{"title":"Book Yaga","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBook Yaga's selections tend toward books that operate as objects as much as reading experiences: artist publications, small press works, queer literature, and editions where design, tactility, and intention are inseparable from content. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis is not incidental — it reflects a bookselling logic grounded in how books are encountered, handled, and lived with, not just read. Their background sits at the intersection of writing, publishing, and visual literacy, with a particular sensitivity to representation, marginal narratives, and the aesthetics of form. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTheir curatorial instinct leans toward the specific rather than the canonical — works that hold subcultural weight, resist easy categorisation, or quietly reshape the reader’s sense of what a book can be. This selection draws from that orientation: books as artefacts, as signals, as fragments of culture that sit slightly off-centre.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-silence-by-gilles-peress","title":"'The Silence' by Gilles Peress","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"859\" data-end=\"1486\"\u003eA brutal, formally restrained photobook on the 1994 Rwandan genocide, \u003cem data-start=\"939\" data-end=\"952\"\u003eThe Silence\u003c\/em\u003e brings together Gilles Peress’s black-and-white photographs with a chronology and legal-historical material by Alison Des Forges.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"859\" data-end=\"1486\"\u003eIt is not arranged to soften or narrativise catastrophe for the reader; the effect is closer to evidence than reportage, assembling fragments of aftermath, witness, and institutional failure into something stark and hard to shake.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"859\" data-end=\"1486\"\u003eMagnum describes the work as tracing the horror of the genocide, while MoMA exhibited the photographs the same year the book appeared. \u003cspan class=\"\" data-state=\"closed\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1488\" data-end=\"1709\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis book was issued in 1995 as a paperback original, and it comes with the accompanying booklet\/slip. It is in great condition.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\" data-state=\"closed\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44325166415955,"sku":null,"price":225.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-03-30T162039.091.png?v=1774848056"},{"product_id":"monkeys-mask-by-dorothy-porter","title":"'Monkey's Mask' by Dorothy Porter","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"876\" data-end=\"1327\"\u003e\n\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eStill one of the strangest and most successful crossover books in contemporary Australian writing.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"876\" data-end=\"1327\"\u003ePart detective novel, part lesbian noir, part poetry sequence, it follows private investigator Jill Fitzpatrick as she takes on the case of a missing young woman and gets pulled into a world of obsession, sex, performance, and violence. Porter writes the whole thing in verse, but it moves with the momentum of a thriller — sharp, dirty, funny, and unnervingly elegant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1329\" data-end=\"1693\"\u003eThe poetry is not decorative; it is the engine. Porter takes noir’s usual machinery — desire, risk, glamour, corruption — and rewires it through a specifically Australian, specifically queer sensibility. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1329\" data-end=\"1693\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHyland House, South Melbourne, first edition, 1994; this copy is the 1994 reprint. Paperback original. An early signed Australian copy of Porter’s breakthrough verse novel. The book won the Age Book of the Year for Poetry in 1994, along with the National Book Council Award for Poetry and Braille Book of the Year. In great condition.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44325192564819,"sku":null,"price":95.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-03-30T165216.906.png?v=1774849957"},{"product_id":"severance-by-robert-olen-butler","title":"'Severance' by Robert Olen Butler","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"691\" data-end=\"1288\"\u003eRobert Olen Butler gives us a sequence of stories narrated in the final moments after decapitation — historical figures, fictional characters, mythic beings, nobodies, monsters, the lot.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"691\" data-end=\"1288\"\u003eThe formal trick is brutal and precise: each piece is exactly 240 words, built around the old claim that consciousness lingers briefly after the head is cut off. Critics and catalog copy consistently describe the book in those terms, and that severe premise is exactly what gives it its peculiar charge. \u003cspan class=\"\" data-state=\"closed\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1290\" data-end=\"1612\"\u003eButler turns a macabre constraint into something witty, grotesque, sad, and occasionally unexpectedly tender. It sits somewhere between flash fiction, black comedy, thought experiment, and cabinet of curiosities — the kind of book that earns its place through sheer nerve.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1290\" data-end=\"1612\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChronicle Books hardcover edition, 2006. Dust jacket present. Great condition. First edition.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44325199544403,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-03-30T165638.485.png?v=1774850217"},{"product_id":"human-nature-by-jane-rawson","title":"'Human \/ Nature' by Jane Rawson","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"427\" data-end=\"628\"\u003eJane Rawson’s \u003cem data-start=\"441\" data-end=\"455\"\u003eHuman\/Nature\u003c\/em\u003e moves through the uneasy boundary between the human and the more-than-human world, dismantling the sentimental idea of “nature” as something separate, pure, or recoverable.