June 2026 Acquisitions

Books:

Charles Ardai et al. Heat Seeker: Exposed--A Gun Honey Series Vol. 3, 2026.

Andy Diggle and Jock, Green Arrow: Year One, 2026.

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, We3, 2025.

Ben Rhodes, All We Say: The Battle for American Identity--A History in 15 Speeches, 2026.

Various, Elseworlds: Batman Vol. 3, 2018.

Music:

Don Covay, Mercy Mercy: The Definitive Don Covay, 1994.

Graham Coxon, Castle Park, 2026.

Haircut 100, Boxing the Compass, 2026.

Heavy Stereo, "Sleep Freak," 1995.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Wedding Album, 1969.

Madonna, Finally Enough Love, 2022.

Molotovs, Wasted on Youth, 2026.

Paul Young, From Time to Time: The Singles Collection, 1991.

Various, Super Bad on Celluloid: Music from '70s Black Cinema, 1998.

May 2026 Acquisitions

Books:

Jeph Loeb et al, Superman/Batman, 2025.

Movies:

The Women in Cages Collection, 2011.

Music:

Black Keys, Peaches!, 2026.

Gorillaz, The Mountain, 2026.

Graham Bond Organisation, The Sound Of '65/There's A Bond Between Us, 1999.

Social Distortion, Born to Kill, 2026.

Paul Weller, Weller at the BBC (Vol. 2), 2026.

April 2026 Acquisitions

Books:

Brian Michael Bendis, Goldfish, 2022.

Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, Harley Quinn: Wild at Heart, 2025.

Anthony O'Hear and Judy Groves, Introducing Jesus: A Graphic Guide, 2015.

Frank Norris, McTeague: A Story of San Francisco, 1899, 1964.

Movies:

Big Bad Mama/Big Bad Mama II, 1999.

Earth Girls Are Easy, 1988.

Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, 1975.

Lethal Ladies 2, 1999.

M, 1931.

Music:

Bangs and Talbot, Smokin' Aces, 2026.

British Electric Foundation, Music Of Quality And Distinction Volume One, 1982, 1991.

DJ Quik, Platnium & Gold Collection, 2004.

Dr Feelgood, Sneakin' Suspicion, 1977, 2025.

Hot Chocolate, An Introduction to Hot Chocolate, 2017.

Sly and the Family Stone, The First Family: Live at Winchester Cathedral 1967, 2025.

Smothers Brothers, Sibling Revelry: The Best of the Smothers Brothers, 1988.

Steve White Trio, Soul Drums, 2026.

March 2026 Acquisitions

Books:

David Avallone et al, Elvira in Monsterland, 2024.

David Avallone et al, Elvira Meets H.P. Lovecraft, 2024.

Bertolt Brecht, The Good Woman of Setzuan, 1999.

Garth Ennis et al, Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank, 2026.

Jonathan Hickman et al, Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 2: The Paper, 2025.

Jane Hope and Borin Van Loon, Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide, 2008.

Jim McCarthy and Kevin Cross, Living for Kicks: A Mods Graphic Novel, 2016.

Kim Ostrow and Tim Jessell, Harrison Ford: A Little Golden Book Biography, 2025.

The Pocket Beatles, 2026.

Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plans for Physical Fitness, 2016.

Movies:

Roger Corman's Cult Classics: Action Packed, 1999.

Roger Corman's Cult Classics: Lethal Ladies, 1999.

Roger Corman's Cult Classics: The Nurses Collection, 2012.

Music:

Beatles, 1967-1970, 1973, 2023.

Brigitte Calls Me Baby, Irreversible, 2026.

Cast, Yeah Yeah Yeah, 2026.

Chosen Gospel Singers, The Lifeboat, 1992.

Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser, Wanted! The Outlaws (1976-1996 20th Anniversary), 1996.

Mitski, Nothing's About to Happen to Me, 2026.

World Party, Egyptology, 1997.

February 2026 Acquisitions

Books:

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, 1985.

