From Zappa hurting someone to Kurt Cobain hurting himself. From trees of peace (except one) to bicycles of terrorism and crappy nappies, this book contains everything you ever need to know - and some things you wish you didn't This is to be Sexton Ming's first ever mass market paperback, and the first book ever to be devoted to his strange and wonderful drawings. Ming is a writer/musician/painter extraordinaire and his meandering mind can take you on an otherworldly journey steeped in so much black humour, tangential weirdness and biting observation of the human race it makes this world a much better place. He is little known in mainstream culture but is in fact world famous. He was a founding member of the Medway Poets, has appeared on over 20 albums, painted some of the strangest paintings in the world, supported Sonic Youth live, was called a failed intellectual by Ralph Steadman, once saved Billy Childish's life

Most unusually among major painters, Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) was also an accomplished writer. His letters provide both a unique self-portrait and a vivid picture of the contemporary cultural scene. Van Gogh emerges as a complex but captivating personality, struggling with utter integrity to fulfil his artistic destiny. This major new edition, which is based on an entirely new translation, reinstating a large number of passages omitted from earlier editions, is expressly designed to reveal his inner journey as much as the outward facts of his life. It includes complete letters wherever possible, linked with brief passages of connecting narrative and showing all the pen-and-ink sketches that originally went with them. Despite the familiar image of Van Gogh as an antisocial madman who died a martyr to his art, his troubled life was rich in friendships and generous passions. In his letters we discover the humanitarian and religious causes he embraced, his fascination with the French Revolution, his striving for God and for ethical ideals, his desperate courtship of his cousin, Kee Vos, and his largely unsuccessful search for love. All of this, suggests De Leeuw, demolishes some of the myths surrounding Van Gogh and his career but brings hint before us as a flesh-and-blood human being, an individual of immense pathos and spiritual depth. Perhaps even more moving, these letters illuminate his constant conflicts as a painter, torn between realism, symbolism and abstraction; between landscape and portraiture; between his desire to depict peasant life and the exciting diversions of the city; between his uncanny versatility as a sketcher and his ideal of the full-scale finished tableau. SinceVan Gogh received little feedback from the public, he wrote at length to friends, fellow artists and his family, above all to his brother Theo, the Parisian art dealer, who was his confidant and mainstay. Along with his intense powers of visual imagination, Vincent brought to the

In 1951, Joan Eardley visited the coastal fishing village of Catterline in north-east Scotland for the first time. Her visit sparked a fascination that would last the rest of her life. She made the village her home and found inspiration in the dramatic light and rapidly changing weather. The gentle landscapes and wild rolling seascapes she painted of Catterline in wind, snow, rain and sun are among her best-loved works. Unpublished archival material and interviews with many of those who knew her shed new light on Eardley's life in Catterline. A vivid portrait is painted both of Eardley and of the village, showing the vital part Catterline played in her development as an artist. The story of her experiences on the wild Scottish coast is evocatively told and beautifully illustrated with some of her most remarkable drawings and paintings.

Those who know Kurt Vonnegut as one of America's most beloved and
influential writers will be surprised and delighted to discover that he was also a
gifted graphic artist. This book brings together the finest examples of his funny,
strange, and moving drawings in an inexpensive, beautifully produced gift
volume for every Vonnegut fan.
Kurt Vonnegut's daughter Nanette introduces this volume of his never before
published drawings with an intimate remembrance of her father. Vonnegut always
drew, and many of his novels contain sketches. "Breakfast of Champions" (1973)
included many felt-tip pen drawings, and he had a show in 1983 of his drawings at
New York's Margo Feiden Gallery, but really got going in the early 1990s when he
became acquainted with the screenprinter Joe Petro III, who became his partner in
making his colorful drawings available as silkscreens.
With a touch of cubism, mixed with a Paul Klee gift for caricature, a Calder-like ability
to balance color and line, and more than a touch of sixties psychedelic sensibility,
Vonnegut's aesthetic is as idiosyncratic and defiant of tradition as his books. While
writing came to be more onerous in his later years, making art became his joyful
primary activity, and he made drawings up until his death in 2007. This volume, and a
planned touring exhibition of the drawings, will introduce Vonnegut's legion of fans to
an entirely new side of his irrepressible creative personality.