Archive for the 'books' Category

John Porcellino & Chris Fink Release Forage Like a Bear at Quimby’s, May 31st

Published on May 9, 2025 0 Comments
May
31
7:00 pm

 

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Don’t miss John Porcellino (King-Cat) and Chris Fink (Add This to the List of Things That You Are) visiting Quimby’s to talk about Forage Like a Bear, their collaborative book of gentle micro-essays on nature, family, and life on Saturday, May 31st at 7pm!

This beautiful book by Chris Fink collects twenty of his short, luminous radio essays as heard on Northern Public Radio WNIJ FM in DeKalb, Illinois. Low-key and plainspoken, he explores quiet moments in nature and with family in a classic Midwestern style. It features whistling acorns, scribbling clams, gossipy geese, technicolor ducks, turkeys (including human ones), roving bands of chipmunks, chimneys, fires, chainsaws, lice, thin ice, approximately 30,000 blueberries, cars rolling uphill, the leaves of a mulberry tree drifting down, Peace Trail meanders, and maybe just maybe, a holy grail morel and more, all illustrated with graceful ink line drawings by comics luminary John Porcellino. 

Porcellino will read (with slides) selections from recent issues of King-Cat, with Chris Fink reading afterwards from Forage Like a Bear. A Q+A and signing will follow. Books will be available for purchase.

Long-time friend of Quimby’s John Porcellino has been publishing King-Cat Comics since 1989. When he does events at Quimby’s he lovingly refers to us as the place where he does the first event on the tour to experiment, and we are therefore the “sacrifical pancake.” He runs Spit and a Half Distro and goes to the post office on most days. Follow him on Patreon +@johnporcellino on IG among other places.

Chris Fink is a professor of English at Beloit College and the editor of the Beloit Fiction Journal. He’s the author of two collections of short stories, Farmer’s Almanac: A Work of Fiction (Emergency Press, 2013/2023) and Add This to the List of Things That You Are (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019). He’s a regular contributor to Northern Public Radio.

Forage Like a Bear (Bored Wolves, 2025) $18.00 – Lovingly printed on soft white paper with French flaps.

Yes! Quimby’s will stay open later for this event! Quimby’s is located at 1854 W. North Ave, Chicago, IL 60622.  This event is free.

Find the Facebook event link here.

 

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2025 Chicagoland Indie Bookstore Day Challenge! April 26th

Published on March 18, 2025 0 Comments
Apr
26
12:00 pm

On Saturday, April 26th Quimby’s will participate in celebrating Independent Bookstore Day with Chicago bookstores from all over the city!

One of the best ways to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day is the annual bookstore crawl (aka, the Chicagoland Indie Bookstore Day Challenge)! The crawl promises to be bigger and better than ever this year! Dozens of stores—both brand-new stores and old favorites will be participating.  (See the complete list at www.ChiLoveBooks.com.) And, yes, the bus tour will be BACK!

Again this year, the goals will be:
• Visit TEN stores in one day and get 10% off at all participating bookstores for an ENTIRE YEAR!
• Visit FIFTEEN stores in one day and get 15% off at all participating bookstores for an ENTIRE YEAR!

Readers are encouraged to post a snapshot of themselves and their Independent Bookstore Day haul on social media with the hashtags #TeamIndie, #ChiLoveBooks, #IBDCHI25, plus the hashtags of each store they’ve visited.

Independent Bookstore Day is the last Saturday of April, and yet again, Chicagoland proves itself to be the dream destination for book lovers and readers of all ages! More than 50 independent bookstores in the greater Chicago area — from Lake Forest to Beverly, and Naperville to the Loop — are collaborating on our annual Chicagoland Bookstore Crawl, which encourages book lovers to indulge in bookstore tourism by visiting 10 or more stores in a single day.

Zine Club Chicago: An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping Collective Reading and Zinemaking Workshop, March 15th!

Published on March 1, 2025 0 Comments
Mar
15
3:00 pm

A colorful infographic flyer designed by Julie Cho that features the cover of the book “An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping”, with text that reads: “An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping Collective Reading and Zinemaking Workshop; Zine Club Chicago at Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave., Chicago IL 60622; Saturday, March 15, 3pm CST; For more information visit quimbys.com”

Zine Club Chicago: An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping Collective Reading and Zinemaking Workshop
3 p.m. Saturday, March 15, 2025
Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave.
Free! 

This month, Zine Club Chicago is thrilled to welcome our friends at Thick Press for a celebration of their new book, An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping!

