Beatique

Category: Books

  • If You Read One New Book This Year, Make It The Stars Shine Brighter by Rami Abou Jamous

    The Stars Shine Brighter by Rami Abou Jamous
    The Stars Shine Brighter by Rami Abou Jamous

    If there’s one new book you read this year, it should be The Stars Shine Brighter by Rami Abou Jamous. Released last month, it is the Palestinian journalist’s first-person account of life in Gaza during the first two years of the genocide. It’s a short, concise read that is, frequently, devastating. For those of us reading in the U.S., it’s also the rare glimpse inside Gaza that’s uninterrupted by the noise of political spin, propaganda bots, racist assholes and everything else that makes so many people shy away from even mentioning Palestine. 

    Jamous is an award-winning war correspondent who has reported from Gaza for multiple French outlets over the past few years. (You can read his more recent columns in Orient XXI) In The Stars Shine Brighter, he documents both what is happening in the communities surrounding him and how he tries to keep his own family safe. 

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  • Who Are Moomin and Why Are They on So Much Stuff?

    Moomin Pop Up Kinokuniya The Bloc Los Angeles (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Inside the Moomin pop-up at The Bloc. (Pic: Liz O.)

    The downtown L.A. Moomin pop-up is easy to miss. It’s on the same level of The Bloc as Kinokuniya, but it’s a couple doors down from the Japanese bookshop, lodged between a Botox salon and a vacant storefront. Moomin is understated in a very Nordic way, with lots of clean lines and earthy colors, so it’s easily overshadowed by the vacant shop’s hot pink window signs, which have been advertising a K-beauty photo studio “coming soon” for months now. 

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  • Bibliomancers: Curation Through Divination

    High Crimes Cult Minds Bibliomancers 2025
    High Crimes Cult Minds is the latest release from L.A. publisher Bibliomancers

    Bibliomancers books aren’t your typical collections of retro ephemera. What began as a way for Astraleyes, aka James Weigel, co-founder of the physical media fest Analog Outlaw, to archive his voluminous collection of books. In the process, though, the L.A.-based publisher, whose recent titles include High Crimes, Cult Minds and New Age Grave, has become a conceptual, community art project where the collections of artists, mainly book covers and other ephemera, are bound in a tangible form, their pages revealing stories that go much deeper than aesthetics. 

    “It’s not a straight, this is a book about 1970s paperbacks,” says Weigel of Bibliomancers on a recent video call. “There are publishers that do that perfectly and it’s great. They’re very inspiring to me, but my hope is that what we’re doing is interjecting a piece of our creative selves into it. If you look, there are elements there that go beyond just archiving a genre and I think that is really us as artists wanting to be more creatively involved in the process of making books.”

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  • ‘The Ferryman and His Wife’ Travel Through the Space Between Life and Death in New Novel

    Cover of The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten

    November 18 is the last day of Nils Vik’s life. And, for his final act, the elderly ferryman boards his boat and navigates the fjord, as he has done on so many other days. This time, though, he is joined by his dearly departed, yet still trusty, dog. As he travels the waters that he knows so well, Vik encounters a legion of passengers who, like his dog, have already died. As memories and revelations of his life rise to the surface, Vik awaits the one person with whom he wants to reunite, his late wife. 

    The latest novel from Norwegian author Frode Grytten, The Ferryman and His Wife is also his first to be translated into English. In Norway, Den Dagen Nils Vik døde (English: The Day That Nils Vik Died, according to Wikipedia) was released two years ago and went on to win the country’s prestigious Brage Prize. The U.S. edition, translated by Alison McCullough, came out just last week and it’s a must-read. 

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  • Simon Raymonde Talks Cocteau Twins and New Book, In One Ear

    Simon Raymonde author Photo
    Simon Raymonde will be at Book Soup in Los Angeles on November 14

    “Honestly, I never really considered writing a book until, literally, five minutes before I started doing it,” says Simon Raymonde on a video call. For decades, Raymonde has been making and releasing music. He spent much of the 1980s and 1990s as a member of Cocteau Twins, contributing to now-classic albums like Treasure and Heaven or Las Vegas. For close to 30 years, he has run Bella Union, the record label that helped introduce the world to Fleet Foxes, Beach House and Father John Misty. Raymonde’s memoir, In One Ear: Cocteau Twins, Ivor and Me, is set for release in the U.S. on November 18 and he’ll appear at Book Soup in Los Angeles on Friday, November 14. 

    In One Ear traces Raymonde’s life in music, from his early bands in post-punk London to his tenure with Cocteau Twins to his work as a producer and label-head. Raymonde also delves into the work of his father, Ivor Raymonde, himself a musician, songwriter and producer who worked with the likes of Dusty Springfield, The Walker Brothers, Los Bravos and David Bowie. Throughout the memoir, Raymonde keeps the focus on the music. 

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  • R. Crumb Shares Tales of Paranoia in New Art Show and Forthcoming Comic Book

    R. Crumb Tales of Paranoia cover original art at David Zwirner Gallery in Los Angeles (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    The original cover art of Tales of Paranoia by R. Crumb on view at David Zwirner in Los Angeles (Photo: Liz O.)

