From the acclaimed author of Taipei, a bold portrait of a writer working to balance all his lives—artist, son, loner—as he spins the ordinary into something monumental. An engrossing, hopeful novel about life, fiction, and where the two blur together. In 2014, a novelist named Li leaves Manhattan to visit his parents in Taipei for ten weeks. He doesn't know it yet, but his life will begin to deepen and complexify on this trip. As he flies between these two worlds--year by year, over four years--he will flit in and out of optimism, despair, loneliness, sanity, bouts of chronic pain, and drafts of a new book. He will incite and temper arguments, uncover secrets about nature and history, and try to understand how to live a meaningful life as an artist and a son. But how to fit these pieces of his life together? Where to begin? Or should he leave society altogether? Exploring everyday events and scenes--waiting rooms, dog walks, family meals--while investigatively venturing to the edges of society, where culture dissolves into mystery, Lin shows what it is to write a novel in real time. Illuminating and deeply felt, as it builds toward a stunning, if unexpected, romance, Leave Society is a masterly story about life and art at the end of history. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

The basis for the movie High Resolution From one of this generation's most talked about and enigmatic writers comes a deeply personal, powerful, and moving novel about family, relationships, accelerating drug use, and the lingering possibility of death. Taipei by Tao Lin is an ode--or lament--to the way we live now. Following Paul from New York, where he comically navigates Manhattan's art and literary scenes, to Taipei, Taiwan, where he confronts his family's roots, we see one relationship fail, while another is born on the internet and blooms into an unexpected wedding in Las Vegas. Along the way—whether on all night drives up the East Coast, shoplifting excursions in the South, book readings on the West Coast, or ill advised grocery runs in Ohio—movies are made with laptop cameras, massive amounts of drugs are ingested, and two young lovers come to learn what it means to share themselves completely. The result is a suspenseful meditation on memory, love, and what it means to be alive, young, and on the fringe in America, or anywhere else for that matter.

In a startling change of direction, cult favourite Tao Lin presents a dark and brooding tale of illicit love that is his most sophisticated and mesmerising yet. Named after the real-life writer Richard Yates, but, having nothing to do with him, Lin tracks the illicit affair between a very young writer and his underage lover. As the writer seeks to balance work and love, his young lover becomes ever more self-destructive in a play for his undivided attention. Lin's trademark minimalism takes on a new sharp-edged suspense here, zeroing in on a lacerating narrative.

A funny autobiographical tale about growing up in the digital age, from a groundbreaking author whose writing is “reminiscent of early Douglas Coupland, or early Bret Easton Ellis” (The Guardian) This autobiographical novella is described by the author as “a shoplifting book about vague relationships,” and “an ultimately life-affirming book about how the unidirectional nature of time renders everything beautiful and sad.” From VIP rooms in hip New York City clubs to central booking in Chinatown, from New York University’s Bobst Library to a bus in someone’s backyard in a Floridian college town, from Bret Easton Ellis to Lorrie Moore, and from Moby to Schumann, Shoplifting from American Apparel explores class, culture, and the arts in all their American forms through the funny, journalistic, and existentially-minded narrative of someone trying to both “not be a bad person” and “find some kind of happiness or something.” “Tao's writing . . . has the force of the real.” —Ben Lerner, author of The Topeka School

An absurdist short story collection about the woes of 21st-century living—from an author whose writing is “moving and necessary, not to mention frequently hilarious” (Miranda July) College students, recent graduates, and their parents work at Denny’s, volunteer at a public library in suburban Florida, attend satanic ska/punk concerts, eat Chinese food with the homeless of New York City, and go to the same Japanese restaurant in Manhattan three times in two sleepless days, all while yearning constantly for love, a better kind of love, or something better than love, things which—much like the Loch Ness Monster—they know probably do not exist, but are rumored to exist and therefore “good enough.”

Part memoir, part history, part journalistic exposé, Trip is a look at psychedelic drugs, literature, and alienation from one of the twenty-first century's most innovative novelists--The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for a new generation. A Vintage Original. While reeling from one of the most creative--but at times self-destructive--outpourings of his life, Tao Lin discovered the strange and exciting work of Terence McKenna. McKenna, the leading advocate of psychedelic drugs since Timothy Leary, became for Lin both an obsession and a revitalizing force. In Trip, Lin's first book-length work of nonfiction, he charts his recovery from pharmaceutical drugs, his surprising and positive change in worldview, and his four-year engagement with some of the hardest questions: Why do we make art? Is the world made of language? What happens when we die? And is the imagination more real than the universe? In exploring these ideas and detailing his experiences with psilocybin, DMT, salvia, and cannabis, Lin takes readers on a trip through nature, his own past, psychedelic culture, and the unknown.

