The Lifted Brow No. 5 is available for preorder (ships in a few weeks).

A chapter from Tom Bissell’s Rome book (out 2012). Twelve new poems by Tao Lin. Michael Hearst goes on tour with The Magnetic Fields. New work by Robert Shearman, Mandy Ord, Glen David Gold, Bryce Wolfgang Joiner, Scarlett Thomas, Angela Slatter, Justin Taylor, Chris Currie, Tony Birch, Krissy Kneen, Blake Butler, n a bourke, and many more. Art all the way through by James Gurney (Mr Dinotopia) and Renee French. A hundred pages of the best and strangest new writing about Brisbane. And Thomas Benjamin Guerney’s fully acted-out and music-ed sci-fi audio drama: eighty minutes of strict post-apocalyptic rhyming couplets, which Daniel Handler calls “an epic of heartbreak and awesomeness”. TLB5 is a 280-page book + CD.

Better yet, you can subscribe to either side of this issue. Start right now with TLB4 (Spiral Stairs, Heidi Julavits, The Lucksmiths, Neil Gaiman, and 103 others), or finish in December with TLB6, which is an atlas of the world: 246 countries, a bunch of cities, and several made-up places, newly observed by The Church, Douglas Coupland, Christos Tsiolkas, Bodies of Water, and who knows who else. (Maybe you?)

Heaps of live shows coming up all the way into October. Let’s keep in touch.

And let’s never land this ROFLcopter! Not when “the giggles” is a renewable fuel.

Annual subscription

Prices in AU$ and include shipping.

I live in Australia $45.00 I live overseas $60.00

Start with TLB4 or TLB5?

Just the new issue, thanks

Prices in AU$ and include shipping.

I live in Australia $25.00 I live overseas $35.00

You can now subscribe beginning with The Lifted Brow No. 5 (ships June or July). TLB5 is the most “thing we want the Brow to be” issue yet. It’s also pretty chunk.

CRISABOE: What predictive text thinks you’re typing if you type “Brisbane”. Hometown readers, this is the poorly-thought-through affair to your One Book Many Brisbanes, your student magazines, and a national book culture which rarely gets the sunshine state at all. What do four-minute shower restrictions mean for a man who sweats grease? (That one’s fiction.) Is it possible to visit all thirty-two council libraries in a day? (That one’s not.) CRISABOE is a recurring reason to make good art from and about Brisrael City.

Articles department: Michael Hearst goes on tour with The Magnetic Fields, Tim O’Neil journals the fall of American superhero comics, and Tom Bissell visits the tomb of the thirteenth apostle, Matthias.

World ‘n’ local fiction department: Caren Beilin, Tony Birch, n a bourke, Blake Butler, Chris Currie, Laura E. Goodin, Bryce Wolfgang Joiner, Andrew Kertesz, Krissy Kneen, Jennifer L. Knox, Matthew Lanzdorf, Darlin’ Neal, Robert Shearman, Angela Slatter, Antonia Strakosch, Justin Taylor, Scarlett Thomas, and Joe Wenderoth.

Stray departments: The first installment of Leesa Wockner’s maths column, on knot theory. Every copy comes with a piece of string so that you can play along. (WOW, free string!) Play by Julian Hobba. Comic by Mandy Ord. Poems by James Caroline, Scarlett Thomas, and Benj Vardigan. Art by Chris East and Maude Farrugia. Cut and keep recipes. Drop caps throughout by James Gurney (the Dinotopia man).

Lastly, the thing we are proudest of printing of anything, ever, department: Valcapella and Dwinn, which is Thomas Benjamin Guerney’s eighty-minute epic rhyming sci-fi audio drama, on CD, with voice actors doing the voices, and a string quartet.

If you start your subscription with TLB4 (the fake bookshelf issue), you’ll receive that one now and this one midyear. If you start with this one, you’ll also get our world atlas in December. Don’t you see?? There are no losers!

Annual subscription

Prices in Australian dollars and include shipping. AU$60 = only US$40.

I live in Australia $45.00 I live overseas $60.00

Start with TLB4 or TLB5? 4 ships now, 5 ships midyear.

Next Tuesday, February 10th, Chris Currie, Thomas Benjamin Guerney, Benjamin Law, and Ronnie Scott will get grilled about the Brow by sexual memoirist Krissy Kneen at West End’s own Avid Reader. Free entry! Free wine! 6pm. RSVP to 07 3846 3422.

Then Wednesday, February 11th, Fulton Lights is on The Inconvenience Party, 6am-9, 4ZzZ (102.1 FM in Brisbane). Fulton Lights will play live in-studio. You’ll also hear some tracks from Brow 4.

Finally Thursday, February 12th, round out your Carnival of Brows with our launch party at The Zoo. Joel Saunders + Crazy Hearse, Fulton Lights (U.S.A.), and Mt. Augustus play.

Joel Saunders is practically our house band by now because he’s the funnest thing. Fulton Lights was so good at our Melbourne show that we cancelled his return flight to Brooklyn; he was like “how did you do that?” It was awful, but we did. Mt. Augustus has a singing saw! Just come. It’s only $10, or $20 with the issue. That’s the cheapest you’ll get it anywhere, and you get a great show thrown in.

