Rare books from The Vespiary Book Restoration & Bindery

It was 1972, time of the cult-occult-commune explosion. By day, the Source Family dressed in colorful robes and served organic cuisine to John Lennon, Julie Chistie, Frank Zappa, and many other celebrities at the famed Source restaurant. By night, in their mansion in the Hollywood Hills, they explored the cosmos with their spiritual leader, Father Yod. Yod was an outlandish figure who had 14 wives, drove a Rolls-Royce, and fronted his own psychedelic rock band, Ya Ho Wa 13, now considered one of the most singular psychedelic bands of all time. He surprised many by suddenly morphing from health food restaurateur into mystical leader of what many considered a cult: a group of young people who lived strictly devoted to his esoteric teachings, unusual sexual practices, and philosophies of natural living and dying. Still, as controversial as he was to outsiders, Father Yod was, by inside accounts, a deeply loving and spiritually powerful magus who taught his Family to recognize their divinity within and… Read More

In Lettin It All Hang Out, part autobiography, part how-to manual, superstar RuPaul comes out and comes clean with the full story of his remarkable rise and rise. Born to a mother who was a "hot firecracker of a woman," RuPaul Andre Charles talks about her powerful influence and of his life growing up in a house full of women. He tells the story of his difficult but loving childhood, his early awareness of "being different," and takes us on a wild ride highlighting his various drag personae over the years in Atlanta, New York City, and eventually all over the world.RuPaul also reveals his secrets as the apotheosis of the nineties' glamour girl: how to work a wig, how to get sparkling white teeth, how to work the camera and how to get the camera to work for you, the essential items every drag queen must have in her purse, and how to achieve the fiercest tuck this side of the Mason-Dixon line. RuPaul also lets us behind his persona to show his fans that there is more to him than the paint and the… Read More

Here are Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, and Fred Hampton; Kathleen Cleaver and other Panther women; the party's court battles and acquittals; its positions on black separatism, the power structure, the police, violence, and education; as well as songs, poems, and political cartoons. This is the story behind the Black Panthers.

The Li'l Green Songbook was originally created in 1981 to allow people to sing along with Johnny Sagebrush at various Earth First! roadshows, protests and other events. By 1986 it had expanded to also include songs from Cecelia Ostrow, Bill Oliver, Greg Keeler, Walkin' Jim Stoltz, John Seed, Darryl Cherney and others.