Voting time, reader friends. Peter Hoffmeister’s THE END OF BOYS was just nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award (congrats, Peter!). The Goodreads editors have named THE END OF BOYS one of the best 15 memoirs of 2011, and final awards are chosen by the public—that’s YOU—so take a moment to Do a Good Thing by supporting an important memoir, indie publishing, and good books for smart people. Vote right HERE, big thanks from the Soft Skull crew!
One Soft Skull author interviews another! Christopher Bollen, author of LIGHTNING PEOPLE, answers questions by Seth Fried, author of THE GREAT FRUSTRATION, about fiction, New York, Ohio, and Skyline Chili. Read it at The Nervous Breakdown.
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The New Yorker on LIGHTNING PEOPLE:
“Bollen excels at creating an atmosphere of Manhattan-specific dread, and certain scenes, particularly the account of a struggling actor’s going-away party, are tragicomic masterpieces.”
Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief, on THE GREAT FRUSTRATION:
“Seth Fried has a wildly humorous imagination, but also sharp technical skills and beauty of language that weaves deep examinations of self and humanity into the inner folds of his crazy worlds. He’s channeling Saunders by way of Barthelme and Kafka, but also clearing a whole new territory of his own. Listen up and open this book: Seth Fried is the future of fiction.”
I, Judas
James Reich
Judas Iscariot is the historical symbol of betrayal. But what really happened at the Garden of Gethsemane? What really compelled Judas to hang himself from a tree? I, Judas reimagines Iscariot’s relationship to Jesus Christ and explores Judas’s orchestration of the elaborate con of the divinity of Jesus Christ, subverting the legend of Judas as he inhabits some of our most notorious literary and historic figures in their darkest hours. Custer, Sexton, Van Gogh: These famous suicides converge through the figure of Judas in a cutting-edge piece of fiction that exposes the dangers of seeking universal truths in myth.
James Reich was born in 1971 in Stroud, England. Writer. Also artist, and founding member of post-punk band Venus Bogardus. James Reich lectures on ‘Literature and the Posthuman’, and ‘Dada and Anti-Art’. Recent Venus Bogardus albums including ‘Spitting at the Glass’ and ‘Tourist’ are available for download via Amazon.com. He has lived in the USA since 2009.
Praise for I, Judas
“This one’ll have you clenched in a fetal position for a century, relieved only by the occasional orgasms of its mellifluous prose. You have to be strong to read this book: it rains fireballs.” —Andrei Codrescu, author of Whatever Gets you through the Night: A Story of Sheherezade and the Arabian Entertainments
“Reading I, Judas, I found myself often provoked, occasionally disgusted or even enraged, and always riveted. It’s not often that a book or a writer not only confounds my expectations, but makes me question a set of assumptions I didn’t even know I held.” —Julie Powell, author of Julie and Julia
Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!: Of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers-An American Tale of Sex and Wonder
Mike Edison
A wild and uncompromising history of four infamous magazines and the outlaws behind them, Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! is the first book to rip the sheet off of the sleazy myth-making machine of Hugh Hefner and Playboy, and reveal the doomed history of Hefner’s arch rival, Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, whose messiah complex and heedless spending — on a legendary flop of a movie paid for with bags of cash, a porn magazine for women, and a pie-in-the sky scheme for a portable nuclear reactor —fueled the greatest riches to rags story ever told.
The adventure begins in the early 1950s and rips through the tumultuous ’60s and ’70s —when Hustler’s Larry Flynt and Screw’s Al Goldstein were arrested dozens of times, recklessly pushing the boundaries of free speech, attacking politicians, and putting unapologetic filth front and center — through the 1990s when a sexed-up culture high on the Internet finally killed the era when men looked for satisfaction in the centerfold. As America goes, so goes it’s porn.
Along the way we meet many unexpected heroes—John Lennon, Lenny Bruce, Helen Gurley Brown, and the staff of Mad magazine among them—and villains—from Richard Nixon and the Moral Majority to Hugh Hefner himself, whose legacy, we learn, is built on a self-perpetuated lie.
“[Edison] takes readers on an enthusiastic romp through the rise and fall of the major porno magazines of the 20th century, while profiling the self-imploding personalities who innovated effective ways of selling sexual fantasies to the average sexually dissatisfied male . . . An interesting study of the ways influence can snowball.” —Kirkus
“Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! is a book that really lives up to it’s title. It’s not only dirty—it’s funny, highly opinionated, and—God help us—informative. Hard to believe someone hasn’t written the history of American pornography before this, but Mike Edison is absolutely the man for the job.” —Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City
“Mike Edison can go toe to toe with some of the best writers of the (old) New Journalism. This is foul-mouthed popular history at its most entertaining. Plenty smart, too—and also, strange to say, poignant and loving.”
—Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
Gilgamesh
Andrew Winegarner
Before the Bible and legendary figures like Hercules, King Arthur, and Beowulf, there was Gilgamesh. As the king of Uruk, a city in ancient Mesopotamia, Gilgamesh protected his people from harm, battling a multitude of fierce demons with the steadfast help of his brother, Enkidu.
But Gilgamesh’s reign faced the ultimate challenge from the power-hungry goddess Ishtar, who proposed marriage only to be unceremoniously spurned by Gilgamesh. Ishtar’s rage led Gilgamesh to his greatest battle, a battle that shook Gilgamesh to his core and led him to travel further than any other man—to the land of the gods on a quest to find immortality.
Written down on cuneiform tablets nearly five thousand years ago, Gilgamesh’s story was originally recorded in the form of an epic poem. In this bold retelling of the ancient legend—presented for the first time in graphic novel form—graphic novelist Andrew Winegarner revitalizes the ultimate adventure story. His illustrations breathe new life into the story of humanity’s first hero, and the result is a page-turning take on the world’s oldest epic poem.
Andrew Winegarner is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and currently teaches art. His first graphic novel, Peaceful Warrior, is an adaptation of Dan Millman’s bestseller, Way of the Peaceful Warrior. Winegarner lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.