Books by Tamara Shopsin
LaserWriter II: A Novel
A WIRED Pick for the 7 Books You Need to Read This Winter and one of Vox's 11 Titles Not to Miss
From the incomparable New York Times and New Yorker illustrator Tamara Shopsin, a debut novel about a NYC printer repair technician who comes of age alongside the Apple computer―featuring original artistic designs by the author.
LaserWriter II is a coming-of-age tale set in the legendary 90s indie NYC Mac repair shop TekServe―a voyage back in time to when the internet was new, when New York City was gritty, and when Apple made off-beat computers for weirdos. Our guide is Claire, a 19-year-old who barely speaks to her bohemian co-workers, but knows when it’s time to snap on an antistatic bracelet.
Tamara Shopsin brings us a classically New York novel that couldn’t feel more timely. Interweaving the history of digital technology with a tale both touchingly human and delightfully technical, Shopsin brings an idiosyncratic cast of characters to life with a light touch, a sharp eye, and an unmistakable voice.
Filled with pixelated philosophy and lots of printers, LaserWriter II is, at its heart, a parable about an apple.
Copies
No copies available.
5 Year Diary: Blue Cover
Clothbound in delicate pinstripes with a red ribbon bookmark, the diary is designed so that it can be started on any day of the year, even on a leap year! Now available in blue, Tamara Shopsin’s classic 5 Year Diary is back in stock. Designed by Shopsin--whose illustration work is regularly featured in The New York Times--and produced by The Ice Plant and Shopsin’s General Store, the pint-sized 5 Year Diary helps you keep track of the next 60 months of your life in just a few lines a day. Each page of the diary is devoted to one day of the year and subdivided into five sections (each with its own space for notes), so that, as time goes by, past entries can be read as the new ones are written. Handsomely clothbound with a red ribbon bookmark, the diary can be started on any day of any year--even a leap year. In the back of the diary are pages to record the books you’ve read and places you’ve traveled. As New York magazine’s Kendall Herbst noted, the 5 Year Diary is an ideal gift for anyone, anytime, as well as the perfect way to “trace your life’s highlights and trim out the minutiae… Think of it as a sort of CliffsNotes to your life."
Copies
No copies available.
5 Year Diary: Red Cover
Now available in red, Tamara Shopsin's classic 5 Year Diary is back in stock. Designed by Shopsin--whose illustration work is regularly featured in The New York Times--and produced by The Ice Plant and Shopsin's General Store, the pint-sized 5 Year Diary helps you keep track of the next 60 months of your life in just a few lines a day. Each page of the diary is devoted to one day of the year and subdivided into five sections (each with its own space for notes), so that, as time goes by, past entries can be read as the new ones are written. Handsomely clothbound with a ribbon bookmark, the diary can be started on any day of any year--even a leap year. In the back of the diary are pages to record the books you've read and places you've traveled. As New York magazine's Kendall Herbst noted, the 5 Year Diary is an ideal gift for anyone, anytime, as well as the perfect way to "trace your life's highlights and trim out the minutiae... Think of it as a sort of CliffsNotes to your life."
Copies
No copies available.
Offline Activities
by Tamara Shopsin, Jason Fulford
Return to the real world! A coupon-style booklet of 52 activities for offline fun, from Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin
Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin's Offline Activities is a book of 52 suggestions for things you can do in real life. Rearrange your furniture; invite an old friend to lunch; bring something home from the supermarket and treat it as sculpture. Part novelty, part self-help guide, Offline Activities encourages you to seek out the chance and mystery that is often lacking in the digital age.
Featuring the kind of ingenious, charming design you expect from a Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin project, Offline Activities is designed as a coupon book with tear-out pages, with one inspirational suggestion and quote per page. You are encouraged to physically do the activity and rip the page out of the book as proof. If you do one offline activity per week, the book will last a year. Offline Activities is a delightfully analog, pleasantly practical guide to shaking up your offscreen life.
Tamara Shopsin (born 1979) is an illustrator, graphic designer, writer and part-time cook in her family’s New York restaurant. She is the author of two memoirs, Mumbai New York Scranton (2013) and Arbitrary Stupid Goal (2017), designer of the 5 Year Diary and coauthor, with Jason Fulford, of the children's book This Equals That (2014), among many other projects.
Jason Fulford (born 1973) is a photographer and cofounder of J&L Books. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a frequent lecturer at universities and has led workshops across the globe. His numerous monographs include The Mushroom Collector (2011) and Hotel Oracle (2013).
Copies
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$14.95
LaserWriter II
A WIRED Pick for the 7 Books You Need to Read This Winter and one of Vox’s 11 Titles Not to Miss
From the incomparable New York Times and New Yorker illustrator Tamara Shopsin comes a debut novel about a New York City printer repair technician who grows up alongside the Apple computer―featuring original designs by the author.
