Bøger udgivet af Soft Skull Press

A journalist’s travelogue of war-torn Sri Lanka “brings refreshing clarity and enlightenment” to our understanding of terrorism (Robert Young Pelton). Armed with a map and a motorcycle, Mark Stephen Meadows ventures to Sri Lanka’s war zone to interview terrorists, generals, and heroin dealers on their own terms. He seeks only to understand the conflict and witness the civil war’s effects on the country. As he travels north through Colombo, Kandy, and the damaged city of Jaffna, Meadows discovers an island of beauty and abundance ground down by three decades of war. He is invited into an ancient culture where he learns to trap an elephant, weave rope from coconut husks, cast out devils, and even have afternoon tea with terrorists. Meadow’s story and take on the war focuses on the interconnectedness of globalization, the media, and modern terrorism in what Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, calls “an excellent undertaking.”

Though the narrator's life is peppered with myth, demons, werewolves, god and goddesses, the only thing stronger and more sustaining is his friendship with Ruby."From now on," Ruby says to her friend, the narrator, "We're going on the Stone Age diet. It means we only eat the sort of healthy things our ancestors would have eaten. Raw grains and fruits and stuff like that. That's what our bodies are made for." An admirable plan, but Ruby never eats, and the narrator's attention span doesn't lend itself to routine. He's too busy pining for his ex-girlfriend Cis, who broke up with him and left him with self-pity and a plant: an Aphrodite Cactus that, when it flowers, is supposed to seal the love of the giver to the receiver, according to Ruby. Ruby, who never wears any shoes (even in the dead of winter).Though lovelorn and lonely, the narrator's life is rich with myth, demons, werewolves, gods and goddesses; everything is imbued with a spirit. There's Helena, goddess of electric guitar players; Ascanazl, an ancient and powerful Inca spirit who looks after lonely people; Shumash the sun god; the war and sexuality goddess Astarte; the muse Clio. In fact the only thing stronger and more sustaining than the narrator's fantasy life is his friendship with Ruby-the kind of friendship a body is made for.

What does it mean to construct a self? What does it mean to turn your life into a narrative? What’s gained? What’s lost? What lies inevitably get told? What deeper truths are reached or at least reached for? Enough About You has no answers to these questions, but it frames and asks these questions in a much more overt, honest, precise, and provocative way than any book has attempted yet, and tries to do so while also delivering the pleasures of narrative, of memoir, of search-for-self.With moving and often hilarious candor, Shields explores the connections between fiction and nonfiction, stuttering and writing, literary forms and literary contents, art and life; he confronts bad reviews of his earlier books; he examines why he read a college girlfriend’s journal; he raids a wide range of cultural figures (from Rousseau, Nabokov, and Salinger to Bill Murray, Adam Sandler, and Bobby Knight) for what they have to tell him about himself.Enough About You is a book about David Shields. But it is also a terrifically engrossing exploration and exploitation of self-reflection, self-absorption, full-blown narcissism, and the impulse to write about oneself. In a world awash with memoirs and tell-alls, Shields has created something unique: he invites the reader into his mind as he turns his life into a narrative.

From mom-and-pop general stores to big-box, strip-mall chains, it is impossible to consider the American experience without thinking about the buying-and-selling retail culture: the sales and the stockrooms, the shift managers, and the clock punchers. "The Customer Is Always Wrong" is a tragicomic and all-too revealing collection of essays by writers who have done their time behind the counter and lived to tell their tales. Jim DeRogatis, author of "Let It Blurt," for example, describes hanging out with Al himself at Al Rocky's Music Store, while Colson Whitehead explains how three summers at a Long Island ice cream store gave him a lifelong aversion to all things dessert-like. This book not only shines a light on the absurdities of retail culture but finds the delight in it as well.

