Rare Bird Lit

07/11/2025

In Flip City, fifteen-year-old runaway James Daniel Ross trades the locked doors of a psych ward for the freedom of the underground—where drugs are currency, friendship is survival, and danger wears a familiar face.

A trippy, terrifying coming-of-age story for anyone who’s ever danced on the edge of madness.

Available via the link in our bio or wherever good books are sold.

07/09/2025

Join us for an unforgettable night at The Village Well with actor & author Candi Milo as she launches her raw, hilarious, and deeply human memoir, Surviving the Odd — a wild journey through a childhood spent in one of California’s first homes for the mentally ill.

In conversation with Emmy-winning voice actor Eric Bauza, Candi will read from her book and dive into stories of madness, resilience, punchlines, and growing up where the line between reality and absurdity was razor thin.

Surviving the Odd hits bookshelves on July 15th. Available via the link in our bio or wherever good books are sold.

07/04/2025

Signal Lost: Michael Madsen (1958–2025)

Somewhere between the flickering reels of Reservoir Dogs and the ashes of a half-burned poem, Michael Madsen slipped through the cracks of the American mythos—outlaw, poet, trickster, father, ghost-in-the-making.

We at Rare Bird weren’t there for many of the early verses, other than signings at Book Soup and late-night stumbles at the newsstand, but we’ve had the honor of working with Michael closely on his forthcoming memoir “Tears For My Father: Outlaw Thoughts & Poems.” It isn’t a memoir, really. More like a confession booth set on fire. A transmission from the underworld. Raw, ragged, funny, dangerous—exactly like the man himself.

Now the channel’s gone quiet.

But the pages and voicemails remain.

End scene, Michael. You deserved a more uncomplicated exit. Or maybe that was never in the cards.

07/02/2025

06/30/2025

Joan Didion once wrote that “a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest.” In Slouching Towards Los Angeles, edited by Steffie Nelson, a chorus of writers do just that—claiming, remembering, and remaking the California Didion mythos in a kaleidoscope of essays that shimmer with reverence and critique. From Manson to Malibu, Patty Hearst to Hollywood, this is a love letter to the golden state and the woman who saw its shadows first.

Get your copy now via the link in our bio or wherever good books are sold!

06/27/2025

Join us in celebrating the release of It’s About Time, a raw and riveting novel from drummer, composer, and legal trailblazer Greg Anton—founder of the band Zero and co-writer of 50+ songs with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter.

A story of love, loss, fame, and the redemptive power of music, It’s About Time follows a gifted musician spiraling under the weight of addiction, betrayal, and artistic pressure.

Anton will appear in select cities throughout California this summer for a series of readings and conversations. Come experience a story born from the stage, the courtroom, and the human heart.

Get your copy of It’s About Time via the link in our bio or wherever good books are sold.

06/26/2025

In the summer of 1956, Jack Kerouac hitchhiked from Mill Valley, CA, to the North Cascades to spend two months serving as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service. Taking only the Diamond Sutra for reading material, he intended to spend his time in deep contemplation and to achieve enlightenment. He wrote in his journal that he planned “to concentrate on emptiness of self, other selves, living beings, and universal self.” In letters to friends he proclaimed, “Something will happen to me on Desolation Peak…I can feel it.”

Kerouac’s experience on Desolation Peak forms the climax of his novel The Dharma Bums and has also been depicted in part 1 of Desolation Angels and a chapter in his nonfiction book Lonesome Traveler. None of these versions offers a full, true picture, however; and for that reason, Desolation Peak is essential reading.

Available via the link in our bio and wherever good books are sold.

06/25/2025

Jack Kerouac’s archive is vast. Throughout his life he was constantly writing, and he meticulously saved and catalogued his material. The result is that beyond the work published in his lifetime there has been a rich stream of posthumous writing that is far from tapped, adding depth to his lifework—the Duluoz Legend—and our understanding of Kerouac the man. Far from being the adrenalized thrill-seeker that he depicted in On the Road’s Dean Moriarty, Kerouac himself was deeply spiritual, shy, and reclusive. He sought adventures for the sake of experience, needing them to fuel his writing, which according to him was his sole reason for living. Few people sacrificed more for their art.

Self-Portrait is a blend of fictional and nonfictional pieces, a few abandoned starts but most complete in themselves and all of them chosen for the revelations they contain.

Get your copy via the link in our bio or wherever good books are sold!

06/24/2025

From a young age Kerouac was a spiritual thinker and questioner, and he always considered himself a spiritual writer. Buddhism gave more meaning to Jack’s work as a writer: he was working not for personal accomplishment and glory but for human betterment. And Buddhism justified his lifestyle: with its vision of the material world as empty and illusory, he was free to do what he wanted.

06/24/2025

New from Rare Bird and out today: a revelatory collection of Jack Kerouac’s unpublished Buddhist writings; a gritty, music-soaked novel of fame and fallout from Zero drummer and Robert Hunter collaborator Greg Anton; a razor-edged Hollywood noir by legendary producer Thom Mount; and a harrowing memoir of survival and family secrets from Mia McDaniel, now in paperback. Stories of reckoning, revelation, and the wreckage we rise from. On bookshelves wherever good books are sold.

06/23/2025

“If Hemingway had been a p**n star, this is how he would have written.” —The Nervous Breakdown

Oriana Small’s memoir Girlvert is a brutal, beautiful descent into ecstasy, addiction, and the surreal edges of the adult film world. A cult classic of visceral honesty and literary fire. Get your signed first edition copy and the vinyl audiobook on our website!

06/20/2025

She found herself on the Jersey Shore, in punk clubs, and far from home.

Alisyn Camerota’s unforgettable memoir Combat Love is out in paperback this summer!