LaserWriter II is a coming-of-age tale set in the legendary nineties indie Mac repair shop Tekserve―a voyage back in time to when the internet was new, when New York City was gritty, and when Apple made offbeat computers for weirdos. Our guide is Claire, a nineteen-year-old who barely speaks to her bohemian coworkers but knows when it’s time to snap on an antistatic bracelet.
Interweaving the history of digital technology with a tale both touchingly human and delightfully technical, Shopsin brings an idiosyncratic cast of characters to life with a light touch, a sharp eye, and an unmistakable voice. Filled with pixelated philosophy and lots of printers, LaserWriter II is, at its heart, a parable about an apple.
Copies
-
$17.00
5 Year Diary: Green Cover
Tamara Shopsin's classic 5 Year Diary is now available with a green cover. Designed by Shopsin--whose illustration work is regularly featured in The New York Times--and produced by The Ice Plant, the pint-sized 5 Year Diary helps you keep track of the next 60 months of your life in just a few lines a day.
Each page of the diary is devoted to one day of the year and subdivided into five sections (each with its own space for notes), so that, as time goes by, past entries can be read as the new ones are written. Handsomely clothbound with a red ribbon bookmark, the diary can be started on any day of any year--even a leap year. In the back of the diary are pages to record the books you've read and the places you've traveled. As New York Magazine's Kendall Herbst noted, the 5 Year Diary is an ideal gift for anyone, anytime, as well as the perfect way to "trace your life's highlights and trim out the minutiae ... Think of it as a sort of CliffsNotes to your life."
Copies
No copies available.
Arbitrary Stupid Goal
One of The New Yorker's "Books We Loved in 2017"
“Arbitrary Stupid Goal is a completely riveting world―when I looked up from its pages regular life seemed boring and safe and modern like one big iPhone. This book captures not just a lost New York but a whole lost way of life.” ―Miranda July
In Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin takes the reader on a pointillist time-travel trip to the Greenwich Village of her bohemian 1970s childhood, a funky, tight-knit small town in the big city, long before Sex and the City tours and luxury condos. The center of Tamara’s universe is Shopsin’s, her family’s legendary greasy spoon, aka “The Store,” run by her inimitable dad, Kenny―a loquacious, contrary, huge-hearted man who, aside from dishing up New York’s best egg salad on rye, is Village sheriff, philosopher, and fixer all at once. All comers find a place at Shopsin’s table and feast on Kenny’s tall tales and trenchant advice along with the incomparable chili con carne.
Filled with clever illustrations and witty, nostalgic photographs and graphics, and told in a sly, elliptical narrative that is both hilarious and endearing, Arbitrary Stupid Goal is an offbeat memory-book mosaic about the secrets of living an unconventional life, which is becoming a forgotten art.
Copies
No copies available.
Arbitrary Stupid Goal
In Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin takes the reader on a pointillist time-travel trip to the Greenwich Village of her bohemian 1970s childhood, a funky, tight-knit small town in the big city, long before Sex and the City tours and luxury condos. The center of Tamara’s universe is Shopsin’s, her family’s legendary greasy spoon, aka “The Store,” run by her inimitable dad, Kenny—a loquacious, contrary, huge-hearted man who, aside from dishing up New York’s best egg salad on rye, is Village sheriff, philosopher, and fixer all at once. All comers find a place at Shopsin’s table and feast on Kenny’s tall tales and trenchant advice along with the incomparable chili con carne.
Filled with clever illustrations and witty, nostalgic photographs and graphics, and told in a sly, elliptical narrative that is both hilarious and endearing, Arbitrary Stupid Goal is an offbeat memory-book mosaic about the secrets of living an unconventional life, which is becoming a forgotten art.
Copies
No copies available.
Tamara Shopsin: What Is This?
It is never too early to learn about abstraction--especially if celebrated illustrator Tamara Shopsin is doing the teaching. What Is This? is Shopsin's wordless children's book that will encourage imaginative thinking in readers both young and old. The miniature book, made for small hands, is filled with simple line drawings, executed with characteristic charm by Shopsin. Each drawing playfully adds to and alters the same basic squiggle, which is transformed across different contexts on each successive page: first the squiggle appears as the petals of a flower, next as a bird's nest, then a cowboy's lasso, then a plume of smoke from a factory chimney. Each time, only a few extra lines are required to suggest the conversion. By the end of the book, faced with an innocent squiggle, the question is not "what is this?" but rather, "what isn't this?"
Tamara Shopsin (born 1979) is a graphic designer and illustrator whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Good, Time, Wired and Newsweek. She is the author of the memoir Mumbai New York Scranton, designer of the 5 Year Diary and coauthor, with Jason Fulford, of the children's book This Equals That. She is also a cook at her family's restaurant, Shopsin's, in New York.
Copies
No copies available.