From “abundance” to “zinemaking,” An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping invites the reader to wander through a collection of interconnected entries on helping and healing by over 200 contributors from the worlds of social work and family therapy; art and design; body work and witchery; organizing and education; and more. Privileging co-construction over diagnosis, wisdom over evidence, collective healing over individual curejuyet, always blurring categories and embracing contradictions — this world-making collection reveals a pluriverse of helping practices grounded in love and freedom.

Please join us for Zine Club Chicago: An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping Collective Reading and Zinemaking Workshop, 3 p.m. Saturday, March 15, 2025 right here at our shop, 1854 W. North Ave. in Wicker Park. Free!

Erin Segal and Chris Hoff, two of the editors of An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping, will be joining us, and contributors to the book will read selections from their entries. Our readers include Zine Club Chicago producer Cynthia E. Hanifin, Neil Horsky, and Noriko Martinez.

Zine Club Chicago also be hosting a zinemaking workshop, and you’re all invited to make a mini zine about your own radical helping and collective care practices! No prior zinemaking experience necessary.

All zinemaking materials will be provided. Please note that event seating is limited, and will be first-come, first-served. Zine Club Chicago is a mask-supportive environment; masks will be provided if you’d like to wear one.

About Thick Press: Care-givers, justice-seekers, and community-builders often find ourselves in the thick of human experience. Yet so many of the texts we produce rely on the thin logic of Western medicine and mainstream social science! What might happen if we grounded more texts in the arts? In critical theories? In spirituality? In lived experience? What might happen if we paid more attention to medium, form, and design?

Enter Thick Press, a collaboration between a social worker (Erin Segal) and a designer (Julie Cho).

We aspire to a practice that is loving, reflexive, playful, and collaborative. We worry about reproducing oppressive structures, but we’re not really that interested in critique. Above all, we want to make unusual books with others.

Inspired by artists’ books and zines, Thick Press publishes books that cross genres and disciplines.  All our books relate to working or living in the thick of human experience.

Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are always welcome at Zine Club Chicago. This free event series is produced by Cynthia E. Hanifin and sponsored by Quimby’s Bookstore. Anna Jo Beck is the creative force behind our visuals, and she also made the Zine Club Chicago Shout-Outs site, where folks can peruse and recommend zines we’ve discussed at our events.

Facebook event is here. More info on the Zine Club Chicago social media channels: @zineclubchicago

Image description: A colorful infographic flyer designed by Julie Cho that features the cover of the book An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping, with text that reads: “An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping Collective Reading and Zinemaking Workshop; Zine Club Chicago at Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave., Chicago IL 60622; Saturday, March 15, 3pm CST; For more information visit quimbys.com”

Recommended Reading: Vibrant Voices on the Page

Published on January 29, 2025 0 Comments

A pile of books and zines that tell personal stories, available at Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago.

The world is a flaming mess right now. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I’m right there with you. Whenever I’m struggling, I know that I can find respite in personal narratives. Reading about another person’s challenges, triumphs, sorrows, and joys reminds me that, as Adrienne Rich wrote, our stories flow in more than one direction.

Our shop is, of course, packed to the brick walls with vibrant voices on the page. Here are a few of the tales in which I’ve taken solace lately.

Every single issue of Lucinda J. Williams’ Bookshelf Voyeur series is a pure delight. Her latest release, #8: On Scrapbooks, delves into the fascinating lives that the zinemaker first encountered within a collection of turn-of-the-century ephemera.

Anxious Critters #1 and #2: I adore this pair of sweet zines about the relationship between creator Alex O’Keefe and her housemate: A very cute bunny named Ivy.

Although I’m a native Chicagoan, I’ve lived a good chunk of my life in small Midwestern towns, each with its own unique DIY community. Punks in Peoria: Making a Scene in the American Heartland by Jonathan Wright and Dawson Barrett takes a compelling look at how the hardcore punk movement played out in one central Illinois city in the ’80s and ’90s.

When someone I know returns from a trip, the first thing I ask is what they ate during their journey. April Malig chronicles her culinary adventures, with words and gorgeous colorwashed images, in April’s Eating Zine #5: Everything I Ate in Japan (Part One: Toyko!) and April’s Eating Zine #5.5: Everything I Ate in Japan (Part 2: Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Atami!).

I love a pocket-size zine, since I like never want to be without a story to get lost in. Ker-bloom! always delivers a perfect bite-sized tale presented in a beautiful letterpress package. Issue #171 begins with the epic statement: “Sometimes it pays to be a known Lord of the Rings nerd.”

