jwcurry's Room 302 Books has a new catalogue: list #12

Anyone paying attention to small press in Canada should be purchasing from Ottawa's Room 302 Books, owned and operated by jwcurry, out of his Chinatown apartment/bookstore/workspace. jwcurry really is one of the most important collectors and sellers, as well as one of the most important producers, of Canadian small press. Previous notes I've posted on jwcurry and his wares, rarely available outside of his store, exist (for example) here, here, here and here.

Highlights of the 220 items on “list #12” (with some items already sold out; issued July 18, 2011) include issues of 3¢ Pulp, and works by John Barlow, John M. Bennett, Stan Bevington, Katy Chan, Bob Cobbing, Victor Coleman, Judith Copithorne, Arthur Cravan, jwcurry (including 1¢ newsnotes), Anne Dondertman, Nicky Drumbolis, Daniel f. Bradley, Michael Duquette, K.S. Ernst, a selection of publications and ephemera from the EyeRhymes Conference and Festival (University of Alberta, June 1997), Four Horsemen, D.M. Fraser, Gerry Gilbert, Glenn Goluska, Alan Halsey, Wharton Hood, Mark Laba, D.A. Levy, John Ligoure, R.D. MacPherson, Diane Martin, Steve McCaffery, Janet F. Murchison, Lowell Naeve, Hermann Neutics, bpNichol, R. Murray Schafer, Darrell Schiller, Peter Schuyff, Gio Shanger, John Graves Simcoe, Steven Smith, Raymond Souster, David UU, Alberto Vitacchio and Frank Zappa.

Sample listing:

114. MCCAFFERY (Steve) Prior To Meaning. Buffalo, Friends Of The University Libraries, for 25 december 1996. of an edition totalling 2000, 1/195 trade copies issued as Christmas Broadside series 3 #8. 5 ½ x 8 ½ leaflet; 4 pp printed offset. McCaffery's rather lyrical poem faced w/ fullcolour reproduction of Michael Snow's 1962 “weathered paper collage”, Alice. 7.50

Write, call or simply show up at jwcurry's door for a copy of the list. Other lists are most likely still available.

from the inside cover:

list 12, published occasionally, fixates on a sampling of materials issued to correspond with specific events. there are: exhibition announcements/invitations, catalogues & reviews; holiday mailouts; special issues of magazines; anniversary anthologies; travel gifts; party invitations & handouts; events posters & souvenirs; reminders; memorials; address change notices; publication announcements; programmes; propaganda; parodies; & a handful of unclassifiables. the list could easily have been 5 times its size but, in propitiation for the overt hostility suffusing list 11, i've kept opportunities for bile to a minimum & am mostly enthusiastic about the offerings included herein (irked ire obvious as usual).

of particular note here are the christmas “cards” (& related material, entries 125 – 161) issued by bpNichol &, after his death, Eleanor Nichol. from what i've been able to determine, this is the largest selection ever offered for public sale of these elusive private publications & few – if any – of the variant issues have been previously described.

ROOM 302 BOOKS is probably open whenever you want it to be; just give a call to be sure i'm in & up (613 233 0417) & come to either door of 880 Somerset Street West, Ottawa (K1R 6R7 for the postally-inclined). orders by post are subjected to no postal penalties if paid in advance; please make cheques or money orders payable to jwcurry. returns are a bad idea: don't order it if you don't want it.