When even newly manufactured products are products of cultural recycling – re-making a design or style that was commercial two decades ago – the question inevitably arises: why don’t we just use the stuff that’s already out there? This collection features the work of artists engaging that question directly, synthesizing consumer detritus into bona fide objets d’art: in Manufractured’s pages, towering light fixtures made from packing Styrofoam rub up against a negligee made of cosmetic facial peel. This re-contextualization of familiar, discarded goods challenges the suppositions behind the practice of art making as well as those of manufacturing and consumption.

A straightforward guide to the "how" and "where" of stencils, including pre-cut stencils for you to use at home, Stencil 101 also functions as a first step towards making your own customized stencils. A close relative of graffiti and high-contrast photography, stencils are bold, iconic gestures that have potential beyond photography or freehand graffiti alone – clothes, walls, and other personal (or public, we won’t tell) effects are all fair game for this form of personalized branding. And seriously, how long have you been waiting to throw Serge Gainsbourg’s life-size mug on your wall?

A lot has been made of the “new domesticity” – the resurgence of knitting, crocheting, and other domestic, traditionally female crafts with more than a touch of punk, DIY spirit and with a perspective that emphasizes gender equity rather than traditional roles. Subversive Cross Stitch is miles away from your grandma’s sampler – but then again, maybe she had that “Babies Suck” cross stitch hidden under her bed. More than just a how-to book, Subversive Cross Stitch runneth over with misanthropic attitude, presented in the homiest, most domestic, and comfortable space possible.

Justin Guariglia’s photographs of Shanghai split the difference between straight photojournalism and street fashion shots. The result is a focused plow through an unbelievably dense, vibrant city, its burgeoning street scenes and abandoned construction sites. Some of the shots here are social panoramas in the style of Andreas Gursky, while others opt for a more intimate approach – check out Guariglia’s inspired anthropological riff on footwear in the book’s middle. A unique perspective on contemporary China that burrows underneath our anxieties about the country’s burgeoning economy.

There’s something condescending in the phrase “accidental art” – so let’s just agree to call this art, period. The 1000 Journals Project has no single author, but is a pre- and post-web network of strangers who send blank journals along to be filled with transient thoughts and fugitive objects. Images and brief texts weave together to flesh out the chance operations the guide each image and each transaction – the book even replicates machine stitching where used by the original journaler. Like I Am 8-Bit, 1000 Journals treads the line separating digital from analog, memory from the archive, lossy and lossless.

Decades after Super Mario Bros. broke a new kind of video game to U.S. kids and adults, gaming still has a heavy stigma on it, socially and culturally. The artworks collected in I Am 8-Bit don’t try to break the stigma – they explode it by pushing video game-fueled imaginations to hyper-realistic and hyper-stylized extremes. These analog takes on digital entertainment run from the straightforward to the surreal – just look at Bob Dob’s realistic take on Donkey Kong and Mario drinking beers on DK’s famous scaffold. The introduction from Chuck Klosterman, a sort of nerd-prince, ties things together nicely.