A. Us art school kids have not developed the proper muscles for heavy book lifting
B. People mistake them for reference books
C. Most of the book covers appear hopelessly uninteresting
I myself was unaware of how rad our oversize collection is until I was called upon to seek out some hidden treasures. And boy are there a lot of goodies.
A TREASURY OF ART MASTERPIECES
Perhaps all these outdated, dusty art history books are the reason this section gets no love. I am here to report that they really do kick butt. I repeat: the covers are deceptive!
INFERNO
Darin warned me that this book would blow my mind and I laughed it off. But he wasn’t kidding. Pieces of my brain were strewn everywhere and it required extensive vacuuming. If you’re ever having a woe-is-me moment, crack open this book and your perspective will be instantly re-adjusted.
CHRIS VERENE
At first glance, Chris Verene’s body of work looks like an exploitative account of some hicks from the middle of nowhere, Illinois. In actuality it is anything but! With text that is often hilarious and sad at the same time, Verene takes us through the wild ongoing journey of his extended family. And anybody who saw Verene speak at SMFA last semester knows he is 100% sincere as well as totally coocoo-bananas.
TELEX IRAN
Ironically, the size of Telex Iran was chosen so it couldn’t be shelved neatly among other books and ignored. It’s a highly personal account of 1979/80 seizure of the American embassy in Teheran, interspersed with telexes that allude to the author’s subjectivity.
JAN SAUDEK
This giant volume encapsulates Saudek’s largest body of work, which spans over thirty years of his beautiful, hand-tinted erotic dreamscapes, all photographed in the same dingy basement in suburban Prague.
LAST WHOLE EARTH CATALOG
This book is a bona fide gem. Painstakingly thorough, it is a catalog for all the goods you need if you are trying to overthrow the government/survive an apocalypse/what have you. It is also outdated by thirty years. (Do you remember when books costs $1.50? Neither do I.)
DIANE ARBUS
Why schlep around several books on Diane Arbus when everything you ever need to know or see is contained in this one volume?
100 YEARS OF BICYCLE POSTERS
Check out these whimsical women sailing through the sands of time without a care as to whether their flowing skirts or hair get caught in their bike chains. This is just one example of the many poster books that are great for scanning and reprinting.
