Welcome to Inga’s 2021 holiday gift guide! Browse and you will find a hand-picked selection of new, notable, & staff favorite titles arranged according to giftable reading themes. For even more options, use our tagging system or web shop filters to further explore the 700+ titles on our virtual shelves.

We recommend ordering early (ideally before 12/10) to help us and the post office deliver in time. Gift wrapping available for all online and local pickup orders, which comes in durable kraft paper, brightly colored twine, and an Inga-themed botanical riso tag.
🌞 Still not sure? We have Inga tote bags and gift cards available here! 🌿
Anthologies and...
Collections of writing on jazz surrealism and socialist women struggles; “slick” and “fuzzy” explorations of art, culture, politics, and history; writing-anecdotes from Zimbabwean literary masters; performed language in the work of visual artists; and texts concerning the intersections and manifestations of crime and capitalism, among many other things.
Architecture & Public Space
For those interested in the built form, these books touch upon things like decoding a statue’s sculptured sociopolitical role; the implications of architecture and the built environment as they relate to land, memory, rights, and civic participation; the pivotal role of riots in the confrontation between authority and dissent; and alternative forms of housing production that can move beyond speculative interests and are based instead on models of co-ownership, co-production, and co-management.
Art & Design
With an expansive definition of what constitutes art and design, this collection covers things like curatorial practice; art world etiquette (or lack thereof); the art institution vis-à-vis political activism; children’s play across the world; the monarch butterfly as a geographic range and metaphor; and chairs!
Artist Novels & Poetry
A selection of poetry and prose with a special fix for the artist’s novel. “Kill the language. Kill it. Get the shovel. We’re making a belt.” Discomforting poems playing with language’s brutality; inventive writing by trans poets against capital and empire ; Dive deep into fictions about quadrilateral relationships; associative novels inquiring into the power of spells, names, and their role in transformation; page-turners about passions and politics, and more.
Ecology & Environment
"No geology is neutral" writes Kathryn Yusoff in A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. This collection thinks through what it means to relate to and live with the world and all its inhabitants in the context of the current climate regime.
Everywhere is a Classroom: Alternative Education
Doing (and undoing) it yourself, these books are exercises in (un)learning covering models for art organizations; self-organized education; open-ended games to un-train the body and recondition space; community autonomy and the reclaiming of public space; and radical pedagogy.
Femme & Feminisms
Glitch feminism; women and women-identifying makers and their contributions to artist-run culture; the association of femininity with electric energy; writing on the embodied strength, intuitive desires, and collective wisdom of feminists and non-binary protagonists to foreground the manifold dimensions of feminist politics and commitments, these titles chronicle femme & feminist stories and communities.
Film, Video, & Moving Image
Filmic books about the textured landscape of memory; “film dinners” where narratives bounced from the plate to the screen and back again; analog film "recipes" for the DIY filmmaker; the changes-in-progress of film production, exhibition, and restoration; and filmmaker spotlights, among many other things.
Food Reading
The overlaps, intersections, and entanglements between reading and food—this collection feature acts of solidarity and self-nourishment and touches upon the politics of food; artist sandwiches; colorful foodways; and themes of labour, duty, sustenance and loss.
Graphic Design & Typography
Books on letters, languages, and scripts; the history of graphic design; a guide to visually understanding and shaping the increasingly networked world of information and design; the power of printing, publishing, design, and distribution; the Ecstasy, Joy, Serenity, and Love found in type design; and graphic design-led research.
Photography
These books turn their lens on the practice of photography itself, featuring deep dives into textual and visual essays about the making and viewing of photographs; photographic meta data; the technology of the camera; and meaning and choreography via sports photography.
Printing, Publishing, & Books on Books
Books about books: this collection features titles about the print industry’s inequalities; an artist’s guide to copyright; the "tactile" in print; the post-digital age of publishing; and publishing as an artistic practice.
RISO, Zines, & Illustration
Making nice pairings with the Printing, Publishing, & Books on Books collection, these books look specifically at and feature examples of publishing made with the Risograph, in addition to the expansive world of zine publishing.
Sound & Music
For readers who contemplate topics like the philosophy of audio to the trials and triumphs of independent music. The books on this list span typographical scores; sketches of performance on the musical stage; punk/hardcore/noise zines dedicated to subcultural sonic communities; essays toward a philosophy of audio; the sonic ecologies of Black music in the early 21st century; plus an encyclopedia of political record labels.
Speculative & Otherworldly
From personal science fiction surveys to notes on future economies and non-linear storytelling, this selection of books teleport, transfigure, and challenge previously held notions while offering a glimpse into worlds afar and sometimes... closer than you think!
Time for Change: Activism, Anti-Racism, & Radical Thinking
From the A of Abolition Worlds (or ACAB) to the Z of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, these readings are timely and essential for thinking about the world we live in, inviting us to ask the questions that matter most. Through these books, we learn about the politics of interdependence, how to organize for autonomy, and how artists can confront the justice system.