Recommended Reading: Adam Gnade and his Great American Novels

As of late, I’ve been deep into Adam Gnade‘s pocket sized novels ever since we received a large box of them from Kansas, where the author resides. Gnade (pronounced GUH-NAH-DEE) writes about coming of age in America, friendship, and being involved in alternative music scenes in the early aughts, a time when smartphones hadn’t been invented and the world felt less chaotic and broken.

After Tonight, Everything Will Be Different drew me in with its cover: a picture of a hand pouring hot sauce on a giant burrito inside a taqueria. Maybe I was hungry that day, but something nudged me to buy it (we sold two other copies in the same day, perhaps there was something in the air). After Tonight… is set in San Diego, CA centered around the main character’s memories of growing up in the beachy California town where his parents owned a seafood restaurant. Each chapter is centered around a specific food memory and how the meals or snacks comforted James and his pals after late nights at punk shows, bars, and nights out when the only thing that mattered was being in the moment and escaping reality with chosen family. Despite each chapter being centered around food, the book reads more like an autobiography filled with visceral memories and the pain of early adulthood when you and your friends move on, go to college, or stay put in your hometown and waste time trying to figure out who you are and what you want to be. Gnade has a poetic way of retelling memories that pull the reader into his world by making them relatable and tender.

When you make sense to someone it is a lovely thing. What you are doesn’t tire them or make them nervous or scare them off. They see you and you make sense. Your weird shit makes sense. Your fears and delusions make sense. The things you love make sense. If you don’t make sense, it’s like a bitter flavor in a thing that should be sweet and it’s confusing to people. They don’t get you, and because they don’t get you, you’ve got no chance of being their friend. At 16 I want nothing more than to make sense to people, but I don’t make sense to anyone.

This beautiful paragraph is from the chapter titled “BURRITOS, VARIOUS.

The second book in Gnade’s pocket sized series of America is The Internet Newspaper. In the sequel, we follow James for three days in the year 2000 as he temps for a local internet newspaper in San Diego writing clickbait articles about cats and listing local music events. At night, he’s raiding the alcohol cabinet of a stranger’s home with friends while they house sit and driving to Tijuana with his coworkers for a press junket and getting drunk on the company dime. The Internet Newspaper captures a time when the internet was a place where information was less available and more casual, not all encompassing like it is today. The book is not just about the internet and the experience of having your first grown-up job, but about the main character’s life as a twenty-something punk having fun with friends while battling debilitating depression and suicidal ideation.

As I savor the last few pages of The Internet Newspaper, I look forward to reading I Wish to Say Lovely Things, Gnade’s follow up novel about love in all its many forms.

tl;dr Adam Gnade makes reading fun, inspiring, accessible, and cool with his badass autofiction novels.

*xo~Angel~xo*

@angel.xoxoxoxox

New Stuff This Week

 

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2025 Slingshot Planners! Pocket size $8 / Pocket size spiral $12 / Large spiral size $16

Zines

Cathode Ray Mission #3 A Sci-Fi and Horror Fanzine Fall 2024 $2

Zines by Rojas: Anxious Eye Farming With Marx at the Edge of the World $5, Chinga La Migra Means Fuck the World – Border Violence Migration and the End of the World (with Diego and 2ry) $7, Anxious Eye Farming With Marx at the Edge of the World $5 & more.

Butler Burger issues #1-#3 $2.50 each

Bug Serial #1 Sum 24 by Spinelli and Splif $3

Little Guide to Analog Photo Booths in Chicago by Charlie Sierra $10

Stream Your Head Off #25 Aug 24 by Ross Peterson $5

Rate of Decay #9 $2

People Looking at Art 2018-2024 by Chris Gleason $15

Momentary Alchemy by davonperspectives $24

How to Tell Democrats from Republicans by Bronwyn Mauldin $7

Non Dichotomy by Kara Hawley $7

Comics

Scorpio Venus Rising #2 by Corinne Halbert $10

Jewels of Thought – A Dialogue With Pharoah Sanders by Kaitlin Kostus $6

Why Does She Hurt Herself Like That by Heather Benjamin $20

Larch Spinney issues #1 $ #2 by Sigil Snoot $10 each

Photogenic #1 The Gift That Keeps on Giving by Dominic and Margo Sawaya and Jen Chavez $10

Graphic Novels

Final Cut by Charles Burns $34

Heavenly Days by Em Frank (Floating World) $29.99

The Scrapbook of Life and Death by J Webster Sharp (Avery Hill) $19.99

Disciples of the Soil by B Mure (Avery Hill) $12.99

Art Books

Mr. Brainwash: Franchise of the Mind by Ted Vassilev $35

Fiction

The Repeat Room: A Novel by Jesse Ball $27

Rejection: Fiction by Tony Tulathimutte $28

Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams $20

The Free People’s Village: A Novel by Sim Kern $18.99

Greatest Hits by Harlan Ellison, edited by Michael Straczynski $19.99

Like Red on a Rose by Rathan Krueger $15.99

Film & Music Books

The Last Dream by Pedro Almodóvar $26

Taste in Music: Eating on Tour with Indie Musicians by Alex Bleeker and Luke Pysenson $27.95