David Avallone and Kewber Baal, Elvira in Horrorland, 2023.

Malcolm Croft. The Little Book of John Lennon, 2020.

Malcolm Croft. The Little Guide to the Beatles, 2019.

Bill Morgan, The Beat Generation in San Francisco: A Literary Guidebook, 2003.

The Little Book of San Francisco, 2022.

Music:

Shirley Caesar and Rev. James Cleveland, The King and Queen of Gospel Volume 1, 2002.

Claude Debussy, Greatest Hits, 2001.

Dixie Hummingbirds, 20th Century Masters--The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Dixie Hummingbirds, 2002.

English Beat, The Beat at the BBC, 2025.

Faces, Early Steps, 2025.

Terry Hall, The Collection, 1992.

Heaven 17, Higher and Higher: The Best of Heaven 17, 1993.

Tina Turner, Simply the Best, 1991.

January 2026 Acquisitions

Books:

Bonnie Bader and Sue Cornelison, Martin Luther King Jr.: A Little Golden Book Biography, 2018.

James Ellroy and Glynn Martin, LAPD '53, 2015.

Albert B. Feldstein (ed.), The Invisible MAD, 1975.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Stories, 1962.

Torunn Gronbekk et al, Catwoman Vol. 2: Never Let Them Smell Blood, 2025.

Owen King et al, Self Help, 2025.

Cynthia Von Buhler, Minky Woodcock: The Girl Called Cthulhu, 2025.

The EC Archives: Crime SuspenStories Volume 2, 2024.

Movies:

Barb Wire, 1996.

Music:

Bix Beiderbecke, Volume 1: Singin' the Blues, 1990. 

Chills, Soft Bomb, 1992.

Dr. Feelgood, Stupidity, 1976, 2025.

Ferris Wheel, Can't Break the Habit, 2000.

Roberta Flack, The Best of Roberta Flack, 1981.

Curtis Harding, Face Your Face, 2017.

Edwin Hawkins Singers, Oh Happy Day, 2001.

Human League, Greatest Hits, 1988.

Yoko Ono, Plastic Ono Band, 1970.

Pachelbel, Greatest Hits and Other Baroque Favorites, 2003.

Jimmy Page, Jimmy's Back Pages... the Early Years, 1992.

Sex Pistols, The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle, 1979.

Various, Hang the DJ: Modern Rock 1987, 1996.

Various, Mod Anthems Volume 2, 2016.

Various, Tonite Let's Make Love in London, 1968, 2016.

November 2025 Acquisitions

Books:
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, The Knives, 2025.
R.K. Gordon, Beowulf, 1992.
Robert Inchausti (Ed.), The Pocket Thomas Merton, 2017.
Nicole Johnson, Pirates of the Caribbean, 2023.
Ziauddin Sardar and Borin Van Loon, Introducing Cultural Studies: A Graphic Guide, 2010.

Movies:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977.
Clueless, 1995.
Ferris Bueler's Day Off, 1986.
Hairspray/Pecker, 2001.
The Harder They Come, 1972.

Music:
Ivy, Traces of You, 2025.
Spinal Tap, The End Continues, 2025.
Mavis Staples, Sad and Beautiful World, 2025
Tame Impala, Deadbeat, 2025.

"To Produce More Winning Candidates Who Address Voters' Pessimism Head-On"

"This phenomenon might seem distasteful or incomprehensible. Democrats groan, 'How could these so-called moderate voters possibly give the amoral, white-supremacist-coddling, and self-aggrandizing Trump the benefit of the doubt?' It would nevertheless be futile to refute the ways in which it has transformed our politics. The breadth of Trump's 2024 coalition, the increasing scale of the Democrats' regional polarization penalty, and the association of progressivism with a 'woke' left-establishment axis (rather than with the common good and safeguarding the American dream)—these challenges all suggest the rise of the 'moderate' Trump voter is one Democrats must first accept if they are to arrest the MAGA realignment."

