The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications
By Christian Rätsch, Ph.D. Foreward by Albert Hofmann.

A solid contender for the title of Greatest Coffee Table Book in the World (Ever), Christian Rätsch's Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants assembles decades of first-hand research by the author. Rätsch has traveled the world investigating the mythology, history, and use of psychoactive plants -- from South American shamanistic ayauhasca brews to Mexican peyote cults to the mythical soma of ancient lore, he explores the chemical makeup, history, and cultural significance of hundreds of plants. Weighing in at seven pounds and almost a thousand pages, this tome is sure to offer a tempting new challenge for even the most jaded psychonaut.

Albert Hofmann's foreward alone is worth the price of admission. Hofmann, the (in)famous father of LSD, considers the question, "Why psychedelics?" Hofmann, a cautious scientist and thinker who regards LSD as his "problem child", concludes that in a world of spiritual malaise, environmental decay, and economic disparity, psychoactive plants point to a new way of thinking, revealing a unity of purpose missing from today's "modern" societies. It's not a new idea, but it's surprising to hear Hofmann offer such a utopian take on the psychedelic experience.

Rätsch's book, while lacking in practical details such as dosage recommendations or preparation tips, offers a detailed look at the culture of psychoactive plants. For any researcher who wants to understand more than just the chemistry behind his or her favorite mind-expanding compounds, it provides a wealth of valuable information.

Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook
By the CrimethInc. Ex-Worker's Collective, www.crimethinc.com

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to smash The State we go. If you're looking for a handbook for carving out a small autonomous space within the rapacious, grinding machine of global capitalism, look no further! CrimethInc., an anarchist collective based in Washington , has just the book for you.

Recipes for Disaster compiles 600+ pages of gray-area know-how from thirty collectives around the world. If you've ever wondered how to use wheatpasting to spread your subversive messages, sabotage your local corporation's water, phone, and natural gas lines, or create some kickass graffiti art, you'll find the answers within these pages. (Even more practical: a recipe for non-monogamous (but respectful!) relationships! Oh, brave new world!)

My personal favorite recipe is for Toynbee tiles. First notice in the mid-90's, Toynbee tiles are slabs of linoleum sunk in the streets of New York , Philadelphia , Baltimore , D.C. , and other cities. The tiles, bearing a cryptic message about "Toynbee ideas in Kubrick's 2001: resurrect dead on planet Jupiter," have shown up as far away as Santiago , Chile . Explanations for the tiles usually fall short of their mystery, but some suggest the tiles are an elaborate David Mamet reference.

You might not be as mysterious or eccentric as the anonymous Toynbee Tiler, but with Recipes for Disaster you can carve your own bizarre-o screed into the nation's streets. All it takes is some linoleum, tar paper, and asphalt sealant. Carve your message in the linoleum, stick it to the tar paper, and apply a liberal amount of asphalt sealant. Then, next time you find yourself waiting to cross the street, slap your creation down on the pavement. Passing cars will push your message into the road, and soon you'll have a semi-permanent monument to your madness.

JOY CITY
By Eric Sisak

"There was fear and it was spreading." So opens Eric Sisak's Joy City , a novel set in a broken, wasted world populated by mostly pre-verbal primitives. It's a Hobbesian land where meteors rain death from the skies and a sense of foreboding hangs in the air. It's also a world of magic, where great pyramids rise from the ground and corpses move as though alive. In this world of constant danger, Sisak's characters try to carve out some measure of humanity among themselves, forming loose families in their trek across the wastelands.

The plot of Joy City is more like a long-form poem than a typical novel. Characters, well-drawn but slightly distant, slip in and out of the narrative; much of the story has a hazy, fugue-like feel befitting the hostile, alien world. It's a slippery, evocative piece of work that won't appeal to everyone, but to those of like mind, will provide an enjoyable, challenging read.

Mars Attacks. AGAIN! - More Bloodshed, Famine and the Extinction of Liberty
By Thomas VanGemert
Borderhaus Press

He managed to impregnate his girlfriend. This was something he never conceived happening and then it did happen and he felt very unfortunate and cursed and hopeless. To make matters worse she decided to keep the child. Despite his opposing desires, he managed to remain on good terms with her.

He would often spend time with the pregnant girl in her apartment in the evenings. He would sit with her in the living room and think of things to say to her. The silence wasn't awkward for him. It seemed to slow down time and force it onto his side. He needed time.

He smoked dope to handle the situation and drank whiskey too. Especially during the hour after she went to bed. Then he would grab a kitchen chair and slip quietly into her bedroom, place the chair down next to the bed, sit down and watch.

It didn't take long for it to begin. They seemed to wait for him before they started. First a red glowing ring would form around the swollen belly underneath her silk nightey. Slowly her entire belly illuminated with a fierce red glow. Tiny hands appeared and then two beings climbed out of the light. One being was male and the other was female. This was obvious; they were naked. They also had long bald heads and large black almond shaped eyes. He was sure that they were aliens. There was no possible argument against this notion. He watched, fixated.

The Last Great Glass Meat Million
by John Thomas Menesini
Six Gallery Press.

The Last Great Glass Meat Million is best read as an artifact from a nondescript western Pennsylvania town - the kind of place that used to be known for fruitful coal mines; the kind of place where the people have no power beyond their back yard. This is the kind of place where very little ever moves, as suggested in the language Menesini uses. The imagery here is dense; it sits on the pavement like a tired engine block.

"A friend of mine," John told me, "a friend of mine who is a genius and who lives in Toronto and is a dogmatic pile of shit screwed me in my fucking asshole because he had a great huge fucking problem with the fact that there were so many similes in my goddam book because I was like, 'like, like, like, like, like like like.' "

Johnny swears that his book, and his work, is apolitical. Some would argue that describing "the aftermath of an explosion," as he puts it in part one of his book, is in itself a political act. Johnny wouldn't hear of it:

"An artist must be apolitical. Every fucking time you put something down on paper, you're exposing yourself: this is me, and this is all my dirtiness, so therefore our necks are all on the block."

But if we're all upfront about our dirtiness, wouldn't it make the piety police inconsequential? We all have our dirty thoughts, we all have shame going back to toilet training..

"Yeah, but there's still gonna be too many bad writers, regardless of that, wasting too much time trying to publish bad things. Maybe they should spend time gardening, or becoming stewards for, I dunno, air vessels, and maybe they should be, I dunno, digging holes."

The second part of the book moves from images of the artist's youth (and a preoccupation with junk, with garbage) to images of a youth dissolving, or trying to, in an almost mystical way.

"I call it cryptic," Johnny explains. "You call it mysticism - the whole thing that permeates the second half of the book. You don't have the fucking advantage of being on a mountain top or being in a monastery; you have to scrub dishes but yet you have these fucking heavy ideas in your mind, so you have to write them down, you know.

"I wasn't trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. I wasn't trying to create these riddles that the passerby. that people wouldn't get. I was just, like, trying to communicate things in the way I saw 'em, in the language that I knew, you know? No big scene."