Zabriskie - Buchladen für Kultur & Natur

08/08/2026

More exciting summer readings: Magical and animist realist masterworks, an anti-colonial classic, and two jazz and hoodoo infused speculative fictions.

GROOVE, BANG AND JIVE AROUND, by Steve Cannon. Blank Forms
Seeped in psychedelia and hoodoo, this erotic farce follows Anette, a fourteen-year-old runaway, from the outhouse of a New Orleans juke joint to the land of Oo-bla-dee, a realm of bacchanalian self-determination founded by Dizzy Gillespie. Inspired equally by Chester Himes and Women’s Liberation.

MUMBO JUMBO, by Ishmael Reed.
A plague is spreading across 1920s America. It’s an epidemic of free expression, carried by black artists, and its symptoms are an uncontrollable urge to dance, sing, laugh and jive. A freewheeling, explosive blend of jazz, ragtime, ancient myth, magic and conspiracy thriller, this anarchic postmodern classic is a satire for our times.

THINGS FALL APART, by Chinua Achebe.
Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.

THE PALM-WINE DRINKARD, by Amos Tutuola.
This classic novel tells the phantasmagorical story of an alcoholic man and his search for his dead palm-wine tapster. Mixing Yoruba folktales with what T. S. Eliot described as a ‘creepy crawly imagination’, The Palm-Wine Drinkard is regarded as a seminal work of African literature.

MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS, by Amos Tutuola.
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts tells the tale of a small boy who wanders into the heart of a fantastical African forest, the dwelling place of innumerable wild, grotesque and terrifying beings.

THE FAMISHED ROAD, by Ben Okri.
Azaro is a spirit child, who in many traditions of Nigeria exists between life and death. Born into a difficult world, Azaro awakens with a smile on his face. Despite belonging to a spirit world made of enchantment, where there is no suffering, Azaro chooses to stay in the land of the Living: to feel it, endure it, know it and love it. This is his story.

01/08/2026

In these times of relentless acceleration, it’s refreshing to embrace different conceptions of time — geological, earthy, stony. Here are a few suggestions to help you to tune in to other rhythms.

TURNING TO STONE, by Marcia Bjornerud. Published by
The lives of rocks are long and complex, spanning billions of years and yet shaping our own human lives in powerful ways. Rocks are full of wisdom, but many of us have forgotten how to hear it. A geocentric worldview reminds us that we are part of a planetary community where we can find wisdom in the most unlikely places.

CLAY - A HUMAN HISTORY, by Jennifer Lucy Allan. Published by White Rabbit Books
Jennifer Lucy Allan navigates the story of humankind and our relationship to creativity through our relationship with the ancient material of clay. Born out of a desire to know and understand the spiritual and practical applications of clay, this book is a hybrid of archaeology, history and lived experience as an amateur potter.

NOTES FROM DEEP TIME, by Helen Gordon. Published by Profile Books
Wanting a fresh perspective on her own life, Helen Gordon set out to read the epic narrative of the landscape. Her odyssey takes her from the secret fossils of London to the 3-billion-year-old rocks of the Scottish Highlands, and from a state-of-the-art earthquake monitoring system in California to one of the world’s most dangerous volcanic complexes in Naples.

WEATHERING, by Ruth Allen (PhD, MNCS). Published by Penguin Books
In a stunning exploration of our own connection to the enduring forms of mountains, outdoor psychotherapist and geologist Ruth Allen takes us on a journey through deep time and ancient landscapes, showing how geology can offer us a new way of thinking about our own grief, change and boundaries.

IN PRAISE OF THE EARTH, by Byung-Chul Han. Published by Polity
The philosopher Byung-Chul Han spent three springs, summers, autumns, and winters in his garden in Berlin, devoting himself to daily gardening in all weathers. The longer he worked in the garden, the more respect he developed for the earth and for its enchanting beauty.

30/07/2026

27/07/2026

Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines.
We have added this comprehensive volume to our shelves. Published by Phaidon in collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum, this book documents over 50 years of zine history and independent publishing in North America.