Justin Vassallo at The Liberal Patriot describes a rivalry within the Democratic Party between "progressives" and "populists."

While John B. Judis at Compact writes that "The Left's Project Has Just Begun."

"Blame the Screens"

"Moving online created a parallel universe that bore some relationship to the physically experienced world, but in other cases could exist completely orthogonally to it. While previously 'truth' was imperfectly certified by institutions like scientific journals, traditional media with standards of journalist accountability, courts and legal discovery, educational institutions and research organizations, the standard for truth began to gravitate instead to the number of likes and shares a particular post got. The large tech platforms pursuing their own commercial self-interest created an ecosystem that rewarded sensationalism and disruptive content, and their recommendation algorithms, again acting in the interest of profit-maximization, guided people to sources that never would have been taken seriously in earlier times. Moreover, the speed with which memes and low-quality content could travel increased dramatically, as well as the reach of any particular piece of information. Previously, a major newspaper or magazine could reach perhaps a million readers, usually in a single geographic area; today, an individual influencer can reach hundreds of millions of followers without regard to geography."

Francis Fukuyama at Persuasion argues that "is the one factor that stands above the others as the chief explanation of our current problems."

September 2025 Acquisitions

Books:

Carol Byrd-Bredbenner et al, Wardlaw's Perspectives on Nutrition 10th Edition, 2015.

Nick Craine, Hard Core Logo: Portrati of a Thousand Punks, 2017.

Stephen Glynn, Quadrophenia, 2014.

Scott Jordan Harris, World Film Locations San Francisco, 2013.

Owen Holland and Piero, Introducing Literary Criticism: A Graphic Guide, 2016.

Mike Katz and Crispin Kott, Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco, 2021.

Bill Morrison, The Beatles Yellow Submarine, 2018.

Stuart Sim and Borin Van Loon, Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide, 2009.

Scott Tilley and Nick Balian, Disneyland Is Your Land!, 2025.

Toyo Tyler and Courtney Dawson, My Little Golden Book About San Francisco, 2021.

Music:

Curtis Harding, Departures & Arrivals: Adventures of Captain Curt, 2025.

Stereolab, Instant Holograms on Metal Film, 2025.

Neil Young, Talkin to the Trees, 2025.

Various, DIY--Do It Yourself: Punk, Post Punk, Punk Funk & Beyond: The Rise of the Independent Music Industry, 2007.

Various, K-Pop Demon Hunters, 2025.

Various, New Wave for the Next Generation, 2003.

Various, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975.

Various, Under the Influence: Ian Brown, 2003.

"A New Generation of Democrats Needs to Recapture This Same Spirit"

"Democrats need to move away from the language of equity, which implies that it would be acceptable to close the racial gaps in health or education by helping members of the disadvantaged racial groups improve while denying any help to lower-income whites. Obama understood this reality instinctively, as he made clear in his 'A More Perfect Union' speech. He called on all Americans to 'realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.' Like the 44th president did, today's Democrats must talk along these lines regularly and weave these concepts into their communication about all kinds of issues, not just on special occasions."

Ian Reifowitz at The Liberal Patriot writes about "How Democrats Lost Obama's Vision of American Identity."

While Bridget Bowman, Ryan Nobles and Frank Thorp V at NBC News write that "Bernie Sanders makes his next moves to reshape the Democratic Party."

"'A Lot Has Changed in the Past Ten to Fifteen Years'"

"Other moral panics in recent history—around comic books, Satanism, and marijuana, for instance—fell by the wayside after they became so unhinged that reasonable people turned away.  But the Sensitivity Era appears far from over. The unavoidable takeaway from Szetela's sharply-etched and powerfully argued book is that left-wing illiberalism has been institutionalized. It's already deeply entrenched in schools, libraries, literary agencies, and publishing houses."

John McMillan at The Dispatch reviews Adam Szetela's That Book Is Dangerous! How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing.

