Customer Reviews

Amok Fifth Dispatch: Sourcebook for the Extremes of Information

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I had the third dispatch that arrived in my mail box and I have been hooked on the Amok Dispatches since then. This is the best place to find out about the astounding collection of books that you did not existed. Not a catalog that you want in young hands but a play ground for adults. Bizzare books on almost any topic that you can think of. Great fun.... surprising how many of the books listed that I must own ... someday.

The definitive reference work surveying the outer fringes of our information age. This is a collection of over 2000 of the most bizarre and controversial books available from hundreds of publishers worldwide - with a description of each book and ordering information. Huge book! Topics include: Mind Control, Anarchy, New World Order, Drugs, Murder and Mayhem, Forensics, Sexuality, Strange Science, Dada/Surrealism & Art, Sleaze, Cult Films, Kitsch, Exotica, Occult, Satan, Freemasonry, Parallax, Tactics, UFOs, Crowley, LaVey, Nietzsche, Rockwell, Malcolm X, Bataille, Breton, Szukalski etc... CAUTION: Contains ADULT Material. Paperback - 560 pgs. - Heavily illustrated in b&w ...- komabookstore.com

What I find most refreshing about the Amok Catalog is that they place no moral judgement on the books they feature. Right-wing and left-wing diatribes find space along David Cassidy autobiographies and Lypsinka coloring books. This catalog features many fascinating and knowledgeable essays. Since their mail-order system is no longer, it's suggested that the reader use this book as a source for extremes in art, knowledge and arcana.

Wow, these guys put together some amazing collections.

If you are looking for the truly bizarre, look no further than Amok. They consistently compile some of the strangest, most intriguing articles and essays on the planet.

Freedom of expression is always pushed to the outer limits with these works. Long live freedom.

Perfect bathroom reading for the pomo slacker type, a serious financial liability for the "extreme info" junky, there's something for everyone in here, no doubt

The latest Amok catalog is simply amazing. Over 500 pages (definitely the size of a metropolitan phone book) and printed as a quality paperback (a definite improvement over the newsprint-ish Fourth Dispatch), the Amok catalog features reviews and listings for literature (and sometimes videos and CD-roms) way outside the mainstream. The Amok Fifth Dispatch is truly a "sourcebook of the extremes of information in print."

However, despite the quality (and quantity) of the work which went into this thing, I can't help but feel a little less frightened of this edition as I did the previous one. Maybe it's because in the past 9 years, with the advent of such cultural phenomena as the internet, Jerry Springer, Marilyn Manson, and serial-killer/mass-murder fetish, the "extremes" don't seem so extreme anymore.

Nonetheless, this Amok Fifth Dispatch is an amazing resource and is well-worth picking up.

A word of caution: DO NOT THROW OUT THE PREVIOUS FOURTH DISPATCH IF YOU STILL HAVE IT!!! While there is some overlap between the previous Amok catalog and this one, the Fifth Dispatch is almost an entirely new book. I feel this is probably due to many of the publications listed in the Fourth Dispatch no longer being available (given the ephemeral nature of much of the material featured). Anyhow, keep both on your shelf.

I bought this when it was released and I still find myself drawn every time I open it. THE authority on counter-culture and extreme info. Too bad they are no longer around. I wish FERAL HOUSE would pick up where this left off.

OK right off the bat, not all of this stuff is really meaningful - much of it, in fact, is downright silly. HOWEVER, I've not seen such a collection of fringe thinking anywhere else.

You want the latest in Orgone energy, improvised home protection or more about who could have shot Kennedy other than Oswald... well, look no further. The drawback is the fact that so much of this material is the product of rather childlike thinkers.

Which has it's drawbacks.

I've never ordered from them, but I've been a fan for about 2 decades.

I had long since given up on hoping for a fifth dispatch-- I'd worn out the first four (and ordered dozens of books from them) in the 80s and 90s. Then-- bliss!-- this arrived. A volume of hundreds of pages of out-of-the-ordinary (some of it extremely so) literature and info is something you'll like. Obsessively readable and packed with minutiae, it's something to keep by the bedside for weeks of close reading (though don't let the kiddies too close). It's a little like an internet on paper, wandering off in all directions, most of them fascinating. Buy and read-- worth the money.

A more than comprehensive guide to everything worth reading. Everytime I need to find information or a book, or research something, I begin with the Dispatch... and everytime I open it, I find something else I need to know about. It becomes obsessive reading. Everybody who comes to visit spends hours pouring over it and mostly all of them leave equally obssessed.