traveling Chef; you make an appointment, he shows up at your house with a load of groceries, makes an incredible multi-course vegan meal using your pots and pans, and then he's gone like the Lone Ranger riding into a big Texas sunset.
Joshua's been in a bunch of hardcore bands and he brings all the good things punk rock gave us: risk, passion, creativity, and weirdness; then he applies them to his meals. I randomly lucked into one of his dinners last year. I usually eat really fast and mindlessly, but I had to take this one slow and let all the flavors develop and do their respective stuff. Each had its own distinctive note its own voice that rang out to let it be known that it was something special and unique. It was an experience in the finest sense of the word." -Adam Gnade

$8.00

 
Indestructible cover

Indestructible

By Cristy C. Road

90pgs., 5.5"x8.5" perfects bound,offset b/w illustrations

$6.00

 
Integrating a Burning House cover

Integrating a Burning House

By Anna Gray & Ryan Wilson Paulsen

"On September 10th, years after our first days on Cable Avenue, I finally met the neighbors.  Fire is an irresistible spectacle and the people on our block participated accordingly, bringing chairs out onto their balconies and hovering in the street long after the heat and smoke had cleared.  "

This is an amazing little book centered around the loss of a home, the fire and the artifacts that remain.   Two essays by the people involved are followed by a full color photo collection of the burnt remains of their belongings.  This book directly confronts our basic human urge to sift through the remains of a tragedy.  The results are both highly gratifying and unnerving.

$13.00

 
 
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(1-11 of 19 items)