Literary Nonfiction. Art. Fiction. Poetry. SELECTED TWEETS by Mira Gonzalez and Tao Lin, dating from 2008 to 2014, as well as extras such as illustrations of each other's tweets, short stories, essays, and a long poem. SHEILA HETI: How do you imagine people read Twitter? TAO LIN: On their phones I think mostly. I think I've read the most Twitter while laying in bed or on my back, or just laying in places, like in parks or in airports. Maybe not the most, but a lot. I've dropped my phone on my face many times. I think other people must too, but I rarely hear about this. SHEILA HETI: What do you think about before you tweet? You once told me that you tweet what makes you feel uncomfortable. So which tweets do you reject, which do you accept? MIRA GONZALEZ: I wouldn't necessarily say that I tweet what makes me feel uncomfortable, I think it's more that I feel comfortable tweeting things that I would never feel comfortable saying in a real life conversation, or even in other places on the internet. For reasons that I don't fully understand, Twitter is a place where I don't feel ashamed to say my most shameful thoughts... (From "What Would Twitter Do," Tao Lin and Mira Gonzalez interviewed by Sheila Heti)

Poetry. Asian American Studies. Winner of the 2005 December Prize. Reading Tao Lin is like looking the wrong way down Frank O'Hara's ear trumpet at a 21st century Mayakovski IM-ing Lili Brik. This book is fun, smart, manic and ecstatic; it puts on a clean shirt before it loads the gun. "YOU ARE A LITTLE BIT HAPPIER THAN I AM has the energy and oddness of a thing that is rising very fast that is not supposed to be rising, or that is supposed to be rising but for a moment you forget that, and for a moment this ordinary thing looks very strange and exciting"--Deb Olin Unferth. Tao Lin is 23 and lives in New York City. Visit his blog reader-of-depressing-books.blogspot.com.

An off-kilter and funny novel in which confused yet intelligent animals attempt to interact with confused yet intelligent humans, resulting in the death of Elijah Wood, Salman Rushdie and Wong Kar Wai; a vegan dinner at a sushi restaurant is attended by a dolphin, a bear, a moose, an alien, three humans and the President of the USA, who lectures on the arbitrary nature of consciousness, truth and the universe before getting drunk and playing poker.

Taipei is de grensverleggende autobiografische roman van het nieuwe literaire fenomeen Tao Lin. Hij vertelt het verhaal van de jonge schrijver Paul, die op zoek is naar houvast in een wereld die steeds minder zekerheden biedt. Paul woont in Brooklyn en brengt zijn tijd grotendeels door met het checken van Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr en Gmail. Hij doorbreekt de sleur door zich met volle overgave te storten op drugs, feesten en reizen naar Taiwan, waar zijn ouders wonen. Kort nadat hij via internet zijn vriendin Erin ontmoet, trouwt hij gedrogeerd met haar in Las Vegas. Het feesten gaat onverminderd door, net als zijn zoektocht naar redenen voor zijn bestaan. De koortsachtige, zinderende manier waarop Tao Lin weet in te zoomen op de verveling en doelloosheid in het leven van zijn personages, maakt hem tot een nieuwe, radicale loot aan de stam van de contemporaine literatuur. Tao Lin (1983) is grondlegger en boegbeeld van Alt Lit, een Amerikaans platform voor literaire bloggers. Zijn werk wordt in twaalf talen vertaald. Hij woont in Manhattan en is de oprichter en uitgever van online uitgeverij Muumuu House. `Tao Lin is de belangrijkste stem van zijn generatie. Bret Easton Ellis `Tao Lin is een belangrijke en getalenteerde romancier die alles uit de kast haalt. The New York Times Book Review `Lin is een vertegenwoordiger van een nieuw type schrijverschap. Rutger Lemm `Een wereld die herkenbaar is, maar nog zelden zo opgeschreven. Vrij Nederland