    Next month, Fantagraphics will release Tales of Paranoia, the first comic book from R. Crumb in 23 years. Right now, though, you can check out original art from the book, as well as other works from Crumb, at David Zwirner here in L.A. The gallery exhibition, which runs through December 20, is the first Crumb exhibition in the city since The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis ran at the Hammer in 2009/10. 

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  • Jeff Copeland on His Memoir Love You Madly Holly Woodlawn

    Jeff Copeland author of Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn press photo
    Jeff Copeland tells his Hollywood story in Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn (photo courtesy of Jeff Copeland)

    Jeff Copeland was, maybe, 12 drafts deep into Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn when he took a step back and reflected on one particularly awkward dinner scene. There is no shortage of awkward meals in Copeland’s memoir. After all, it’s Hollywood at the turn-of-the-‘90s and the writer is a broke twenty-something with big screen ambitions who befriends a middle-aged former Warhol star. On this particular night, though, Copeland and Woodlawn meet up with a neighbor, Maila Nurmi, you might know her better as Vampira, and her friends. An elderly theater director hijacks the conversation, steering it into dark, and, tbh, hysterical, terrain. Copeland’s younger self is mortified. His present self, though, has an altogether different take.

    “Fame was fleeting! Money dwindled! And so what if their youth and beauty was gone forever. It was their ebullience that remained, and it was as bold and incandescent…and as bright and vivid as any theatre marquee on Hollywood Boulevard,” he writes.

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  • ‘Ballad of Buttery Cake Ass’ Author Aug Stone Releases New Single of His Own

    Aug Stone musician and author of Ballad of Buttery Cake Ass and Sporting Moustaches "Rachel on the Rooftops" video still.
    Aug Stone in a still from the video for “Rachel on the Rooftops” (Photo courtesy of the artist)

    Aug Stone has been making music for decades, but it wasn’t until last week that he released his first single under his own name. “Rachel on the Rooftops” is power pop-tinged rock jam that showcases the musician and author’s knack for narrative. The single also features backing vocals from Rachel Love, best known for her time in Dolly Mixture, the seminal British indie pop band that would later sing backup on Captain Sensible singles like “Happy Talk.” 

    “They’re one of my all time favorite bands,” says Stone of Dolly Mixture. “It’s punky in attitude, but it’s like all the great girl pop of the ‘60s. I love all those songs.”

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  • In The Sunflower Boys, Sam Wachman Weaves a Touching Portrait of Ukraine and the Impact of War on Youth

    cover of The Sunflower Boys by Sam Wachman

    Sam Wachman was in Romania helping to organize an English immersion camp for youth from Ukraine, drinking tea with some of the kids. A year had past since the start of the war and, after hearing their stories, he suggested they write a book. “They said, we’re busy,” he recalls, “you write it.” 

    Six months later, Wachman had a first draft of The Sunflower Boys, which was released on August 12. In it, a Ukrainian boy on the cusp of his teens, Artem, sees life forever changed when war comes to his hometown. After tragedy strikes his family, his priorities shift as Artem must now escape the country with his younger brother in hopes of reuniting with their father. It’s a riveting, and heartbreaking story. In fact, there are two, equally compelling stories that intertwine in The Sunflower Boys because, while Wachman was able to complete the novel after that conversation over tea, he had actually started work on what would be his debut novel before the war began. 

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  • Get Your Physical Media Fix at Analog Outlaw This Weekend

    Paper flyer for Analog Outlaw at 2220 Arts + Archives in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 28
    Don’t you miss paper flyers? Here’s one for Analog Outlaw happening on Saturday, June 28 at 2220 Arts + Archives in L.A.

    The first thing I heard while roaming the stalls at Analog Outlaw Book and Record Fair last September was “Wicked,” a Psychic TV track that came out at the cusp of the 1980s and 1990s. It’s this seemingly endless, loopy acid house number— I hesitate to call it a song— that appeals to a very specific kind of weirdo who collects the fruits of the Throbbing Gristle family tree and spends their free time reading about cults and psychedelics and psychedelic cults. So, if you’re that type of weirdo and you hear “Wicked” out in the wild, you know you’ve found your people. 

    And, yes, dear reader, I did find my people that day. Organized by Bibliomancers and Nooners Books, Analog Outlaw is a counterculture physical media marketplace. At the inaugural event, held at Zebulon last year, vendors from vintage issues of Rolling Stone to Goblin on vinyl and Frankenhooker on VHS to paperback porn. Mark Webber from Pulp was on hand to sign copies of his book, I’m With Pulp, Are You? I can’t even remember how many club pals I ran into that day. It was one of those events where you spend half the time hunting for treasure and the other half showing your friends what you found. 

    For their second fair, on June 28, Analog Outlaw is moving to a larger venue, 2220 Arts + Archives. The roster includes mix of vintage media vendors and indie publishers, amongst them Hat & Beard Press, horror zine Midnight Companions and Neither Neither Books, as well as the first West Coast appearance of Japanese Avant Garde Books.

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