345 pages, softcover The X Pipe and Other Mystagogic Stories for the pipe smoker is a blend of pipe lore, contemplative practice and academic pastiche, stoved and pressed before being sliced into seven tails of two pipe men. Mundungus and Sparks on their singular quest to uncover the truth about a miraculous pipe in the Vatican secret archives. Their search takes them on a wild ride as they bounce in time and space across the globe to travel abroad the last convict ship to Australia, smoke J.S. Bach’s pipe, discuss the sacred pipe religion of the Lakota, and eat black cake with Emily Dickinson. Along the way, they discussed the ultimate mysteries of Pipes smoking expounded in the books of the 19th century Irish Fryer and pipe carver known as Nicholai de Tabakkuk.

266 pages, hardcover contains some of the best to-scale pipe photos ever published in a book An Ivarsson Product: Three Generations of Ivarsson weighs nearly seven pounds, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, this book is worth somewhere north of 222,000 words. That's not even counting the introductions, two of them, one written by Rick Newcombe and one by our own Sykes Wilford. Keeping the bulk of this book (which is, as mentioned, considerable) in the universal language of photography, the publisher has created a timeline covering three generations of Ivarsson pipemakers, with pages 44-266 dedicated to three sections of full-page, color photographs of Ivarsson pipes: those of Sixten, those of Lars, and those of Nanna. Additionally, there is further content in Chinese text: a short preface by the publisher, translations of Rick and Sykes's pieces, and separate interviews with Lars and Nanna. Though many of us may not be able to read these, they do include quite a number of additional photographs of the artisans, their workshops, pipes, and design sketches.