So perhaps you’d like to add your own story to the glorious chorus of voices in this universe? We’ve got two of my favorite books about writing in stock right now. 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg and many of the writer’s literary friends — including Carmen Maria Machado, Roxane Gay, and Kiese Laymon — just came out in paperback. Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos is the book I would put into the hands of any storyteller who wants to deepen their own practice.

If you do decide to share your story with the world, please consider putting it into a zine and consigning it with us! You might want to grab a This is Going in My Perzine sticker to give folks a heads-up. 🙂

—   With love and solidarity, C.E. Hanifin

Gift Guide for RADICALS

Published on December 23, 2024 0 Comments

Hi-diddly-ho, shopperinos! Echo here with another (last minute) holiday gift guide for you!

If you’ve been a sentient member of the human species lately, you have probably noticed that society is in a state of… how can I put this… total chaos and unbridled horror?

At Quimby’s, we recognize our small but important role as dedicated purveyors of radical, inclusive, and subversive literature. Perhaps (hopefully) there are many radicals in your life. Heck, you may even be one of them! So, I’ve picked out some books, zines, and other fun stuff (from our rather extensive selection of subversive materials) for the RADICAL in your life. Read on to discover my revolutionary picks for you and your loved ones this gift-giving season…

Zines can make for very thoughtful and fun gifts or stocking stuffers. I’d like to point your attention to Pleasure Pie, a sexual justice organization that’s based in Boston. They make incredible zines about sex positivity and intersectional liberation and we just love them! We’re freshly restocked with plenty of Pleasure Pie titles and they sent us a bunch of new stuff, too! The newest additions to our Pleasure Pie inventory include:

What Is Pleasure Injustice?
Sustainable Alternatives for Pads and Tampons: a Gender-Neutral Guide
How to Say No: a Guide for Listening to Your Gut in Sex and Life

They’ve also sent us some very poignant zines about Palestine, its voices, and its struggle for liberation:

Queer Voices From the Fight for Palestinian Liberation
Sex Education in Gaza: Empowering Young People Under Occupation
A Gazan Young Man Dreams of a Peaceful Death by Mo. Alcrunz
We Palestinians Are Not Going Away: First Person Accounts on the War in Gaza

The first book in my radical gift guide is To Rob a Bank Is an Honor by Lucio Urtubia. Urtubia is remembered as a real-life Robin Hood. On paper, he was a bricklayer from Navarra, an autonomous community in Spain. He was also a revolutionary outlaw who spent many years printing political pamphlets in his printshop, counterfeiting passports and checks for workers, and, most famously, scamming Citibank to fund the efforts of Italy’s Red Brigades, the Black Panthers, and other radical groups. This fascinating memoir is sure to make an excellent gift for the anarchist on your list.

No radical book collection is complete without An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. By telling the history of the United States from an indigenous perspective, historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz helps us see through the colonial lies that have dominated the popular narrative about the hyperpower that is the United States. As I type this, we have two wonderful versions of this important book in stock: the 10th-anniversary edition and a beautiful graphic interpretation adapted by Paul Peart-Smith.

Next up, we have a landmark classic—An Autobiography by Angela Davis. Originally published in 1974 (by Toni Morrison!), this book was re-released as a new edition in 2022, and it remains very pertinent to current events. A memoir from such an iconic social justice leader as Davis would make an excellent gift for anyone who’s into Black liberation, prison abolition, feminism, communism, queer rights, or for anyone who has the courage to hope and take actions to make a better world for everyone.

Those who are passionate about queer liberation are sure to appreciate Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies a collection of essays on current queer revolutionary theory from PM Press. This book does a wonderful job of bringing the movement for LGBTQIA+ liberation right into the fold of intersectionality with prison abolition, antiracism, and other concurrent revolutionary movements. It highlights the need for mutual aid as we look towards a brighter future for queer folks and for individuals from all marginalized groups.

Don’t forget to pick some fun, revolutionary stocking stuffers! Like Johnny Sampson’s glorious “No Bezos” sticker. And you can radicalize your Christmas tree with a hammer-and-sickle or anarchy ornament by artist Paul Garner. Garner’s Che Guevara figurines would also make great gifts!

¡Felices fiestas & viva la revolución!

-Echo @fraulein_echo

P.S. And we’ll see you tomorrow, Tuesday, December 24th, because we’ll be open this one Tuesday from noon to 6! More info here!