David Dawkins's Bound & Flogged, featuring art, photography, bios and ace bookstores
ART BOOK OF THE WEEK: Bough Down by Karen Green [Siglio Press]
In this beautifully produced book, fragments of prose combine with collaged images to detail the sense of loss and love felt by an artist making sense of her husband’s suicide. Much more a piece of art than a coherent, or linear text, Bough Down is is a book of dualities dealing with lucidity and madness, desire and ambivalence, the living and the absent, giving us a completely personal reflection on life after the death of her widely adored husband.
PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION OF THE WEEK: The Afronauts by Cristina de Middel
‘We're going to Mars! With a spacegirl, two cats and a missionary.’
Cited as a watershed moment in the move to legitimacy in self-publishing, Afronauts details the short-lived Zambian space programme of 1964. This collection of new images, original statements and letters from the time really captures the sheer ambition of a project developed by Edward Makuka, a school teacher. The first edition sold out instantly on her website, keep an eye out for a second-run hot off the press.
BIOGRAPHY OF THE WEEK: Austerlitz and After: Tracking Sebald by Iain Sinclair [Test Centre]
Iain Sinclair, Hackney’s most visible walking, talking, reading, writing, genre-defining literary machine does it again with this limited edition booklet recounting a walk through East London in the footsteps of the late great W. G. Sebald, considering along the way Sebald’s life; his experience of London, his writing methods, and his residence in Norwich. As ever, it’s as much about the Sinclair as anyone else and the text tells a personal story about the area with a use of small, black-and-white images (a tip-of-the-hat to Sebald) ultimately ending up back at the Regent’s Canal with the sad tale of former Eastenders actor Gemma McCluskie.
BOOKSHOP OF THE WEEK: X Marks the Bökship
Great little space near (ish) to Bethnal Green tube that stocks the best work from London’s small presses and independent publishers. There’s lots of beautifully designed and printed material that you just won’t find elsewhere. Check out their events and launches.
210/ Unit 3 Cambridge Heath Road London E2 9NQ
MAGAZINE OF THE WEEK: Special Request
Special Request is a new quarterly journal by Paul Sethi and Thomas Viney. Aiming to look at the human experience piece by piece, each issue revolves around a certain part of our culture. The next one might be about TV, but their first issue is on food. They've promised not to discuss how cupcakes have changed the world, but we can find out what's the favourite sandwich of GZA from the Wu Tang Clan and read interesting essays by Geoff Dyer, Sam Lipsyte and Jonathan Meades.
FIVE MINUTES TO SPARE...
A nice little animation on David Foster Wallace.