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"630\" data-end=\"937\"\u003eAcross a series of tightly argued essays, Rawson traces extinction, belonging, violence, and care — asking what it means to live ethically in a world where the distinction between human and environment has already collapsed. The tone is precise without being sterile, attentive without pretending innocence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"939\" data-end=\"1135\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eExtensive marginalia throughout in pen; text fully legible — a secondary layer of reading that sits alongside the text. First edition, otherwise in great condition. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44325239160915,"sku":null,"price":12.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-03-30T172612.475.png?v=1774853878"},{"product_id":"the-inmost-heart-800-years-of-womens-letters-edited-by-olga-kenyon","title":"'The Inmost Heart: 800 Years of Women's Letters' edited by Olga Kenyon","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"221\" data-end=\"596\"\u003eAcross eight centuries, these letters slip past the official record: written in grief, boredom, devotion, calculation, desire.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"221\" data-end=\"596\"\u003eSome are careful, some reckless, some composed with full awareness they might be read, others clearly not. What holds them together isn’t theme but pressure — each letter shaped by the conditions around it, whether domestic, political, or intimate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"598\" data-end=\"872\"\u003eRead straight through, the effect is less “women’s history” than accumulation: voices appearing, disappearing, resurfacing centuries apart, still negotiating the same constraints in different languages. It becomes difficult to tell where distance ends and continuity begins.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"598\" data-end=\"872\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGorgeous hardback copy, first edition. Great for a gift. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44325262000211,"sku":null,"price":32.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-03-30T180245.422.png?v=1774854182"},{"product_id":"kinky-history-by-esme-louise-james","title":"'Kinky History' by Esmé Louise James","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"129\" data-end=\"242\"\u003e\n\u003cem data-start=\"129\" data-end=\"144\"\u003eKinky History\u003c\/em\u003e tries to do something slightly impossible: trace desire.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"244\" data-end=\"588\"\u003eRather than a straight march from repression to liberation, Esmé Louise James moves through fragments — case studies, subcultures, moments where sex, power, and social order briefly become visible. She looks between bodies and institutions, pleasure and taboo, intimacy and surveillance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"590\" data-end=\"808\"\u003eAt its best, the book isn’t really about sex as such, but about what sex exposes — how societies organise permission, who gets to define normal, and how those definitions keep shifting just enough to remain believable.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44325281267795,"sku":null,"price":22.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-03-30T182303.724.png?v=1774855442"},{"product_id":"the-swift-dark-tide-by-katia-ariel","title":"'The Swift Dark Tide' by Katia Ariel","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"124\" data-end=\"208\"\u003eA slender, cutting novel about the moment something shifts and doesn’t shift back.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"210\" data-end=\"525\"\u003eIn \u003cem data-start=\"213\" data-end=\"234\"\u003eThe Swift Dark Tide\u003c\/em\u003e, Katia Ariel writes into the charged space between two people where history, desire, and power don’t quite align, but refuse to dissolve. What looks, at first, like an encounter becomes a slow exposure: of imbalance, of misreading, of the subtle ways intimacy can carry its own distortions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"527\" data-end=\"831\"\u003eThe prose is pared back but uneasy—everything sits just slightly off-centre, as if the emotional reality is always lagging behind what’s being said. It’s less interested in resolution than in the accumulation of tension, the quiet recognition that something has already happened, even if no one names it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"833\" data-end=\"898\"\u003eA sharp, contained book that lingers in the ambiguity it creates.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44325284544595,"sku":null,"price":15.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-03-30T182722.328.png?v=1774855655"},{"product_id":"real-keen-baked-bean-by-june-factor-illustrated-by-annie-marshall","title":"'Real Keen Baked Bean!' by June Factor, illustrated by Annie Marshall","description":"\u003cp data-start=\"114\" data-end=\"557\"\u003eA sharp, chaotic little archive of Australian playground culture—counting-out rhymes, insults, jump-rope chants, the kind of verses that mutate as they move between kids.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"559\" data-end=\"951\"\u003eFirst published in the late 1980s, when \u003cspan class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"whitespace-normal\"\u003eJune Factor\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e was documenting schoolyard folklore before it disappeared or got sanitised, the collection sits somewhere between anthropology and mischief. \u003cspan class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"whitespace-normal\"\u003eAnnie Marshall\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e’s drawings are loose, expressive, a bit unhinged, matching the rhythm and bite of the material rather than softening it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"953\" data-end=\"1125\"\u003eIt’s funny, crude, inventive, and occasionally cruel in the way playground culture often is. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1140\" data-end=\"1207\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePaperback, Hodder \u0026amp; Stoughton (1989). Light wear; clean internally.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44537271255123,"sku":null,"price":12.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Yourparagraphtext_22.png?v=1777348153"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-03-30_at_6.28.37_pm.png?v=1774855777","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/collections\/book-yaga.oembed","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}