"He Is a One-of-a-Kind Grotesque"

"The text and the caption depend for their power upon—indeed they would be totally unintelligible without—Trump's built-in assumption that millions of people would find themselves almost inexpressibly outraged by his naive identification of Cinco de Mayo with all Hispanics, whom he claims to love in some absurd blanket sense—how when he is such an obvious gutter racist?!—and his uncouth assumption that 'taco bowls' are a real food to which superlatives might be applied at all and that the pseudo-salads are a part of Mexican cuisine. (This is probably not an exhaustive list of the number of micro-aggressions or dog whistles implied in this masterpiece of rhetoric.) The atmosphere of knowingly perverse cultural insensitivity—probably the closest thing we have nowadays to the teashop Orientalism of The Mikado—is heightened by the contrast between the high-school cafeteria quality food and the white napkin and silverware, to say nothing of the golf trophies and the view of the Manhattan skyline from the window behind him and his ludicrous grin. This, played with a thousand variations over the half decade or so in which he has been at the center of American public life, is the essential Trumpian conceit: playing a poor person's idea of what being rich is (having real linen!), a woke person's idea of racism (liking déclassé foods), a worker's idea of what a boss is (someone who fires people), and doing so without ever acknowledging the performance to any of the not-always overlapping segments of his audience, who in turn refuse to acknowledge it to one another."

In a 2020 article at The Week, Matthew Walther argues that Donald Trump "is essentially a camp figure."

"A Funny Thing Happened in the Wake of These Triumphs"

"But this huge increase in funding was no longer primarily about gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights, because almost all had already been won. It was instead about a new and radical gender revolution. Focused on ending what activists saw as the oppression of the sex binary, which some critical gender and queer theorists associated with 'white supremacy,' they aimed to dissolve natural distinctions between men and women in society, to replace biological sex with 'gender identity' in the law and culture, and to redefine homosexuality, in the process, not as a neutral fact of the human condition but as a liberating ideological 'queerness' meant to subvert and 'queer' language, culture and society in myriad different ways."

Ten years after the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, Andrew Sullivan argues in The New York Times that "the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized, and Lost Its Way."

At The Advocate, Marcie Bianco reacts to Sullivan.

And in 2026, Sullivan adds "What The Dems Should Say On Trans Rights."

June 2025 Acquisitions

Books:

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange, 1962.

William Golding, Lord of the Flies, 1954.

Arnaud Le Gouëfflec and Nicolas Moog, Underground: Cursed Rockers and High Priestesses of Sound, 2024.

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, 1951.

The Little Black Songbook: Oasis, 2010.

Music:
Chuck D, Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon, 2025.
Pulp, More., 2025.
Rain Parade, Crashing Dream, 1985, 2025.
Rain Parade, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, 1983, 2024.
Talking Heads, Live on Tour '78, 2025.
Brian Wilson, Playback: The Brian Wilson Anthology, 2017.

"Trumpism Has Become a Form of Nihilism That Is Devouring Everything in Its Path"

"The pathetic thing is that I didn't see this coming even though I've been living around these people my whole adult life. I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, when I worked in turn at National Review, The Washington Times, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page. There were two kinds of people in our movement back then, the conservatives and the reactionaries. We conservatives earnestly read Milton Friedman, James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers, and Edmund Burke. The reactionaries just wanted to shock the left. We conservatives oriented our lives around writing for intellectual magazines; the reactionaries were attracted to TV and radio. We were on the political right but had many liberal friends; they had contempt for anyone not on the anti-establishment right. They were not pro-conservative—they were anti-left. I have come to appreciate that this is an important difference."

The News Talkers runs David Brooks's essay in The Atlantic called, "I Should Have Seen It Coming."

"A Farce Masquerading as Serious Political Theater"

"The media's conundrum was obvious: How to cover a candidate who inflates the truth when he isn't inventing it out of whole cloth, a candidate who promises salvation but offers no pathway to reach it, a candidate who takes special delight in trolling his opponents rather than engaging with them on substance? 'Take him seriously but not literally,' seemed to be the order of the day. Or literally but not seriously. Or sometimes seriously and sometimes literally. Or both. Or neither. Or something."