Depeche Mode Live by Dennis Burmeister and Sascha Lange (Akashic) $59.95

Mayhem & Outer Limits

The Witch’s Door: Oddities and Tales from the Esoteric to the Extreme by Ryan Matthew Cohn & Regina M. Rossi $30

Eerie Legends: An Illustrated Exploration of Creepy Creatures, the Paranormal, and Folklore from around the World by Ricardo Diseño & Steve Mockus $29.99

Freaky Folklore: Terrifying Tales of the World’s Most Elusive Monsters and Enigmatic Cryptids by Darkness Prevails with Carman Carrion $19.99

Magazines

Para Llevar issues #3 & #4 $22 each

RFD #199 $11.95

Gush Magazine vol 1 #2 $10

Local Spooky: Full Bleeeeeeeeed

AHHH! WHAT’S THAT BEHIND YOU???

Oh! It’s the spooky season!!

Fall is here and there’s already a little chill in the air… With October (the best month of the year by a gapingly enormous margin) just around the corner, many of us are looking very much forward to all the fun, fun activities of the spooky season: coming up with Halloween costumes; eating supernatural amounts of candy; carving 80 to 90 pumpkins into exact replicas of Moo Deng the sassy baby hippo; and, of course, watching as many horror movies as humanly possible! 

Whether you’re a seasoned horror flick connoisseur, a sweet lil’ chicken whose terror tolerance is maxed out by It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, or somewhere in between, October is a great time to watch some scary (and not-so-scary) movies. If you agree, I’d like to point your attention to a new zine that you won’t want to sleep on: 

An orange zine titled "Full Bleed" is displayed on a shelf, among other spooky zines and decorations, including a white, plastic skull and crossbones and a skeleton sticker pack.

The premier issue of Full Bleed: Chicago’s #1 Horror & Exploitation Zine is currently on the shelves at Quimby’s, so get it while we got it! This wicked zine is jam packed with horror movie reviews, an interview with local comic artist Tyrell Cannon, a Chicago horror directory, a frighteningly hilarious comic, and more. 

Don’t miss Eerie Ed’s 31-day Argentober Letterboxd challenge, which is outlined on page 9! Eerie Ed challenges readers to join him in watching one horror movie from another country per day during the month of October. 

And be sure to check out the STACKED calendar of upcoming local events that graces the center spread! It showcases horror film screenings and other spooky events that will be happening in Chicago from October through December.

A hand holds a zine open to a Table of Contents page and a Letters to the Editor page of a zine titled Full Bleed.

Chicago thanks you, Full Bleed staff (“Tombstone” Tony Recktenwald, “Eerie” Ed Witt, “Jump-scare” Judson Picco, and Dean “the Ween” Gibbs), for this horrifically delightful new horror zine!

Shine on, zine-stars! 

<3 <3 <3 Echo

Zine Club Chicago Poetry Comix Edition, with Mita Mahato, Oct 20th

Oct ’24
20
3:00 pm

Join comix artist and poet Mita Mahato for a poetry comix workshop in conjunction with the launch of her new book Arctic Play. Mahato will share her process in making the book as a jumping off point to guide folks in experimenting with poetic forms, color, and collage to make poetry comix of their own. No experience necessary!

3 p.m. Sunday, October 20, 2024

Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave.

Free!

Arctic Play is a drama, a dirge, an expedition log, a series of poetic experiments, a comic book. Mapping an Arctic imaginary of beings and landforms onto a shifting stage of woven and layered papers, Mahato conjures geographic and creative uncertainty as the necessary condition for navigating the climate crisis and its sorrows.

“With a caring awareness, Mahato hints at the expansive possibilities of the comix medium—and the human experience.” ~ Lale Westvind, Grip

Arctic Play is both wildly experimental and completely confident in how it inhabits poetry, comix, collage, weaving, and playwriting.” ~ Aidan Koch, Spiral and Other Stories

Mita Mahato is a comix artist and poet who assembles her panels and pages with cut and collaged papers. Her poetry comix have appeared in places including PRISM, Ecotone, Iterant, Shenandoah, Coast/NoCoast, ANMLY, and Drunken Boat, as well as in the collection In Between, published by Pleiades. She lives in Seattle.

Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are always welcome at Zine Club Chicago. This free monthly event series is produced by Cynthia E. Hanifin and sponsored by Quimby’s Bookstore. Anna Jo Beck designs the monthly flyers, created the logo, and made the Zine Club Chicago Shout-Outs site, where folks can peruse and recommend zines we’ve discussed at our events: https://zineclubchicagoshoutouts.spread.name/

More info:

Zine Club Chicago social media channels: @zineclubchicago like here on IG and here on Twitter.

editors(at)the3rdthing(dot)press

Sunday, October 20, and 3pm – Free Event

Facebook invite here.