As always, we’ll have a Surprise Cardboard Thing (that is NOT a pinata and NOT a photo booth. It may in fact be a Surprise Newspaper Thing). People with memories will know that we had a Surprise Cardboard Thing in Melbourne. This turned out not to be made of cardboard, or even newspaper - but of sweet, sweet honeycomb, if by honeycomb you mean Spiral Stairs! He played new songs, Preston School of Industry songs, he played Kennel District, maybe for the first time in a decade. Maybe not, but it was so awesome. I’m not saying our Surprise Newspaper Thing is Spiral Stairs again. It’s not, it’s really newspaper. I’m just saying we have decent surprises.

And write us letters. Address them to the editors, or contributors via us. Tough questions, suggestions, complaints - all is welcome. We will read everything. We will try to respond, but may not. We’ll want to print some of them (in which case we’ll ask). editors at theliftedbrow.com.

Our regards,

Your Brow.

We’re launching our fourth issue at the East Brunswick Club on Friday, 16th January, with Bachelorette (New Zealand), Institut Polaire, Fulton Lights (New York - née Maestro Echoplex), Aleks and the Ramps, Sly Hats, and multiple (great) surprises. Tickets are $15 on the door, or $25 with the issue, OR you can book now for $12+BF. (Don’t worry, you can still grab a copy on the night and absorb your ticket price.)

TLB4 is a 270-page book and two CDs featuring new work based on the titles in a fake bookshelf; the fake bookshelf itself will make its public debut at the show. And if you’ve preordered the issue (or plan to do so), Melbourne postal addresses are on the door.

TLB4, 17th January 2009

Prices in Australian dollars and include shipping. AU$40 = only US$27.

I live in Australia $30.00 I live overseas $40.00

107 new stories, songs, and comics based on the titles on a fake bookshelf. As a 270-page book and two hourlong CDs, this is clearly just the thing for anyone.

Sorry about the postage! This is $25 in stores, and it costs us $10 to mail locally. If you live overseas, the postage costs us $20. So in both cases, we’re absorbing about $5 for you.

Subscriptions here (start with this issue or the next).

Book: Daria Tessler, Sheila Heti, Tom Lombardi, Karen Russell, Jennifer L. Knox, Paul La Farge, Alexander MacBride, Benjamin Law, Christopher Currie, Alex Holden, Joanna Howard, Ben Greenman, Hannah Pittard, Eric Hanson, Aaron Gwyn, Adam Thirlwell, Sara Varon, Beena Kamlani, Joe Meno, Josephine Rowe, Ryan Boudinot, John McNally, Robert Olen Butler, Jeffrey Brown, Christian TeBordo, Adam Levin, Anna Krien, W. Andrew Ewell, Sarah Manguso, Matthew Thurber, Sarah Moor, Kevin Moffett, Yannick Murphy, Clancy Martin & Deb Olin Unferth, Adam Golaski, Daniel Handler & Lisa Brown, Carey Mercer & Sydney Vermont, Jordan Himelfarb & Joel Taylor, Sean Casey, Manuel Gonzales, John Cotter, Jim Shepard, Chris Eaton, Caren Beilin, John Hankiewicz, Sam Lipsyte, James P. Othmer, Terry Wright, Brendan Connell, Chris Flynn, Jess Walter, Heidi Julavits, Thomas Benjamin Guerney, Aaron Renier, Brian Evenson, Spencer Krug, Robert Scrivini, Beth Murphy, Samantha Hunt, Arthur Bradford, Tao Lin, Chris Bachelder, Salvador Plascencia, Lee Henderson, Jonathan Meiburg, Rick Moody, and Sean Michaels.

CD1
THE CAY • Cachalot
HAUNTED HOUSE • Sierra Trail
FEWN • Buffalo Crossing
THE PANDA BAND • Where the River Rises
ALEKS AND THE RAMPS • Walking in the Garden
SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN • The House of Memory
NO KIDS • Prisoner of Desire
HANNAH MARCUS • The Princess Royal
I’M NOT JIM • Stalking Horse
TELEFAUNA • Gold Fury
WINDMILL • Rollercoaster
THE LUCKSMITHS • The World of Professional Golf 1994
NEIL GAIMAN • Bloody Sunrise
GET HIM EAT HIM • Catalysts
ROBBERS ON HIGH STREET • The Duke’s Dilemma
BUTTERFLY TRANSFORMATION SERVICE • The Long Journey
PIKELET • Sweeter Music
DAN DEACON • The Night of the Scorpion
ERIK HECHT • The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World
THEE MORE SHALLOWS • Desert Sinner

CD2
GOBLIN COCK • A Tracing of Angels
BACHELORETTE • Mindwarp
SLEEPING STATES • Root Canal
THE HIMALAYAN BEAR • Voice of the Turtle
THE WALKING HELLOS • The Unloved
ROCK PLAZA CENTRAL • Honeymoon with Murder
ARMS • Gunsmoke Legend
THE WHISKERS • Marsh Blood
SPIRAL STAIRS • The Cheetah Chase
FAUX PAS • Road to Nowhere
MICHAEL HEARST • Montana Crisis
CLAUDIA GONSON • Cottage Gardening
SLY HATS • Rock Gardens
CAROLYN MARK AND HER ENABLERS • Mark of the Hangman
FRIGHTENED RABBIT • Last Tango in Brooklyn
EZRA FURMAN AND THE HARPOONS • Portrait of Maud
HOME BLITZ • The Forbidden Tower
ADAM AND THE AMETHYSTS • Deadly Passage
THE WRENS • In Turkish Waters
THE CAPSTAN SHAFTS • Murder at the Royal Shakespeare