so it seems right to us to use super text-heavy mode (against every web designer’s advice) to tell you about them. Rising from the ashes of indie-rock magazine Puncture, Verse Chorus Press has now published close to 30 books, starting with Camden Joy’s now cult-classic novel The Last Rock Star Book, or: Liz Phair, a Rant, through to two books by cultural critic Luc Sante, published in collaboration with the excellent art-music-lit zine YETI. Some of our recent titles:

The first books from our new crime fiction imprint, Dark Passage . . . The debut from G.S. Manson, Coorparoo Blues & The Irish Fandango, is set in World War II-era Brisbane and redefines the hard-boiled detective in the person of P.I. Jack Munro, while Peter Doyle's Get Rich Quick, featuring irresistible antihero Billy Glasheen, brilliantly explores the criminal underworld, political corruption, and the effects of the postwar explosion of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll on Australian life.

Jon Langford’s latest collection of paintings, writing, and music, Skull Orchard Revisited, includes a reworked and expanded version of his long-unavailable solo debut album, plus illustrated lyrics (“song paintings”), a witty, dystopian tale about a whale and a dolphin, and more paintings. There's also a limited edition with a signed print.

Wild About You! The Sixties Beat Explosion in Australia and New Zealand. The outpouring of rock’n’roll in '60s Australia and New Zealand produced such iconic bands as the Easybeats, the Masters Apprentices, and the Missing Links, but also many lesser-known bands who created music of enduring power. Profusely illustrated and with a detailed discography, this is the definitive account of a unique time in rock history.

Check out our complete catalog, which includes biographies of AC/DC legend Bon Scott, The Church, and The Go-Betweens, novels by Stacey Levine, Susan Compo, and John Dixon, and a wickedly funny and smart cartoon history of rock. Also: an expanded edition of Inner City Sound, the legendary, photo-packed history of Australian punk and post-punk.

We’re also proud to offer you DeFord, by David Shetzline -- a modern fiction classic. Shetzline was part of a Cornell circle that included Richard Fariña and Thomas Pynchon, who called DeFord "an extraordinary book . . . comic; and impassioned; and always deeply moving."

Three new books out now: John Andrew Fredrick's LA indie-rock novel The King of Good Intentions; Stephen Beachy's twin novellas, Some Phantom/No Time Flat and Temperature's Rising: an oral and visual history of Galaxie 500 (a YETI book).

Forthcoming: An instant noir classic from Arthur Nersesian, Gladyss of the Hunt (October); David Nichols's history of Australian rock and pop music 1960-85, Dig!; and Clinton Walker's Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music (revised and expanded edition - read sample chapter here). More soon . . .

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