131 Different Things

(Hardback)

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Description

When Sam, a bartender in New York, hears that his ex, Vicki, his one true love, has quit AA and is out drinking again, he embarks on a quest to find her. Sam and his sidekick Francis trek from dive bars to gay bars to rocker bars--encountering skinheads, party promoters, underage drug dealers, and dominatrixes--but it seems they are always one step behind Vicki, almost as if 131 different things are keeping the lovers apart. Before the night is over, Sam will have to wrestle with what he is really looking for.

Zachary Lipez, known for his essays and music writing, brings his pithy, multilayered, and self-deprecating voice to fiction with this first novella. Nick Zinner's photographs heighten the intimacy with his sensitive and sympathetic eye. Stacy Wakefield, editor and art director, ties the book together beautifully with her impeccable design.

Reviews

A collaborative effort by photographer Nick Zinner (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), writers Zachary Lipez and Stacy Wakefield, 131 Different Things (Akashic Books) follows bartender Sam and his sidekick Francis on the odyssey to find Sam's ex Vicki, who has quit AA and is out on the town drinking up a storm. Their New York journey takes them to dive bars, gay bars and rocker bars where they encounter the denizens of the night and a series of situations, combining to 131 different things keeping Sam from Vicki.
--Bay Area Reporter

You dig the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but maybe you didn't know that guitarist Nick Zinner is also an accomplished photographer whose work has appeared in four previous books as well as in several major magazines. 131 Different Things is a novella--in collaboration with music writer Zachary Lipez and designer Stacy Wakefield--that's already getting rave reviews.
--7x7 Bay Area

Zinner has been shooting photos since before his days playing in Yeah Yeah Yeahs and in that time has released a number of collaborative book projects with writer Zachary Lipez and designer Stacy Wakefield. 131 Different Things is the trio's fifth collaboration.
--Popular Photography Magazine

This is an entertaining pub-crawl saga like no other...This book captures the angst, the joys and the struggles with love and career that young people experience. Lipez uses authentic language of the pop culture and the bar scene to create a raw, often very funny, and certainly realistic story.
--The Berkshire Eagle

Critical Praise for Please Take Me Off the Guest List by Zinner/Lipez/Wakefield:

Included in Flavorwire's An Essential Punk Literature Reading List.

For those who've never had the opportunity to party like a rock star and felt like they were missing out, Please Take Me Off the Guest List may very well smooth over those regrets.
--The New York Times, T Magazine Men's Fashion issue

It's a gorgeous book, but there's more to it than that. Wakefield is a designer; she juxtaposed Zinner's photos with Lipez's stories of life in the rock and roll gutter in a really unique way. There is literally no way you could make this book into a satisfying e-book. It's a beautiful artifact.
--The Stranger

Author Bio

Nick Zinner plays guitar in the three-time Grammy nominated band Yeah Yeah Yeahs and hardcore group Head Wound City. His photos have been published in four previous books, as well as in the New York Times, Vice, and Rolling Stone. He has exhibited in solo shows in Tokyo, Berlin, New York, London, Los Angeles, and Mexico City.

Zachary Lipez lives in New York City, where he has tended bar for the last twenty years. He is a regular contributor to Noisey, and his music and culture writing have also appeared in Vice, Hazlitt, Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, Talkhouse, Inc., and Penthouse.

Stacy Wakefield's artist books, published for many years under the imprint Evil Twin, have been collected by institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and London's Tate Modern. She runs a studio dedicated solely to book design and production. Her first novel, The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory, was published by Akashic in 2015. She lives in the Catskills and Brooklyn.