Skip to main content
rile*books

Search books

Search books by title, author, publisher, keywords...

Cover of An Orobic Journey – On Migratory Restlessness, Community, and Multispecies Geographies

Lenz Press

An Orobic Journey – On Migratory Restlessness, Community, and Multispecies Geographies

Valentina Gervasoni ed., Lorenzo Giusti ed.

€33.00

A layered and polyphonic investigation that, setting out from the Orobic Alpine territory in Northern Italy, explores the mountainside not merely as a natural backdrop but as an epistemological lens through which to understand and rethink the contemporary world.

The book originated as an online magazine and an expansion of the biennial program Thinking Like a Mountain (2024–25), a project inspired by Aldo Leopold's exhortation to abandon an anthropocentric gaze in favor of a geological outlook on the peaks, thereby acknowledging the intrinsic value of every natural element. An Orobic Journey developed independently from the exhibition program and is not limited to mere documentation; instead, it functions as a parallel research tool articulated through essays, conversations, and visual documentation, featuring contributions from artists, scientists, researchers, anthropologists, ornithologists, curators, academics, architects, writers, and other experts. 

Embracing Ursula K. Le Guin's "carrier bag theory," An Orobic Journey brings together non-heroic tales of resistance, adaptation, and cohabitation. The book opens with a reflection on species migration and "migratory restlessness": a condition that does not only concern the spontaneous return of wolves to the Alps or the transit of birdlife, but becomes a metaphor for a shared condition of continuous movement and searching. The future of the mountain—amid tourist monocultures and acts of transformative care—is investigated by conceiving the Alpine landscape as a political space shaped by power relations, images, and collective memories, and inhabited by multispecies communities that dwell in a place, weaving intergenerational relationships. With both a poetic and political approach, An Orobic Journey attempts to rethink ways of looking at the mountain landscape while imagining new collective rituals.

Published in 2026 ┊ 720 pages ┊ Language: English

recommendations

Cover of Dreams of a Dreamless Night

Lenz Press

Dreams of a Dreamless Night

Ali Cherri

The publication is the first institutional monograph on the multimedia practice of artist and director Ali Cherri. It aims to highlight the constellation of ideas, themes, and formal concerns running through his most recent, highly significant projects.

Edited by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi, with Bianca Stoppani, this book provides an overview of the artist's output over the past three years, teasing out both new strands for interpretation and formal links between his films, videos, sculptures, drawings, and installations.

Texts by: Cecilia Alemani, Erika Balsom, Étienne Bernard, Leonardo Bigazzi, Ali Cherri, Lorenzo Giusti, Stefanie Hessler, Priyesh Mistry, Alessandro Rabottini, Stefan Tarnowski.

Video and visual artist Ali Cherri (born 1976 in Beirut, lives and works in Paris and Beirut) received a BA in graphic design from the American University in Beirut in 2000, and an MA in performing arts from DasArts, Amsterdam, in 2005. His current project looks at the place of the archaeological object in the construction of historical narratives.

Cover of Remembering a Dance – Part of Some Sextets 1965/2019

Lenz Press

Remembering a Dance – Part of Some Sextets 1965/2019

Yvonne Rainer

A re-examination of Yvonne Rainer's Parts of Some Sextets, a radical performance and pivotal piece in the American choreographer's career, which led her to theorize her conception of dance in the 1960s, before being revived in 2019.

Parts of Some Sextets, Yvonne Rainer's 1965 performance for ten people and twelve mattresses, represents a turning point in the American choreographer's oeuvre. "My mattress monster," as Rainer calls it, was built in her formative years with the experimental downtown New York group Judson Dance Theater. In this work, she asserted her exploration of "ordinary" actions as well as her disregard for narrative constructions to create an intricate choreography that unfolded with a new scene every thirty seconds.

More than half a century after its premiere, Rainer, in collaboration with choreographer and dancer Emily Coates, directed the 2019 revival of the piece for the Performa 19 Biennial in New York, grappling with the changing contexts of a new presentation of her radical performance. Remembering a Dance: Parts of Some Sextets, 1965/2019 delves into every aspect of this dance, from its original manifestation to its reconstitution.

This book, designed by visual artist Nick Mauss, includes previously unpublished archival images and documents from the 1965 stagings at the Judson Memorial Church in New York and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. Texts by Emily Coates, RoseLee Goldberg, Jill Johnston, Kathy Noble, Yvonne Rainer, David Thomson, Lynne Tillman, and Soyoung Yoon, as well as a new interview with Rainer, pose questions about the trajectories of artworks, performers, and audiences, all while tracing the life—and afterlife—of a dance.

