Politics is Crime. Crime is Politics. Discuss… Carl F. Gauze reviews Meditations on Crime, the book half of Harper Simon’s super-collaborative art and music project.

Charles DJ Deppner reviews Carl King’s look back at an amusement park made for robots, aliens, and The Dawn of Sir Millard Mulch.

Carl F. Gauze reviews a menacingly large book on the prolific outsider artist Steve Keene.

Love, Death, and Photosynthesis is Bela Koe-Krompecher’s memoir of addiction, friendship, mental illness, and the music scene of early ’90s Ohio.

Plus 1 Athens: Show Flyers from a Legendary Scene reproduces over 150 Athens, Georgia band flyers in a beautifully designed book.

A look back at the early days of Los Angeles punk through the lens of photographer Melanie Nissen and her book HARD + FAST.

From The Windbreakers to Bark, Tim Lee is a trooper in the rock and roll trenches…and he’s lived to tell it all in his new memoir.

From underground thrash metal pioneers, to arguably the biggest rock act in the new millennium, Metallica has had a long and tumultuous history. Ben Apatoff scours a myriad of sources to catalog this history in his new book.

Carl F. Gauze reviews Mike Mattison and Ernest Suarez’s study of how poetry crept into rock and roll.

A young woman abandons a promising skating career only to be chased by her inner demons. Review by Carl F. Gauze.

Over a ten-year period, punk guitar legend Tim Kerr and his wife Beth used thrift store cameras to document self-taught artists’ environments. Combined with portraits of the creators, Self Taught is a celebration of artistic spirit.

Jim Saah documented the D.C. hardcore scene with training from a high school photography class, capturing energy and excitement with a natural sense of technique and art.

From conservatism and socialism to faith, family, and feminism, activist/author Candace Owens addresses many of today’s hottest cultural bullet points in her controversial debut page-turner.

Marc Wasserman gives us an oral history of American Ska. Bob Pomeroy reviews.

For aspiring writers and established authors alike, the latest from Anna-Marie O’Brien is a magical MUST.

This charming graphic novel from Australian Campbell Whyte mixes wonderful illustration and totally weird denizens with regular ‘tween issues.

Muck and mud stand in the way of medicinal yoghurt profits in Pat Grant’s graphic novel.

Carl F. Gauze reviews this graphic novel about a dystopian prison society obsessed with sewage and fighting.

A low-energy author heads out on a book tour that becomes more and more nightmarish as his life falls apart.

Music reviews covering the critical years of rock and roll from 1967 to 1973 by critic and band manager Michael Oberman.