Should graffiti writers organize to tear up the cities, or should they really be bombing the 'burbs? That's the question posed by William Upski Wimsatt in his seminal foray into the world of hip-hop, rap, and street art, and the culture and politics that surround it.Taking on a broad range of topics, including suburban sprawl, racial identity, and youth activism, Wimsatt (a graffiti artist himself) uses a kaleidoscopic approach that combines stories, cartoons, interviews, disses, parodies, and original research to challenge the suburban mindset wherever it's found: suburbs and corporate headquarters, inner cities and housing projects, even in hip-hop itself. Funny, provocative, and painfully honest, Bomb the Suburbs encourages readers to expand their social boundaries and explore the vibrant, chaotic world that exists beyond their comfort zones.

Bowling lessons with a hunchback. A bizarre first-grade teacher who hallucinates in class. A tragically innocent family blind-sided by flower power, and the salvation of soul music at a radio station straight out of a Quentin Tarantino version of The Twilight Zone. These are just a few of the luminous characters and conjurings Kris Saknussemm delivers in his kaleidoscopic Sea Monkeys—the story of his growing up in the counterculture San Francisco Bay Area and central California in the 1960s.Known for his genre-bending works Zanesville and Private Midnight, Saknussemm now gives us a highly original take on the nonfiction memoir, in which he shatters the stained glass windows of his father's church and mixes the pieces with ghost cartoons, the Cronkite contradictions of Civil Rights demonstrations, and ads for laxatives during a strange hiatus in American sanity when Sly Stone and Perry Como could both be in the Top 10. Honest, funny, and at times heartbreaking, Sea Monkeys is the no-holds-barred tale of one of our most exciting contemporary authors’ own coming of age, and the perfect follow-up to Saknussemm’s Zanesville, which Booklist hailed as “one of the most creative, edgy, and entertaining novels spawned in a decade.”

The human race has invented nearly every toxin imaginable. In our food, there are chemicals that kill pests, make foods ripen faster and grow bigger, and lengthen shelf life. In our clothing, chemicals make fabrics soft, keep them from wrinkling, make them fire retardant and resistant to stains, and keep them from collecting static. In our kitchens and bathrooms, chemicals create suds, remove grease, stiffen our hair, make our skin feel smooth, stop us from perspiring, change our hair color, lengthen our lashes, and make us smell good. Unfortunately, many of these chemicals, designed to improve and simplify our lives, cause birth defects, hyperactivity, learning disabilities, attention deficit, early puberty, and developmental problems--to name a few. "The Pure Cure" takes readers to a new level of awareness regarding the dangers of the toxins in everyday products and services. Taking a thorough and comprehensive approach, the book guides readers through every room in the house and beyond, identifying problematic toxins and a course of action for eliminating them. The author also points to surprising new areas of concern, makes suggestions for healthy solutions, and provides a lists of products and companies that can offer safer alternatives.

Get ready for the most outrageous, unapologetically hedonistic rock-and-roll book ever. Combing the best nuggets of drug- andsex-related exploits from the lives of Motley Cru]e, Led Zeppelin, Elvis Presley, Keith Richards, Michael Jackson, and dozens more of infamous rock-and-roll animals, sexpert Judy McGuire has compiled the mother lode of all books of lists. Beginning with health tips from Ozzy Osbourne and weeding its way through every possible vice, "The Official Book of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll Lists" leaves no Rolling Stone unturned in its quest for cheap laughs and mind-blowing trivia, especially when it comes to the debauchery of rock-star lives and the songs that make parents crazy. It's all here, and lavishly illustrated by comic book hero Cliff Mott, the genius behind "the outrageous drawings in the punk rock and heavy metal volumes in this series. The Official Book of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll Lists" is the ultimate trip for all rock-and-roll fans living life vicariously from the comfort of their armchair or toilet. But be careful . . . after reading this book, you just may just wind up in rehab!

