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60 pg Gallery ofBarcelo's incredible artwork in color. ... Read more

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Novella "Mr. Nobody at All" published in mscweeneys no. 16. ... Read more

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Anthology of prose, poetry and literary critcism. "OULIPOCOMPENDIUM is a late 20th-century kabala, a labyrinth of literarysecrets that will lure the uninitiated into rethinking everything theyknow about books and writing. The editors have done an astounding jobputting together this nutty, one-of-a-kind book. It is the definitiveencyclopedia of contemporary word-magic" -- Paul Auster. "Oulipowas--is--a seedbed, a grimace, a carnival. This is an indispensablebook for everyone who cares about literature"--Susan Sontag. TheOULIPO COMPENDIUM abounds in material for writers, teachers andscholars; it also offers a cornucopia of entertainment for curiousreaders. "Oulipans: rats who build the labyrinth from which they planto escape" -- Raymond Queneau. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

This is one of the most useful books I own...
(a) An alternate reference book
(b) A fountain of ideas when your jammed
(c) Literary theory written sideways
(d) A book you should pick up
(e) All of the above

The Escape Hatch
What can I say of the Compendium, except that I wish I had known about it years ago when I was slogging through many a boring creative writing class asking, always, "Is this all we have?" Truly, there is another side to writing, a playful, divergent, fascinating side that gives the reader and the writer a world of untold possibility.

Reading this book was very like being allowed into the fold of the Ultra Cool Kids, finding them to be an evolved form of human, and being welcomed just the same. The history, writing, and exercises held in this volume should be read by everyone thinking of exploring experimental writing. If you are bored with the status quo--and how could you not be?--then this book is for you.

zany literary fun
Oulipo is great!This book is just so full of STUFF.What they did was just spend a lot of time thinking of wild ways to inspire & direct writing, & what we're left with is this labyrinth of experimrents.For me, the one of the greatest things gleaned from Oulipo is just the general sense that therec are sooo many more conceptual & logistical systems out there that you haven't even touched upon yet but that are waiting.

The Book of Ways
If you ever come across Arthur Brand's little article on the Oulipo, cherish it. I read it back in the late 80s, in an anthology somewhere, and I've never been able to find it since. It whet my appetite for these crazy masters of restricted composition, who spend their time devising totally new ways to write. This isn't a book for the "poetry of everyday life" set, or writing workshop clones. It's a book, as Brand said, for "mad scientists, mathematicians, monster-makers and angels." It's a writer's encylopedia, stuffed with ideas, strategies, graphs, games, machines, etc for making poetry and fiction.

Please read this review.
Before reading this book, I didn't know anything about Oulipo....do you?If not, here's the gist:Oulipo are a bunch of slightly crazy people who want to find new and fun ways to write stuff.So, they create all these interesting and zany techniques to generate their writing...to me, it seems similar to how modern composers generate notes and rhythms using tone rows and stuff like that.This book is a "compendium" of these techniques, Oulipo authors, their works, etc.I think it's great.I'd recommend it to writers who want to try something new (as opposed to just writing "from the heart", or whatever) and I'd also recommend it to people who like modern, formalist type stuff.Have fun. ... Read more

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Chapters: Kate Rusby, Nicholas Saunderson, Bill Gooing, Benny Green, Arthur Kenneth Mathews, Bert Hodgkinson, Harry Fearnley, Chris Wood, Grant Crookes, John Clarel. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 33. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Kate Anna Rusby (born 4 December 1973 in Sheffield, England), is an English folk singer and songwriter from Penistone, South Yorkshire. Sometimes known as The Barnsley Nightingale, she has headlined various British national folk festivals, and is regarded as one of the most famous English folk singers of contemporary times. In 2001 The Guardian described her as "a superstar of the British acoustic scene." In 2007 the BBC website described her as "The first lady of young folkies". She is one of the few folk singers to have been nominated for the Mercury Prize. Rusby was born into a family of musicians. After learning to play the guitar, the fiddle, and the piano, as well as to sing, she played in many local folk festivals as a child and adolescent, before joining (and becoming the lead vocalist of) the all-female Celtic folk band The Poozies. Her break-through album came in 1995. A collaboration with her friend and fellow Barnsley folk singer Kathryn Roberts was simply titled "Kate Rusby ... Read more