Released alongside the museum’s groundbreaking exhibition, the publication explores how artists, punks, and q***r collectives used the photocopy machine as a radical tool for self-expression, political activism, and community building.

From the 1970s to today, it covers everything from alternative art scenes and subcultural networks to the raw aesthetics of underground print.

***rculture

25/07/2026

Summer Readings: Charco Press
If you’ve checked out our latest newsletter, you already know that this summer is packed with extraordinary Latin American fiction translated into English. Today, we want to highlight five incredible titles from the Charco Press catalog that are waiting for you on our shelves here in Kreuzberg:

The Adventures of China Iron – Gabriela Cabezón Cámara Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
A free, feminist, and q***r rewriting of the gaucho epic poem Martín Fierro across the 19th-century Argentine pampa. Translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre.

On Earth As It Is Beneath – Ana Paula Maia Ana Paula Maia
A visceral, dark, and deeply striking novel set in an isolated penal colony. Longlisted for the International Booker Prize. Translated by Padma Viswanathan.

The Vortex – José Eustasio Rivera
An absolute classic of the Colombian Amazonian jungle celebrating its centenary. A devastating critique of the rubber extraction era. Translated by Daniel Hahn and Victor Meadowcroft.

The Dance and the Fire – Daniel Saldaña París Daniel Saldaña París
Three former friends reunite in a wildfire-ringed Cuernavaca, Mexico, where a long-buried love triangle and an ecstatic dance ritual begin to reshape their reality. Translated by Christina MacSweeney.

Animal Spiral – Luis Othoniel Rosa Luis Othoniel Rosa
Speculative fiction, anarchism, and collective mind-links in a mind-bending journey through transhuman history. Translated by Katie Marya.

Find the link to the full newsletter list in our bio to browse all our summer recommendations, or come visit us in the shop!

21/07/2026

“Psychedelic Plant Medicines of the Americas - History, Traditions, and Indigenous Voices” is an essential new collection that explores the cultural, medicinal, and spiritual traditions of ma*****na, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and other psychedelics —informed by both Western and Indigenous knowledge. By Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Henrique Fernandes Antunes, Nidia Olvera Hernández, Clancy Cavnar. Publihed by North Atlantic Books.

North Atlantic Books

The book is a collection of 23 psychedelic-specific articles, written by historians, anthropologists, psychologists, and those from other fields in the humanities. It offers the broadest, most up-to-date perspectives of any book on the field of psychedelics, including explorations of:

• Marijuana’s colonial history in Mexico
• Psilocybin mushrooms’ traditional and contemporary uses
• Ayahuasca’s and peyote’s roles in Indigenous and religious contexts
• Many more psychoactive plant medicines, including coca and to***co

The anthology is a critical reminder, at a time when psychedelics continue to become more popular and mainstreamed at a global level, that these plant medicines are more than a facet of Western counterculture—they’re central to the Indigenous cultures and lifeways that sustain them.

Gaining a greater understanding of why people have used and continue to use psychedelic plant medicines—informed by those with rich expertise and knowledge histories—is imperative. The editors and contributors offer a vital, comprehensive, and deeply rooted examination of plant medicine ontologies.

17/07/2026

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be focusing on a field that often flies under the radar here: fictional storytelling!

We’ll start with the fantastic Sheffield-based publisher AND OTHER STORIES (or simply: &). And Other Stories Publishing

* TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE, by Yang Shuang-zi, has just won the Booker Prize:
Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, Taiwan Travelogue is a bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history and power. Set in May 1938, the young novelist Aoyama Chizuko sails from Japan to Taiwan where her interpreter helps her experience real island life and taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be focusing on a field that often flies under the radar here: fictional storytelling!

We’ll start with the fantastic Sheffield-based publisher AND OTHER STORIES (or simply: &). And Other Stories Publishing

* TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE, by Yang Shuang-zi, has just won the Booker Prize:
Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, Taiwan Travelogue is a bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history and power. Set in May 1938, the young novelist Aoyama Chizuko sails from Japan to Taiwan where her interpreter helps her experience real island life and taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be focusing on a field that often flies under the radar here: fictional storytelling!