Three generations of women struggle with oppression in this prize-winning historical saga from “a natural born storyteller” (Julia Alvarez).When I remember Russia, I ache with longing for the village of my birth, where the beloved grandparents magically produced candy in a handshake and told stories of long ago when God spoke to humans and enchantments filled the world . . . Two Jewish sisters, born in Russia shortly before the Communist Revolution, are forced to flee the pogroms and persecution and travel with their parents to British-occupied Palestine. The girls’ parents befriend a widower with two children and join forces, creating a blended family. When the girls are teenagers, World War II tears the family apart, sending the girls separately to France and America. Their lives unfold in tandem: babies are born, friendships forged, and cherry pies baked—despite the brutal backdrop of the Holocaust. As the family grows into the next generation, one of the daughters, an artist drawn to a bohemian lifestyle, surrounds herself with a multicultural circle of friends the likes of which her ancestors could not have imagined. Subsequently, the artist’s turns her passion to providing aid to Salvadoran refugees fleeing the death squads in their homeland, just as her own grandmother once fled the pogroms of Russia. As she follows her vocation of reversing the damage that torturers inflict on their victims, she must also overcome a past-life trauma that haunts her very core.A winner of the Fabri Literary Prize, Memories from Cherry Harvest spans seventy years and five continents, explores the physics of memory, and shows how the tenacity of good can ultimately withstand and overcome the memory of tragedy.“Like Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies and Doris Lessing’s Martha Quest novels, this story about fighting the injustices of the 20th century will engage readers of politically charged fiction.” —Library Journal

An "extraordinary" work of spiritual journalism that grapples with the themes of drugs, prisons, politics, and spirituality through Shaw's personal story (Chicago Tribune), originally published as a series on Reality Sandwich and The Huffington Post.In 2005, Shaw was arrested in Chicago for possession of MDMA and was sent to prison for one year. Shaw not only looks at the current prison system and its many destructive flaws, but also at how American culture regards criminals and those who live outside of society. He begins his story at Chicago's Cook County Jail, and uses its sprawling, highly corrupt infrastructure to build upon his overarching argument.This is an insider's look at the forgotten or excluded segments of our society, the disenfranchised lifestyles and subcultures existing in what Shaw calls the "exile nation.” They are those who lost some or all of their ability to participate in the full opportunities of society because of an arrest or conviction for a non-violent, drug-related, or "moral offense,” those who cannot participate in the credit economy, and those with lifestyle choices that involve radical politics and sexuality, cognitive liberty, and unorthodox spiritual and healing practices. Together they make up the new "evolutionary counterculture” of the most significant epoch in human history.

"The CIA's Greatest Hits" details how the CIA: - hired top Nazi war criminals, shielded them from justice and learned--and used--their techniques- has been involved in assassinations, bombings, massacres, wars, death squads, drug trafficking, and rigged elections all over the world- tortures children as young as 13 and adults as old as 89, resulting in forced "confessions" to all sorts of imaginary crimes (an innocent Kuwaiti was tortured for months to make him keep repeating his initial lies, and a supposed al-Qaeda leader was waterboarded 187 times in a single month without producing a speck of useful information)- orchestrates the media--which one CIA deputy director liked to call "the mighty Wurlitzer"--and places its agents inside newspapers, magazines and book publishers- and much more. The CIA's crimes continue unabated, and unpunished. The day before General David Petraeus took over as the twentieth CIA director, federal prosecutors announced that they were dropping 99 investigations into the deaths of people in CIA custody, leaving just two active cases they're willing to pursue. The first edition of "The CIA's Greatest Hits" sold more than 38,000 copies. This fully revised and updated second edition contains six completely new chapters.

