What kind of book is this? The cover says it’s a book about a film about a journey to a room. And to those unfamiliar with the works of Andrei Tarkovsky – and more specifically, Stalker (1979) – Zona by Geoff Dyer (Pantheon, 2012) reads like an informal memoir about Dyer’s memories (and fantasies) about what […]
Our managing editor, Benjamin van Loon, recently shared some background of the Anobium story on Chicago Artists Resource: “Much of independent publishing is very quaint, small-towny: covers with script fonts, poetry about childhood, writer bios proclaiming cat ownerships. Plus, for many of these publications, design is usually an afterthought—Papyrus and Times New Roman schlock. And […]
It might be better said as the immateriality of evil. There’s something pernicious about the way Bolaño writes. It lacks the pulp and flame of commercial horror, but it cuts the center of horror. It takes that nasty thing, throws it against the wall, and watches it drip to the floor. That’s the real secret: how […]
Why am I – as Steve Miller once sang, ‘right here at home’ – at Anobium? I had initially considered answering this question – posed to me by a friend who had considered me a ‘guy who didn’t go in for the bizarre for bizarre’s sake’ – as an essay proper, but then that didn’t quite seem right. […]
The Instructions, by Adam Levin (of Chicago novelist fame, not Adam Levine of Moron 5 fame), is the bibliophile’s book. But I’ll get to that later. First, business: On my way to work this morning, I noticed a woman on the train de-purse her e-reader. A fairly typical early-morning L ritual. Based on empirical evidence, it seems […]