We’ll start with the fantastic Sheffield-based publisher AND OTHER STORIES (or simply: &). And Other Stories Publishing

* TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE, by Yang Shuang-zi, has just won the Booker Prize:
Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, Taiwan Travelogue is a bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history and power. Set in May 1938, the young novelist Aoyama Chizuko sails from Japan to Taiwan where her interpreter helps her experience real island life and taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.

* NIGHT OF THE LIVING REZ, b

16/07/2026

The Slow Technology Reader gathers contributions from diverse disciplinary fields and knowledge traditions to consider technology through a ‘Slow’ lens. By turns artistic, speculative, and academic the contents here probe alternative potentials for the digital entities proliferating in our midst, by invoking variable pacings and temporalities of engagement; reflecting through tools and techniques that have endured the test of time; and looking to non-Western and more-than-human sources to inspire technological development.

This new volume in the Slow Reader series gestures toward a fuller spectrum of what technology is and can be, moving beyond the limited perspectives and legacy structures that dominate technological development today. It includes the rich insights and intelligences of feminist, q***r, Indigenous, activist, and ecological practices—offering them as vibrant data points for shaping more just and generative futures. At a time when the digital reaches into nearly every facet of planetary existence, this book aims to disrupt and recalibrate how we think about and relate/live with technology, illuminating more expansive pathways forward.

Edited by Carolyn F. Strauss, published by Valiz.

With contributions by Kader Attia Scott Benesii Claudio Bueno Derrais (like Paris) Raven Chacon Siobhan Will Daddario Mashinka Firunts Hakopian Dakin Hart candice hopkins .hvidt Danelle Khojayeva dr kite (Takuyepi Kin Gluonihanwin) Pia Lindman .maiboroda Nanako Nakajima Marina Orlova rory pilgrim 🐅eli eli 🐅 Milady Renoir Oscar Santillán Mindy Seu Foluke Taylor Ovidiu Tichindeleanu and many more!

13/07/2026

Q***r Flora, Fauna, and Funga is an eclectic and transdisciplinary anthology, highlighting the sexual and gender diversity in nature. Q***r theory and natural history intersect through visual art and creative writing.
Edited by Frances Cannon, published by Valiz.

Publisher Valiz

This publication gives attention to roughly forty case studies, which inspire us to reimagine the world and our place in it. Each contribution dives into questions such as: How does acknowledging the q***rness of nature inspire us to compose the world otherwise?

How can we rewrite history to make a place for ourselves in the story? And what is the role of an individual in a symbiotic community? The arts, poetry, scientific and speculative writing spark this imagination, and give readers tools to shape the world differently.

Q***r Flora, Fauna, and Funga asks to expand our knowledge about sexual and gender diversity, and to reconsider our relationships with each other and our more-than-human companions in the natural world.

Contributors are Clover Ajamie, .aloi, Suzette Bousema & , Frances Cannon, CAConrad, Anna Colin, .emmerik, Melissa Faliveno, Ros Gray, Marjolein van der Loo, , , Erik Peters, Nina Scott, Sophie Seita & Naomi Woo, , , Charlotte Woolf, Sixto-Juan Zavala ... and many more!

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***rflorafaunanadfunga ***rnature ***recology

08/07/2026

Twenty years after his acclaimed postpunk book, Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds tells the tale of what happened next: the underground explosion of noisepop, shoegaze, slacker rock and grunge that reverberated through the mid-Eighties into the early Nineties. STILL IN A DREAM is published by White Rabbit Books. White Rabbit Books

Capturing the musical exhilaration of the era along with the alienation of youth during a period of ascendant conservative politics and glitzy mainstream pop, Still in a Dream celebrates a golden age of guitar reinvention, a second psychedelia of mind-blowing sounds pioneered by bands like My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth.

In Britain, groups like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive escaped into shimmering dreamworlds while American underground rockers like Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement blended apathy and urgency into thrilling noise.

A propulsive and personal account from a journalist who covered this music in real time from the frontlines, Still in a Dream vividly recreates a period that was the last blast for the analogue culture of vinyl records and music papers, before the Internet changed everything.