Bookshelf: Ti Pi Tin bookshop founder Katja Chernova recommends five must-have publications

People who champion the smaller, artier, cuter, brighter, funnier publications there are flopping around all over the world are our kinds of people. Katja Chernova is one of those, so who better to ask to recommend us some publications for our weekly Bookshelf feature? Katja is the founder of Ti Pi Tin, a small but powerful art book shop in London’s weird cousin, Dalston. Ti Pi Tin stocks small publications, zines, and basically anything printed and bound and sometimes unnecessary that you inexplicably just really, really want to own. Here she is on her personal top five reads…

Bas Fontein: WAT TE DOEN / WHAT TO DO

The second run of WHAT TO DO / WAT TE DOEN includes an English translation of quotes and advice on how to make money with art given by people after finding out that Bas Fontein, the editor of the book, was an artist with a part-time job on the side.

Two Magpies Editorial: The Dead Dictators Colouring Book

This colouring book is a compilation of the work from various illustrators portraying the most fearsome of fallen totalitarian rulers carefully arranged by the cost in human lives. It aims to outline the disastrous effects of greed and unlimited power.

Miyoko Ihara: Misao the Big Mama and Fukumaru the Cat, Goodbye, Hello

The long-waited second chapter of a story of a day-to-day life of a photographer’s grandmother Misao and her cat Fukumaru.

Ryan Gander: Artists’ Cocktails

A pocket guide to cocktail recipes invented by various artists and combined into a publication by Ryan Gander.

Spike Gascoigne: 12 Portraits of People Caught in Strong Winds

Handmade letter-pressed zine by Spike Gascoigne of Walden Press collects 12 humorous portraits of passers-by caught in winds, including a woman performing Marilyn Monroe, a young man pissing, a man loosing his favourite hat and others.

Olivier Lebrun: Another Companion to Books from The Simpsons in Alphabetical Order

The slightly revised third edition of the yellow pocket guide to every conceivable type of book featured in The Simpsons. All were captured with a black-and-white animation still and catalogued in alphabetical order by French graphic designer Olivier Lebrun.