New Stuff This Week

 

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Zines

Political Monsters: How Presidents Influence Horror Movies by Tea Krulos $5

Angelic Confessions #3 by angel xoxo $5

100 Swims: Last Summer’s Diaries by Hurley Winkler $13

Through Walls #2 $16

August African Athority $3

Zines by Honetii: There’s A Time and Place for This Sort of Thing $8, 01 A Vocaloid Fanzine $5

New stuff from Ed of The Word Distro: Ed Reviews Stuff #2 $2, Touring America the #2 Pencil Edition – A Pencil of the Week Collaboration $3

I Never Played Catch With My Dad and Now Hes Dead So I’ll Never Have To: 121 Jokes by Zach Mason $6

Transmutations – An Early Memoir $2

Good Advice From Kaiju #2 Eating Disorder Treatment and Recovery $2

Sabotage Noise #1 Compiled Interviews $3

Clara Dixon: Poet Printer of Early American Anarchism $3

Comics

No Pants Revolution #8 Acceptance by Andrea Pearson $8

Horror Movie Tinder by Tori Bowler (Silver Sprocket) $14.99

The Promo: Roadworks From the Working Men by Revolvoe (Wiggle Bird Mailing Club) $6

New Stuff from DnA Artists: Devoted by Dana Amundsen $12, Anxious Critters by Alex O’Keefe $7 & more!

Debacle of the Unfairly Distributed Pear Orchard and Six More Drawn Stories by Isaac George Lauritsen $12

Don’t Ask by Don Unger $6

Stinson’s Inferno by Dave Nuss and Peter & Maria Hoey $15

From a Dolls POV $5

Nut #3 + #4 by Brandon John $5, $10

Graphic Novels

When to Pick a Pomegranate by Yasmeen Abedifard (Silver Sprocket) $14.99

Day and Age Year Three by Andrew Oh $12

Gravity Well or a Collection of OC Brainrot Induced Insanity by Honetii $15

The Farewell Song of Marcel Labrume by Attilio Micheluzzi $24.99

Ocultos by Laura Perez (Fantagraphics) $24.99

Politics, Revolution, Essay & Crit

Visualizing Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation edited by Aline Batarseh, Jessica Anderson and Yosra El Gazzar (Haymarket) $50

Program Or Be Programmed: Eleven Commands for the AI Future by Douglas Rushkoff $19.95

Outer Limits & Mayhem

Occult: Decoding the Visual Culture of Mysticism, Magic and Divination by Peter Forshaw $35

Whispers from the Coven: Tales of Charms, Witchcraft & Lessons from the Spirit World by Chris Allaun $25.95

Witches: A Compendium by Judika Illes $16.95

Baphomet Revealed: Mysteries and Magic of the Sacred Icon by Heather Lynn $17.95

A Confluence of Witches: A Modern Witches Anthology – Celebrating Our Lunar Roots, Decolonizing the Craft, and Reenchanting Our World by Casey Zabala $18.95

The Witches Almanac #44 Spring 2025 and 2026 $15.95

Music Books

How to Run an Indie Label by Alan McGee (Rare Bird Books) $28

Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain by William and Jim Reid $30

Various Artists’ Red Hot + Blue (33 1/3 vol 185) by John S. Garrison $14.95

Hollywood Dream, The Thunderclap Newman Story: Pete Townshend, a Band of Outsiders, and the Birth of British Indie Music by Mark Wilkerson (Third Man Books) $22.95

From Heartworm: Heartworm Reader vol 2 $23

Love In a Time of Violence: Selected Lyrics of Crime and City Solution by Simon Bonney and Bronwyn Adams $23

Sex Guides & Culture

Coming Out Like a Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy Second Edition by Jiz Lee (Feminist Press) $24.95

Fiction

Gifted: A Novel by Suzuki Suzumi $18.95

Whispers from the Coven: Tales of Charms, Witchcraft & Lessons from the Spirit World by Chris Allaun $25.95

Health and Safety: A Breakdown by Emily Witt $27

The Escher Man by T.R. Napper $17.99

Out of the Drowning Deep by A. C. Wise $19.99

Chap Books

Cripple’s Coil – Scenes From a Disabled Life by Roxanne Rose Monaghan $8

My Women – Poems by Nazaret Ranea $5

Love Letters and Lease Agreements Poetry by Chuck Thompson $3

Shrooms

The Mushroom Compendium: Explore the Kingdom of Fungi by Alice Pattullo $21.99

Magazines & Newspapers

Tape Op #163 $5.99

The Communist Party: Newspaper of the International Communist Party $.25

International Review #172 $3

The Internationalist #73 $1

Elska issues #41 San Francisco California vol 2 and #48 Melbourne Australia, both $20 each