Michael Ian Black at The Daily Beast marks ten years since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for US president.

"Proto-Trumpian Themes"

"The left dissented from Obama's optimistic analysis, seeing American history as a long and bloody reprise of racism and exploitation with no clearly defined trajectory. Buchanan adopts a similar analysis, except that he presents the qualities derided by the left as necessary, even praiseworthy. America is 'the product of ethnonationalism,' he asserts without judgment. 'No American war was fought for egalitarian ends, postwar propaganda notwithstanding.' Likewise, 'no one would suggest the Indian wars were about equality. They were about racism and subjugation.' Lincoln, he reminds the reader, was a white supremacist. As a descriptive account, Buchanan's history hardly differs from what you'd encounter in a text such as the 1619 Project or Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, only with the moral valence of the events flipped."

Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic calls Pat Buchanan "The Godfather of the Woke Right."

April 2025 Acquisitions

Books:

Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2025.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 1995.

Gerry Duggan, Marvel 1872: Warzones!, 2015.

Garth Ennis and Liam Sharp, Batman: Reptilian, 2022.

Gilbert Lupfer and Paul Sigel, Gropius, 2017.

Matt Margini, Red Dead Redemption, 2020.

The LGBTQ+ History Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained, 2023.

Movies:
Rocky, 1976.

Music:

P.P. Arnold, Kafunta, 1968.

Chills, Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs, 2025.

Bob Mould, Here We Go Crazy, 2025.

Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, 2021.

Al Stewart, An Introduction to Al Stewart, 2017.

Frank Zappa, Strictly Commercial, 1995.

Various, Faster & Louder: Hardcore Punk, Vol. 2, 1993.

Various, Popscene: From Baggy to Britpop 1989-1994, 2024.

March 2025 Acquisitions

Books:

Mike Clifford, The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, 4th Edition, 1984.

Ta-Nahesi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze, Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, 2025.

Will Eisner and Gary Chaloner, The Complete Will Eisner's John Law, 2025.

Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers, A Pocket Style Manual Eighth Edition, 2018.

Bryan Hill et al, Postal, Vol. 4, 2016.

Joeph Loeb et al, Superman for All Seasons, 2023.

B. Clay Moore and Shane Patrick White, Endless Summer, Vol. 1: Dead Man's Curve, 2022.

Eric Stephenson and Jamie McKelvie, Long Hot Summer, 2005.

Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men, 1918, 2022. 

Movies:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, 2008.

Music:

Roy Ayers, 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection, 2000.

Bad Brains, Rock for Light, 1983, 2021.

Dorothy Love Coates, The Best of Dorothy Love Coates and the Original Gospel Harmonettes, 1991.

Echo and the Bunnymen, Me, I'm All Smiles, 2006.

Horrors, Night Life, 2025.

Housemartins, The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death, 1987.

David Johansen, From Pumps To Pompadour: The David Johansen Story, 1995.

Wilko Johnson, Back in the Night: The Best of Wilko Johnson, 2002.

Kneecap, Fine Art, 2024.

Rain Parade, Last Stop on the Underground, 2024.

Sam and Dave, Soul Men, 1967.

Sylvester, The Original Hits, 1989.

20/20, Back to California, 2025.

Barbara Weathers, Barbara Weathers, 1990.

Link Wray, Rumble! The Best of Link Wray, 1993.

Various, Destination: Bomp!, 1994.

Various, Gone but Not Forgotten: A Tribute to Those Who Rocked, 1995.

Various, Millions Like Us: The Story of the Mod Revival 1977-1989, 2014.

Various, Suburban Annihilation: California Hardcore 1978-1983, 2023.

Various, Twisted Dream Machine: The Paisley Underground California's Psychedelic Renaissance: 1982-1986, 2024.

Various, Weird Scenes from the Hangout: Psychedelic & Freakbeat Dancefloor Anthems 1967-1982, 2024.