Searching for his missing brother in Prague, an American encounters a world of killers, gangsters, and ancient mysteries in a “satisfyingly twisted tale” (Publishers Weekly).When American collections agent Lee Holloway receives a letter from a mysterious woman named Vera concerning his missing brother Paul, curiosity takes him to Prague in search of answers. But what he finds in the historic city’s looming shadows and cobbled streets is a mind-bending world of conspiracy and danger. A world where black magic and sixteenth-century alchemy aren’t just footnotes in history books. A world where gangsters with fairy-tale names and a bloodthirsty serial killer exist alongside grim reminders of Nazi invasion. And where a priceless watch named The Rudolph Complication—commissioned by an eccentric Roman emperor—is rumored to hold the secret to eternal life.As Lee delves deeper into the question of Paul’s fate, he discovers unsettling truths about his brother . . . and himself. Now Lee must unravel the tangled threads of Paul’s last days if he wants to escape the ancient city alive.Echoing with ghosts and mythic monsters from Europe’s storied past, this is a heart-pumping thrill ride into the very heart of darkness.

Cult poet and musician Mike Doughty makes his print debut with Slanky, a black-comic stroll through the demimonde of pop culture and modern urban life.Doughty's poems are at once absurdest and matter-of-fact; the images he conjures are thrown into high relief through cutting wordplay. In a series of prose poems about showbiz, he re imagines Cookie Monster as a burned-out suicide, and cheesy talk-show host Joe Franklin as a cross-dressing witness to the apocalypse. And in "For Charlotte, Unlisted" he wrenchingly tracks the elusive memory of a faded romance.

Uncensored, uncontained, and thoroughly demented, the memoirs of Paul Krassner are back in an updated and expanded edition. Paul Krassner, “father of the underground press” (People magazine), founder of the Realist, political radical, Yippie, and award-winning stand-up satirist, shares his stark raving adventures with the likes of Lenny Bruce, Abbie Hoffman, Norman Mailer, Ken Kesey, Groucho Marx, and Squeaky Fromme, revealing the patriarch of counterculture’s ultimate, intimate, uproarious life on the fringes of society.Whether he’s writing about his friendship with controversial comic Lenny Bruce, introducing Groucho Marx to LSD, his investigation of Scientology, or John Kennedy’s cadaver, no subject is too sacred to be skewered by Krassner. And yet his stories are soulful and philosophical, always authentic to his iconoclastic brand of personal journalism.As Art Spiegelman said, “Krassner is one of the best minds of his generational to be destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked—but mainly hysterical. His true wacky, wackily true autobiography is the definitive book on the sixties.”

“A family’s world is irrevocably rocked when an old female lover from Mom’s past reappears” in this “sexy, audacious, politically charged” novel (Vanity Fair).Eager to escape her damaging past, Alison Rose is drawn to Zoe, a free-spirited artist who offers emotional stability and a love outside the norm. They spend a number of happy years together—until the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake deepens fissures in their relationship, and Alison leaves Zoe for a “normal” life with a man.But Alison’s son is born in the midst of these complications and shifting emotional bonds, and ultimately the three adults must strive to create a life together that will test the boundaries and balance the needs of all. A story spanning two decades, set against the social, political, and geological upheavals of the Bay Area, A Theory of Small Earthquakes “explores the vagaries of love and the true nature of family” (People).“[An] inventive, addictive novel [that] teaches us something new about love and sex, jealousy and loyalty, and also, and perhaps most importantly, motherhood.” —Ayelet Waldman, author of Bad Mother and Red Hook Road“Call it "Two Women, One Man and a Baby." Maran’s take on the modern family is at once unexpected and totally relatable.” —MORE

In the ten years since 9/11, a grassroots truth movement has sprung up that unites the best elements of the right and left. The call to resist the secrecy, imperialism, and the manipulation of the elite has been heard by a wide spectrum of people, across religious and political lines. This is a revolutionary moment that has lacked a clarifying manifesto.Until now.Pulling from his personal confrontations with the FBI, Rudolph Giuliani, Eliot Spitzer, and Dick Cheney, activist, maverick, and investigative reporter Sander Hicks reaches for a broader understanding of who was behind the 9/11 attacks. He reports the mysterious murder of Dr. David M. Graham, a Shreveport dentist who met two of the 9/11 hijackers but was then harassed by the FBI and poisoned. Scientific evidence leads him to take a hard, critical stance against Bush, Cheney, and the 9/11 "Official Story.”Weaving evidence with anecdote, Slingshot to the Juggernaut is an inspiring ride into the 9/11 cover-up and the revolutionary possibilities it inadvertently created. Provocative and unyielding, Hicks examines the evidence, draws conclusions, and offers a vision for the future of the United States.