Edited by Emily Coates. 
Texts and contributions by Emily Coates, RoseLee Goldberg, Jill Johnston, Kathy Noble, Yvonne Rainer, David Thomson, Lynne Tillman and Soyoung Yoon; conversation between Yvonne Rainer, Emily Coates and Nick Mauss.

Cover of Installation Views

Lenz Press

Installation Views

Charlotte Posenenske

Conceived as a visual résumé, Installation Views provides both a comprehensive overview of Charlotte Posenenske's solo exhibitions and a record of her numerous group shows.

In her Manifesto, Charlotte Posenenske stated: "I find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that art can contribute nothing to the solution of pressing social problems."
Developing her artistic practice throughout the 1960s, Posenenske produced a body of work that uniquely combined several strands of the art of the period: conceptualism, minimalism, and socially engaged participatory art. Her Manifesto, published in Art International in May 1968, lays out the social demands on art as well as the impossibility of fulfilling those demands. Shortly after its publication, Posenenske left the art world behind to pursue her studies in sociology, undertaking a new career in that field.

Conceived as a visual résumé, Installation Views provides both a comprehensive overview of Charlotte Posenenske's solo exhibitions and a record of her numerous group shows. The book features an essay written by curator Erlend Hammer on the role of documentary photographs in the circulation of works of art. 

The book was published in conjunction with the eponymous show at the Haugar Art Museum in Tønsberg, Norway—the first full-scale presentation of the artist's oeuvre in Scandinavia. The exhibition showcased works from all the artist's major series of modular sculpture. Consisting of works made over the course of less than 12 months, between 1967 and 1968, preceding the abrupt end to Posenenske's career as an artist, the exhibition had the character of a snapshot. We are left wondering whether her withdrawal from the art world was a logical or necessary consequence of the development of the series. What are we to do with Posenenske's assertion that art is powerless to effectively change society for the better?

Cover of Troubling the Stage – The Choreographic Work of Marlene Monteiro Freitas

Lenz Press

Troubling the Stage – The Choreographic Work of Marlene Monteiro Freitas

Alexandra Balona

Performance €36.00

Five dance pieces and an iconographic imaginary in convulsion: making the most of these ingredients, Alexandra Balona engages with the work of Cabo Verdean choreographer and dancer Marlene Monteiro Freitas.

This book offers a lens onto the dazzling oeuvre of a choreographer whose boldness shakes the foundations of every theater she enters. It centers on five emblematic works: Guintche (2010), Paradise—Private Collection (2012), Jaguar (2015), Bacchae—Prelude to a Purge (2017), and Mal—Embriaguez Divina (2020). It follows Monteiro Freitas's creative methodology, weaving references from her personal archive together with works from art history, navigating between ideas and possibilities in the manner of an atlas bearing the weight of the world. From wonder emerges a mode of attentive reading; one capable of observing and, out of fragments, revealing the methods, processes, and mechanisms of art. The texts in this book are "small critical machines for reading the unreadable."

Troubling the Stage: The Choreographic Work of Marlene Monteiro Freitas is both a study and an encounter; a powerful crossing of choreography with critical thought. It invites readers, scholars, and audiences alike to experience the intensity, violence, joy, and humanity of one of today's most uncompromising choreographic voices.

Cover of Semi-Nomadic Debt-Ridden Bedouins

Lenz Press

Semi-Nomadic Debt-Ridden Bedouins

Basma al-Sharif

Monograph €35.00

Semi-Nomadic Debt-Ridden Bedouins offers an in-depth look at nearly two decades of artistic output by the Palestinian artist and filmmaker Basma al-Sharif. Retracing her practice from recent works back to her earliest experiments, the book provides an original overview of how her visual language and conceptual concerns have evolved over time.

Basma al-Sharif's films and installations navigate the unstable terrains of displacement, colonialism, and representation—often shaped by the ongoing reality of the occupation of Palestine. Through a rich selection of images and curatorial essays, the monograph highlights the layered political and cinematic frameworks within which her works are embedded.

Also included are two newly commissioned literary contributions: a fictional piece by Karim Kattan that resonates with the themes of place and estrangement, and a conversation between al-Sharif and the artist Diego Marcon, in which they reflect on shared affinities, artistic processes, and their long-standing dialogue. Blurring the personal and the political, the real and the imagined, Semi-Nomadic Debt-Ridden Bedouins captures the complexity and urgency of al-Sharif's artistic journey.

Texts by Basma al-Sharif, Karim Kattan, Diego Marcon, et al.

Basma al-Sharif (born 1983 in Koweit) is a Palestinian artist working in cinema and installation. She developed her practice nomadically between the Middle East, Europe, and North America and is currently based in Berlin. Her practice looks at cyclical political conflicts and confronts the legacy of colonialism through satirical, immersive, and lyrical works.

Cover of Manifest ( ) gathered angry woman loving

Risiko Press

Manifest ( ) gathered angry woman loving

Chiara Di Luca, Emma Burel and 2 more

Zines €7.00

Words gathered from The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (Ursula K. Le Guin, 1986), Natural Enemies of Books (MMS, 2020), Non credere di avere dei diritti (Libreria delle donne di Milano, 1987), Dada Cannibalistic Manifesto (Francis Picabia, 1920) and WITCH (Rebecca Tamás, 2019). A first version of this poem/pamphlet was made in the context of See What I Mean, a workshop by Phil Baber at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, october 2024.

Cover of Telling is Listening: Selected Essays 1973-2014

Winter Texts

Telling is Listening: Selected Essays 1973-2014

Ursula K. Le Guin, Conner Bouchard-Roberts

Essays €26.00

An essential collection of essays on language, the imagination, and the art of words by one of the great literary masters of the last century. 

This book traces a long sweep (1973-2014) through Ursula K. Le Guin's career; offering both a portrait of the author as a philosopher and a reference text for new generations of wordworkers and bookmakers.

Cover of The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin

Silver Press

The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin

So Mayer, Sarah Shin

Non-fiction €28.00

When Ursula K. Le Guin started writing a new story, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World presents a selection of these images by the celebrated author, many of which have never been published before, to consider how her imaginary worlds enable us to re-envision our own.  

Le Guin’s maps offer journeys of consciousness beyond conventional cartography, from the Rorschach-like archipelagos of Earthsea to the talismanic maps of Always Coming Home. Rather than remaining within known terrain, they open up paradigms of knowledge, exemplified by the map’s edges and how a map is read, made and re-made, together. The Word for World brings her maps together with poems, stories, interviews, recipes and essays by contributors from a variety of perspectives to enquire into the relationship between worlds and how they are represented and imagined. 

Contributors: Federico Campagna, Theo Downes-Le Guin, Daniel Heath Justice, Bhanu Kapil, Canisia Lubrin, Una McCormack, David Naimon, Nisha Ramayya, Shoshone Collective, Standard Deviation, Marilyn Strathern. 

Co-published by Spiral House and AA Publications to coincide with an exhibition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s maps at the Architectural Association, London, opening on 10 October 2025.

”One of the literary greats of the 20th century.” Margaret Atwood

Cover of Mother Reader

Seven Stories Press

Mother Reader

Moyra Davey

Fiction €27.00

'My aim for Mother Reader has been to bring together examples of the best writing on motherhood of the last sixty years, writing that tells firsthand of the mother's experience.

Many of the writings in Mother Reader comment on and interpolate one another, in citations, in footnotes, in direct homage. As I was assembling this collection one text would lead to one another, treasure-hunt fashion, the clue provided by an acknowledgement or bibliography. And just as often the writing circles back.

In Mother Reader chapters are excerpted from autobiographies, memoirs, and novels; entries are lifted from diaries; essays and stories are culled from collections, anthologies, and periodicals. My project has been to assemble a compendium or sampler of these ''kindred spirit'' works on motherhood, so that readers, and especially mothers with limited time on their hands, can access in one volume the best literature on the subject and know where turn to continue reading." [Moyra Davey in the introduction]

Writings by Margaret Atwood, Susan Bee, Rosellen Brown, Myrel Chernick, Lydia Davis, Buchi Emeta, Annie Ernaux, Mary Gaitskill, Susan Griffin, Nancy Hutson, Mary Kelly, Jane Lazarre, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing, Ellen McMahon, Margaret Mead, Vivian Montgomery, Toni Morrison, Tillie Olsen, Alicia Ostrker, Grace Paley, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Sara Ruddick, Lynda Schor, Mira Schor, Dena Schottenkirk, Mona Simpson, Elizabeth Smart, Joan Snyder, Elke Solomon, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Alice Walker, Joy Williams, Martha Wilson, Barbara Zucker.

Cover of Hardscapes / Here

Lenz Press

Hardscapes / Here

Maria Hassabi, Nina Canell

Hardscapes / Here documents and brings together two exhibition projects by artists Nina Canell and Maria Hassabi. Produced on the occasion of the exhibitions of the same name curated by Samuele Piazza at the OGR Torino, the publication consists of two graphically specular books that merge into a single volume. Essays, unpublished materials and a rich set of photographic materials form the driving force behind two visual narratives that offer new keys to understanding the research of the two artists.

Hassabi's live installation Here calls on visitors to share space and spend time with six performers portrayed in a decelerated rhythmic choreography within a sculptural environment. In constant motion, the dancers contribute to a situation of shifting presence, demonstrating the contestable nature of the "here and now." Immobility and slowing down are thus used both as techniques and as subjects of representation: the performing bodies oscillate between dance and sculpture, subject and object, living body and static image.

Canell's Hardscapes combines two works that focus on the concepts of circulation and transformation as well as on unexpected forms of coexistence. Energy Budget (2017–18), a video that alternates between two subjects: a basement in which a leopard snail crawls over an electrical panel, and the gradual shifting of the frame away from "dragon gates"—portal-like openings in huge buildings on the Hong Kong waterfront. Muscle Memory (16 Tonnes) (2020–21) is a floor sculpture, decomposed and transformed by the density of moving bodies, which literally crumbles under the soles of passing visitors.

In addition to texts by the curator, the publication includes essays by Felicia Leu and Laura Preston, along with a conversation by Maria Hassabi and Nina Canell with Lorenzo Giusti.

Published on the occasion of the epoymous exhibitions at OGR Torino in 2022.

Edited by Samuele Piazza.
Texts by Lorenzo Giusti, Felicia F. Leu, Samuele Piazza, Laura Preston.

Cover of Issue 7: Daffodils

Pleasant Place

Issue 7: Daffodils

Periodicals €14.00

Many bulbous plants have been dubbed ‘heralds of spring’, but none is more deserving of the title than those carrying actual megaphones to spread the word – daffodils. To know a daffodil is to love a daffodil. Come join our cult.

Including:
I Like the Daffodils – An introduction by Lou-Lou van Staaveren to the genus Narcissus, with amazing photographs by Elspeth Diederix from her garden.
Dafs in Art History – Painters, poets and writers all over the world, have been inspired by the daffodils’ dual aura of macabre and threatening elegance.
The Daffodil Society – The members of The Daffodil Society in the UK promote the genus Narcissus for everyone’s greater pleasure. Photographer Luke Stephenson followed them to various shows where their flowers are reviewed.
How to follow your nose – Philosopher Christopher F. Julien invites us into his fragrant garden where scent mixes with memories with drawings by Pom Koolen.
Artist Tina Farifteh digs into her personal archive and writes a beautiful account of her memories growing up in Iran, and how daffodils have become a staple for New Year’s celebrations and a symbol of hope.

Cover and inside cover by Lou Buche
Centrefold miniatures by Jesse Fischer

Cover of She Will Last as Long as Stones

Wendy's Subway

She Will Last as Long as Stones

kathy wu

Poetry €18.00

Weaving together the matter of geology, migration, and computation, kathy wu’s debut book She Will Last as Long as Stones mines data from the United States Geological Survey, pairing it with (mis)translations of conversations with the author’s mother, narratives of racialized and gendered labor, and elegies on end-of-life care. Through text, photo-collage, and diagrammatic circuitry, wu mobilizes language toward the edges of things, where glitch and failure meet grief, outpour.

kathy wu's She Will Last as Long as Stones is the 2024 Open Reading Period Book Prize winner, and was selected by guest judge Bhanu Kapil

kathy wu is a Chinese–American artist, poet, and designer living in Providence, Rhode Island, on Narragansett land. She works across digital media, fiber, book arts, and language to pull at histories of science and technology. Her work has appeared via The New School, Dialogist, Rain Taxi, NatBrut, and Tilted House, and has been anthologized by Fonograf Editions and Nightboat Books. She has been awarded fine arts residencies at Blue Mountain Center, Black Mountain College Museum, and Pao Arts Center. She currently teaches full-time at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and holds an MFA from Brown University’s Literary Arts program.

She Will Last as Long as Stones has the inter-genre brilliance of asking where materials originate, and following that question until writing becomes a kind of listening with stone, with metal, for magnetic reverberations, for the thinking at the back of the cave.
— Bhanu Kapil

There just might be currents coursing through landscape, language, software, and labor—presences that escape extraction and will not be denied. She Will Last as Long as Stones looks into the multiple temporalities and operations of many things: material place, mining, social and scientific documentation, computation, migrant women's work, and mother-daughter relations, constellating them into a poetics of wondrous design and resonant beauty. 
— Kimberly Alidio

She Will Last as Long as Stones is a subtle circuit that conducts a charge but (paradoxically) remains open. wu's intricate parataxis offers readers fertile resistance, while simultaneously leading us to grounded revelations about the intertwined materialities of technology, language, and memory.
Allison Parrish