A powerful memoir “about a difficult childhood . . . tough stuff, honest and real”—The Oregonian Peter Hoffmeister was a nervous child who ran away repeatedly and bit his fingernails until they bled. Home-schooled until the age of fourteen, he had only to deal with his parents and siblings on a daily basis, yet even that sometimes proved too much for him. Over the years, he watched his mother disintegrate into her own form of mania, while his father—a scholar and doctor who had once played semi-pro baseball—was strict and pushed Peter particularly hard. He wanted only the best from his son, but in the process taught Peter to expect only the worst from himself. In the midst of his chaotic home life, Peter began to hear a voice—an insistent, monotone that would periodically dictate his actions. When Peter finally entered public school he started to break free from his father’s control—only to fall sway to the voice more and more. His obsessive-compulsive behavior morphed into ruthless competition in sports and, ultimately, into lies, violence, and drugs. The End of Boys follows Hoffmeister to the very brink of sanity and back, in a harrowing and heartbreaking account of the trauma of adolescence and the redemption available to us all, if only we choose to find it. “Peter Brown Hoffmeister calls every sense into play, providing rich imagery, grounded reflection, and the tension inherent in a coming-of-age tale in which drugs, violence, and a genetic tendency toward OCD conspire.” —Los Angeles Review “The End of Boys takes no prisoners with its gritty, entrancing realism . . . a chilling and captivating read . . . a voice that is refreshingly new.” —Eugene Weekly

Soft Skull Press proudly offers this tenth-anniversary edition of visionary essays exploring the glory and power of Black Cool, curated by thought leader and bestselling author Rebecca Walker, with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Originally published in 2012, this collection of illuminating essays exploring the ineffable and protean aesthetics of Black Cool has been widely cited for its contribution to much of the contemporary discussion of the influence of Black Cool on culture, politics, and power around the world. Curated by Rebecca Walker, and drawing on her lifelong study of the African roots of Black Cool and its expression within the African diaspora, this collection identifies ancestral elements often excluded from colloquial understandings of Black Cool: cultivated reserve, coded resistance, intentional audacity, transcendent intellectual and spiritual rigor, intentionally disruptive eccentricity, and more. With essays by some of America’s most innovative Black thinkers, including visual artist Hank Willis Thomas, writer and filmmaker dream hampton, MacArthur-winning photographer Dawoud Bey, fashion legend Michaela angela Davis, and critical theorist and cultural icon bell hooks, Black Cool offers an excavation of the African roots of Cool and its hitherto undefined legacy in American culture and beyond. This edition includes a new introduction from Rebecca Walker, a powerful meditation on the genesis, creation, completion, and subsequent impact of this landmark volume over the last decade.

“Fried’s stories are laugh-out-loud hilarious and wonderfully weird, yet his many strange worlds also have the power to haunt.” --Dan ChaonIn “Loeka Discovered,” a buzz flows throughout a lab when scientists unearth a perfectly preserved prehistoric man who suggests to them the hopefulness of life, but the more they learn, the more the realities of ancient survival invade their buoyant projections. “Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre” meditates on why an entire town enthusiastically rushes out to the annual picnic that ends, year after year, in a massacre of astonishing creativity and casualty. The title story illuminates the desires and even the violence that surges beneath the tenuous peace among the animals in the Garden of Eden.Equal parts fable and wry satire, Seth Fried’s stories suggest that we are at our most compelling and human when wrestling with the most frustrating aspects of both the world around us and of our very own natures—and show why he has been called “one of the most exciting new voices in fiction” (Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe).“He’s channeling Saunders by way of Barthelme and Kafka, but also clearing a whole new territory of his own . . . Seth Fried is the future of fiction.” —Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief