the damned utd - Melville House Books

Transcription

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CONTENTS
Spring 2014
1
Fall 2014
23
The Art of the Novella 45
The Neversink Library
49
Highlights from Our Backlist
57
G
N
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R
P
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THE DAMNED UTD
A NOVEL
DAVID PEACE
“Probably the best novel ever written about sport.” —The Times (UK)
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Marketing and publicity
Excerpt on deadspin.com
National media campaign
Reviews in literary, political,
and sports media
Finished copy mailing to
booksellers and librarians
World Cup 2014 promotions
Screening of film in NYC, June 2014
Goodreads giveaway
Social media giveaways
He was a real-life, working-class hero known as the “British Muhammad Ali”—
because he had a big mouth and wasn’t afraid to use it.
But Brian Clough wasn’t a boxer, he was a soccer coach, known for taking
backwater teams and making them into champions. In towns where people had little
else, the hard-drinking and scrappy Clough was a hero. He was especially beloved for
telling it like it was on behalf of small-town teams everywhere—calling out the stars
who played dirty, rival coaches he suspected of bribing referees, and the league that
let them get away with it.
And then one day Clough was offered a job coaching the big-city team he’d called
the dirtiest—the perennial powerhouse Leeds United.
The Damned Utd tells the story of the legendary Clough’s tumultuous forty-four
days trying to turn around a corrupt institution without being corrupted himself—the
players who wouldn’t play, the management that looked the other way, the wife and
friends who stood by him as he fought to do the right thing.
The inspiring story behind the movie of the same name, The Damned Utd has been
called by The Times of London, “The best novel ever written about sport.”
Key points and quotes
+ First published in the UK by Faber and Faber in August 2006, a word of mouth hit
when first released in the UK
+ Never before published in the U.S.
+ The Damned Utd was adapted into a major motion picture by Sony Pictures in
2009, starring Michael Sheen
Praise for The Damned Utd:
• “If there’s one sports novel you should read, it’s probably The Damned Utd . . . one
of the most insightful portrayals ever put to print of the insecurity, pride, and
vanity that make up the greater part of nearly any successful coach’s character.”
—Deadspin
• “Probably the best novel ever written about sport.” —The Times (UK)
• “Fascinating . . . Brilliant.” —The Guardian
• “The most extraordinary novel about football yet to appear.”
—Independent on Sunday
About the author
DAV I D PEAC E —named in 2003 as one of Granta’s Best of Young Novelists—is the
acclaimed author of the Red Riding Quartet (1974, 1977, 1980, and 1983), which was
adapted into a BBC television series that was released theatrically in the United States,
and is currently being adapted into a major motion picture directed by Ridley Scott.
Peace is also the author of the highly praised Tokyo Trilogy, which so far includes
Tokyo Year Zero and Occupied City. His book GB84 was awarded the James Tait Black
Memorial Prize, and his newest book, Red or Dead, was shortlisted for the UK’s
prestigious Goldsmiths Prize.
2
MELVILLE HOUSE PUBLISHING | MHPBOOKS.COM
RED OR DEAD
A NOVEL
DAVID PEACE
From the bestselling author of The Damned Utd and The Red Riding Quartet
comes a major new novel
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Author interview on Men in Blazers,
the #1 soccer program in North
America, with nearly 1 million listeners
Confirmed review in
The New York Times
Author tour: New York, Long Island,
Los Angeles, and Seattle
Satellite radio tour to spots radio and
culture shows
“What Would Shankly Do?” social
media campaign on Twitter, Facebook.
Notable moments in Liverpool soccer
history on Tumblr and mhpbooks.com
The place where the swinging sixties started—Liverpool, England, birthplace of the
Beatles—wasn’t so swinging. Amid industrial blight and a bad economy, the port
town’s shipping industry was going bust and there was widespread unemployment,
with no assistance from a government tightening its belt. Even the Beatles moved to
London.
Into these hard times walked Bill Shankly, a former Scottish coal miner who took
over the city’s perpetually last-place soccer team. He had a straightforward work ethic
and a favorite song—a silly pop song done by a local band, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
Soon he would have entire stadiums singing along, tens of thousands of people all
dressed in the team color red . . . as Liverpool began to win . . .
And soon, too, there was something else those thousands of people would chant
as one: Shank-lee, Shank-lee . . .
In Red or Dead, the acclaimed writer David Peace tells the stirring story of the
real-life working-class hero who lifted the spirits of an entire city in turbulent times.
But Red or Dead is more than a fictional biography of a real man, and more than a
thrilling novel about sports. It is an epic novel that transcends those categories, until
there’s nothing left to call it but—as many of the world’s leading newspapers already
have—a masterpiece.
+ Published in the UK in Sept 2013 by Faber & Faber to rave reviews. The
author’s previous books have been published in the U.S. by Knopf.
+ Shortlisted for the UK’s prestigious Goldsmiths Prize
Praise for Red or Dead:
• “Truly brave and utterly heroic . . . I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like
Red or Dead before. Not ever.” —The Goldsmiths Prize shortlist citation
• “I want to go out and knock on doors like a Jehovah’s Witness and read this
book to people.” —The Observer
• “A magnificent literary achievement . . . Profoundly powerful.” —Booklist
• “An epic that has more in common with Beowulf or The Iliad than with the
conventional sports novel.” —The Times of London
• “A story of triumph . . . one that might be quoted for decades.” —Kirkus
Finished book mailing to top 25
collection library directors
About the author
Advertising in The New Republic and
The London Review of Books
the acclaimed author of the Red Riding Quartet (1974, 1977, 1980, and 1983), which
was adapted into a BBC television series that was released theatrically in the United
States, and is currently being adapted into a major motion picture directed by Ridley
Scott. Peace is also the author The Damned Utd and the highly praised Tokyo Trilogy,
which so far includes Tokyo Year Zero and Occupied City. His book GB84 was awarded
the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and Red or Dead was shortlisted for the UK’s
prestigious Goldsmiths Prize.
DAV I D P E AC E —named in 2003 as one of Granta’s Best of Young Novelists—is
3
A HIGHLY UNLIKELY
SCENARIO
OR, A NEETSA PIZZA EMPLOYEE’S GUIDE
TO SAVING THE WORLD
RACHEL CANTOR
In the spirit of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Super Sad True Love
Story, a debut novel about an intergalactic pizza delivery hotline employee
who starts getting calls from Marco Polo
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FICTION
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256 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 7 1⁄2"
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WORLD
ARCs to media, booksellers,
and librarians
Author tour: New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, Kansas City, San
Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and more
Mailing to blogs covering new
literature and authors
Panel at 2014 Association of Writers &
Writing Programs conference
E-mail blast to MFA and
writing professors
Online promotion including a
Goodreads giveaway
Book website: rachelcantor.com
Reading group guide and
author Q&A available
Book Trailer
In the not-too-distant future, competing giant fast food factions rule the world.
Leonard works for Neetsa Pizza, the Pythagorean pizza chain, in a lonely but highly
surveilled home office, answering calls on his complaints hotline. It’s a boring job, but
he likes it—there’s a set answer for every scenario, and he never has to leave the house.
Except then he starts getting calls from Marco, who claims to be a thirteenth-century
explorer just returned from Cathay. And what do you say to a caller like that? Plus,
Neetsa Pizza doesn’t like it when you go off script.
Meanwhile, Leonard’s sister keeps disappearing on secret missions with her “book
club,” leaving him to take care of his nephew, which means Leonard has to go outside.
And outside is where the trouble starts.
A dazzling debut novel wherein medieval Kabbalists, rare book librarians, and
Latter-Day Baconians skirmish for control over secret mystical knowledge, and one
Neetsa Pizza employee discovers that you can’t save the world with pizza coupons.
+ A January 2014 LibraryReads selection
+ Debut novel that will appeal to crossover sci-fi/literary readers
+ A hilariously detailed world, from Scottish tapas restaurants to underground
revolutionary movements called “book clubs”
Praise for A Highly Unlikely Scenario:
• “[A] dizzying fabulist debut.” —The Washington Post
• “[Cantor’s] imagination is exhilarating—A Highly Unlikely Scenario will appeal to
fans of sci-fi and people who just like to laugh.” —Cosmopolitan
• “A dystopian satire, a story about storytelling, believing and listening—A Highly
Unlikely Scenario is ultimately a history of our own strange world.”
—The New York Times Book Review
• “A Highly Unlikely Scenario is a joyful book, full of the energy of undiluted
invention and the thoughtful imagination of a writer to watch. It’s a wild ride and
much more—funny, intelligent and entirely pleasing.”
—A. L. Kennedy, author of Day
About the author
RACH E L CAN TO R ’s short stories have appeared in The Paris Review, One Story,
Kenyon Review, Fence, and other publications. She currently lives in Brooklyn. This is
her first novel.
4
THE WEIRDNESS
A NOVEL
JEREMY P. BUSHNELL
“This book is wild. And smart. And hilarious. And weird . . . in all kinds
of good ways. Prepare to be weirded out. And to enjoy it.”
—Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
What do you do when you wake up hung over and late for work only to find a
stranger on your couch? And what if that stranger turns out to be an Adversarial
Manifestation—like Satan, say—who has brewed you a fresh cup of fair-trade coffee?
And what if he offers you your life’s goal of making the bestseller list if only you find
his missing Lucky Cat and, you know, sign over your soul?
If you’re Billy Ridgeway, you take the coffee.
ON SALE:
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FICTION
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EBOOK: 978-1-61219-316-8
WORLD
Large ARC mailing to media,
booksellers, and big mouths
Broadcast and podcast campaign—
the author is articulate and funny
Author tour, including events in New
York, Boston, SF, Seattle, Portland,
and more
Targeted pitch to sci-fi/fantasy
outlets and critics
Author teaches gaming, so we’ll pitch
a feature to gaming blogs, media, and
magazines
+ A March 2014 ABA “Indie Next List” selection
+ Like Victor LaValle or Colson Whitehead, Jeremy Bushnell combines literary
writing with an otherworldly, commercial genre
+ Humorous debut from a highly promotable young author
+ The author’s experience with video games is evident as the story’s scenery shifts
around New York, complete with hand-to-hand combat and even wolf fights
Praise for The Weirdness:
• “Wonderfully weird and entertaining.” —Esquire
• “An utterly charming, silly, and heartily entertaining coming-of-age story about
a man-boy who learns to believe in himself by reckoning with evil . . . A welcome
antidote to heavy-handed millennial fiction. Instead of trying to find profundity
in party conversation or making his readers shudder in melancholy recognition
of their thwarted lives, The Weirdness finds virtue in absurdity. Thank goodness—
or darkness—for that.” —Boston Globe
• “A comedic literary thriller situated between the world of Harry Potter and the
Brooklyn of Jonathan Ames, Bushnell’s debut effectively mines well-trodden
terrain to unearth some dark gems.” —Publishers Weekly
• “The Weirdness manages to soar beyond the potentially familiar tropes of urban
fantasy with a strong sense of style and character . . . Bushnell’s debut novel is a
clever, darkly satiric tale of the devil, literary Brooklyn and the human penchant
for underachievement.” —Shelf Awareness
Reading group guide and
author Q&A available
About the author
Book club promotion
developer of Inevitable, a tabletop game released by Dystopian Holdings. He teaches
writing at Northeastern University in Boston, and he lives in Dedham, Massachusetts.
This is his first novel.
Online promotion
J E RE M Y B USH N ELL is the fiction editor for Longform.org, and is also the lead
5
GOTTLAND
MOSTLY TRUE STORIES FROM
HALF OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA
MARIUSZ SZCZYIGIEŁ
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
A celebrated journalist presents a quirky and memorable portrait of a nation
ON SALE:
MAY 27
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HISTORY / EASTERN EUROPE
HARDCOVER
288 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-314-4
WORLD
Author tour: New York, with an
appearance and signing at BEA 2014
ARCs to booksellers, media
Targeting NPR and public radio
reporters
Pitching the author as one of the
touted new Polish journalists in the
tradition of Ryszard Kapuściński
Newsletter to booksellers, librarians,
academics focusing on European
Studies and journalism
Publication will be supported by the
Polish Book Institute in the U.S.
Display at the American Historical
Association Conference and the
Association for Slavic, East European,
and Eurasian Studies Conference
One of Europe’s most preeminent investigative journalists travels to the Czech
Republic—the Czech half of the former Czechoslovakia, the land that brought us
Kafka—to explore the surreal fictions and the extraordinary reality of its twentieth
century.
For example, there’s the story of the small businessman who adopted Henry
Ford’s ideas on productivity to create the world’s largest shoe company—and hired
modernist giants such as Le Corbusier to design his company towns (which were also
the birthplaces of Ivana Trump and Tom Stoppard).
Or the story of Kafka’s niece, who loaned her name to writers blacklisted under the
Communist regime so they could keep publishing.
Or the story of singer Karel Gott, winner of the Best Male Vocalist Award thirtysix years in a row, whose summer home, Gottland, is the Czech Dollywood.
Based on meticulous research and hundreds of interviews with everyone from
filmmakers to writers to pop stars to ordinary citizens, Gottland is a kaleidoscopic
portrait of a resilient people living through difficult and often bizarre times—equally
funny, disturbing, stirring and absurd . . . in a word, Kafkaesque.
+ Winner of the Europe Book Prize, rights sold in over twelve countries
+ Based on new interviews and archival material, told in an accessible manner:
Szczygieł has a great eye for the absurd and a succinct, often very funny style
+ Will appeal to readers interested in the history of Communism and cultural
history, as well as fans of Stasiland and Nothing to Envy and other histories told
through the stories of individual lives
Praise for Gottland:
• “Gottland is not a book, it is a gem.” —Le Figaro
• “Extraordinary, hypnotizing and disturbing tales.” —Libération
• “An intelligent, captivating and much-needed book.” —Adam Michnik
• “A great book . . . Original and surprising.” —Agnieszka Holland
About the author and translator
M A R I USZ SZCZYG IEŁ is one of Europe’s most celebrated journalists. A reporter
for Gazeta Wyborcza, he is the author of a number of books of reportage about the
Czech Republic and Poland. His books are published in sixteen countries and have
been awarded the Europe Book Prize and the Prix Amphi, among other honors. In
2013, he was named “Journalist of the Year” in Poland.
A N TO N I A L LOY D -J O N E S is the pre-eminent translator of Polish reportage:
the authors she has translated included Wojciech Tochman, Wojciech Jagielski, Jacek
Hugo-Bader, and Witold Szabłowski. She has received the Found in Translation
Award for translation from Polish twice, in 2008 and 2012.
6
THE SEA INSIDE
PHILIP HOARE
A yearlong adventure through the world’s oceans with Philip Hoare,
the award-winning author of The Whale
In colorful prose and lively line drawings, Hoare sets out to rediscover the sea and its
islands, birds, and beasts. Starting at his home on the shores of Britain’s Southampton
Water and moving in ever widening circles—like the migration patterns of whales—
Hoare explores London, the Isle of Wight, the Azores, Sri Lanka, Tasmania, and
New Zealand.
As Hoare brilliantly weaves together literary and natural history, we encounter
memorable people as well as the dolphins, whales, and other creatures above and
below the water (even one species formerly believed to be extinct).
Echoing the fine tradition of W. G. Sebald, but in a voice all Hoare’s own, The Sea
Inside is bursting with an endless series of delights and revelations from the everchanging sea.
ON SALE:
APRIL 29
978-1-61219-359-5
$27.99 U.S./CAN.
TRAVEL / NATURE
HARDCOVER
384 PAGES, 5 5⁄16" × 8 1⁄2"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-360-1
NORTH AMERICA
First serial sold to Wall Street Journal
National broadcast and print
media campaign
ARCs available
Confirmed reviews in The New York
Times and Wall Street Journal
Author tour: Boston, Provincetown,
Nantucket, and Mystic, CT
Outreach to nature magazines, men’s
magazines, travel magazines, ecotravel magazines
Tumblr promotion using the book’s
images
+ Great sales track: Hoare’s previous book, The Whale, sold over 50,000 copies
in hardcover
+ Award-winning writer: Hoare won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2009
for The Whale
+ Hoare’s encounters are brought to life in 30 original illustrations of birds, whales,
and even a Tasmanian devil throughout the text
Praise for The Sea Inside:
• “The Sea Inside embraces the dangers and mysteries of the natural world and in
them finds transcendental awe.” —The Wall Street Journal
• “Literary history and natural history entwine so seamlessly in Hoare’s narrative that
the barrier between readers and the sea within all of us blurs and disappears.”
—Booklist (starred review)
• “Hoare’s writing awakens the senses with visions, sounds, and smells of the
ocean; his delight and interest in nature will encourage readers to look around
with new eyes.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
• “A magnificent book.” —Financial Times
• “A crammed treasure chest.” —The London Review of Books
About the author
P H I L I P H OA R E lives and works in Southampton, England. He is the author of
The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea, winner of the BBC Samuel Johnson
Prize for Nonfiction, as well as biographies of Noel Coward, Stephen Tennant, and a
study of Oscar Wilde. He is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of
Southampton; artist in residence at the Marine Institute, Plymouth University; and
cocurator of the Moby-Dick Big Read. Follow him on Twitter at @philipwhale.
7
WITH MY DOG-EYES
A NOVEL
HILDA HILST
Translated by Adam Morris
“Hilst’s lyrical little book ebbs and flows with vivid imagery . . . Readers will
enjoy this taste of Hilst’s talent.” —Publishers Weekly
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EBOOK: 978-1-61219-346-5
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ARCs to booksellers, critics
Campaign will emphasize that few
female Latin American writers have
achieved prominence or been so
influential as Hilst
Display at the Modern Language
Association Conference (January
2014) and the Latin American Studies
Association Conference (May 2014)
Email blast to professor of Latin
American literature
Advertising in the Chronicle of
Higher Education
Hilda Hilst (1930–2004) was one of the greatest Brazilian writers of the twentieth
century, but her books have languished untranslated, in part because of their formally
radical nature. This translation of With My Dog-Eyes brings a crucial work from her
oeuvre into English for the first time.
With My Dog-Eyes is an account of an unraveling—of sanity, of language . . . After
experiencing a vision of what he calls “a clear-cut unhoped-for,” college professor
Amós Keres struggles to reconcile himself with his life as a father, a husband, and a
member of the university with its “meetings, asskissers, pointless rivalries, gratuitous
resentments, jealous talk, megalomanias.”
A stunning book by a master of the avant-garde.
+ Long acknowledged by other Latin American writers as writing seminal works.
Writers in the recent Granta “Best Young Brazilian Novelists” issue called her a
major influence and contemporary master.
+ Part of a canon of newly emerging feminist writers like Clarice Lispector and
Elfriede Jelinek, whose hallmarks are edgy language and sharp critiques of
bourgeois society
+ Hilst is already being taught in U.S. Latin-American literature courses
Praise for Hilda Hilst and With My Dog-Eyes:
• “Memorable and very strange: Latin American magical realism taken far
beyond the bounds of the genre’s usual whimsy and pushed into the territory of
nightmares.” —Kirkus Reviews
• “One of the great achievements of Hilst’s fiction is indeed the splendor that
wrenches the reader, too, from sameness, the way it challenges and provokes, with
a seriousness and irreverence, a comedy and bleakness all its own.” —Music and
Literature
• “Like her friend and admirer Clarice Lispector, Hilda Hilst was a passionate
explorer of the sacred and the profane, the pure and the obscene.”
—Benjamin Moser
H I L DA HILST was born in 1930 in Jaú, Brazil, the heiress to a coffee fortune. She
abandoned São Paulo and a law career in the 1950s to devote herself to literature,
moved to the countryside, and built herself a house, Casa do Sol, where she lived until
the end of her life with a rotating cast of friends, lovers, aspiring artists, bohemian
poets, and dozens of dogs. She received numerous major literary prizes over the
course of her career, including Brazil’s highest honor, the Prêmio Jabuti. She died in
2004, at the age of seventy-three.
A DA M M O R R I S won the 2012 Susan Sontag Foundation Prize for Literary
Translation for an excerpt from his translation of With My Dog-Eyes.
8
BOLAÑO
A BIOGRAPHY
MÓNICA MARISTAIN
Translated by Kit Maude
The first biography of Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño, whose Savage
Detectives and 2666 were bestsellers in the U.S. Written by a noted
magazine writer, with the cooperation of Bolaño’s family and friends
ON SALE:
AUGUST 26
978-1-61219-347-2
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BIOGRAPHY
HARDCOVER
304 PAGES, 6" × 9"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-348-9
WORLD
How to know the man behind works of fiction so prone to extravagance? In the first
biography of Chilean novelist and poet Roberto Bolaño, journalist Mónica Maristain
tracks Bolaño from his childhood in Chile to his youth in Mexico and his early
infatuation with literature, to his beginnings as a poet, and to the stardom that came
with the publication of the novels The Savage Detectives and 2666.
Throughout the book, Maristain present an image far removed from the
stereotypes that have been created over the years to introduce a writer whose works
grabbed readers worldwide. Maristain writes as a journalist and admirer, impressed
with the power of Bolaño’s prose and the cool irony with which he faced the literary
world.
+ Rich with wonderful details about Bolaño’s life, work, and travels
+ Based on years of research, Maristain interviews Bolano’s family and friends,
getting some on the record for the first time
+ Written in a raw, intimate, and engaging style—beautifully showcases
Bolano’s tender side
+ Contains much gossipy detail about Bolano’s friends and lovers
Social media giveaway
Praise for Mónica Maristain’s Roberto Bolaño: The Last Interview:
• “In many ways … more fun to read than his novels.”
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
• “Given how little biographical information about Bolaño is readily available—
and given how the myths around the man proliferate—Roberto Bolaño: The Last
Interview is a welcome and handy little volume that anyone interested in the
author will likely enjoy.” —The Complete Review
• “The Last Interview provides many valuable insights into the mind of this truly
revolutionary writer.” —Rain Taxi
E-mail blast to librarians and literature
professors
ARC mailing to media and big mouths
The book solves many controversies,
so we’ll pursue amazing feature
possibilities in mainstream
newspapers and magazines
Feature at regional bookseller
conventions
Display at AWP, the Modern Language
Association, and the Latin American
Studies Association
Advertising in the Chronicle of Higher
Education
M Ó N I C A M A R I S TA I N is an editor, journalist, and fiction writer. Born in
Argentina, she has lived in Mexico since 2000. She has written for various national
and international media, including the Argentine newspapers Clarín, Page 12, and The
Nation, as well as for Playboy magazine. In 2009, Melville House published Roberto
Bolaño: The Last Interview, which features Maristain’s interview with Bolaño, his last
published conversation.
K I T M AUD E translated Jorge Luis Borges: The Last Interview and Other Conversa-
tions.
9
A POLITICAL EDUCATION
COMING OF AGE IN PARIS AND NEW YORK
ANDRÉ SCHIFFRIN
Now in paperback, the amazing life story of the celebrated publisher
ON SALE:
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY / HISTORY
PAPERBACK
304 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-364-9
WORLD
Mailing to literary writers and
bloggers
Mailing to paperback columnists and
reviewers
Mailing to outlets covering book
publishing news
Mailing to Jewish-interest media
Featured at regional bookseller shows
Featured at Public Library Association
Conference
André Schiffrin was born the son of one of France’s most esteemed publishers, in a
world peopled by some of the day’s leading writers and intellectuals, such as André
Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. But this world was torn apart
when the Nazis marched into Paris on young André’s fifth birthday.
Beginning with the family’s dramatic escape to Casablanca—thanks to the help of
the legendary Varian Fry—and eventually New York, A Political Education recounts
the surprising twists and turns of a life that saw Schiffrin become, himself, one of the
world’s most respected publishers. Emerging from the émigré community of wartime
New York (a community that included his father’s friends Hannah Arendt and Helen
and Kurt Wolff), he would go on to develop an insatiable appetite for literature and
politics: heading a national student group he renamed the Students for a Democratic
Society—the SDS . . . leading student groups at European conferences, once, as an
unwitting front man for the CIA . . . and eventually being appointed by Random House
chief Bennett Cerf to head the very imprint cofounded by his father—Pantheon.
There, he would discover and publish some of the world’s leading writers, including
Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, Studs Terkel, and Marguerite Duras.
But in a move that would make headlines, Schiffrin would ultimately rebel at
corporate ownership and form his own publishing house—The New Press—where he
would go on to set a new standard for independent publishing. A Political Education
is a fascinating intellectual memoir that tells not only the story of a unique and
important figure, but of the tumultuous political times that shaped him.
Quotes
Praise for A Political Education:
• “Schiffrin evokes the bittersweet tang of émigré life in New York.”
• “A beautifully written and melancholy update, if you will, of Democracy in America
by the Frenchman de Tocqueville, this book was also written by a man born in
France, but one who has spent most of his life in America, most famously as a
publisher of books in support of peace and we the people.” —Kurt Vonnegut
• “Schiffrin’s memoir is a master class in living, learning, and writing. Sign up now
for a fabulous experience.” —Bill Moyers
• “This remarkable work is more than a flesh-and-blood tale of growing up. It is the
stunning and revelatory road map of a seeker.” —Studs Terkel
• “The sinewy memoir of a natural child of high European culture as well as a
shrewd brief for unblinkering ourselves from fashion and cant . . . From the start,
Schiffrin breathed politics and ideas.” —John Leonard, Harper’s Magazine
About the author
For thirty years, AN D R É SC H IFFR IN (1935–2013) was the publisher of Pantheon
Books and founder of The New Press. He was the author of an acclaimed study of the
book industry, The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over
Publishing and Changed the Way We Read—which was published in twenty-three
foreign editions—and Words & Money.
10
GNARR
HOW I BECAME THE MAYOR OF A LARGE CITY IN
ICELAND AND CHANGED THE WORLD
JÓN GNARR
Translated by Andrew Brown
When the economy of Iceland took a deep dive, comedian Jón Gnarr invented
a political party and ran for mayor of Reykjavík . . . and won
ON SALE:
JUNE 24
978-1-61219-413-4
$23.95 U.S./CAN.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
HARDCOVER
208 PAGES, 5 3⁄16" × 8 1⁄2"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-414-1
WORLD
Author tour: NYC, Washington DC,
Baltimore, and more
Major national TV interviews,
including morning and daytime talk,
political/cable news, and late night
shows
In this entertaining memoir, Jón Gnarr describes his path from comedian to mayor of
Iceland’s only major city.
It all started when he founded the Best Party in 2009 to satirize his country’s
political system. He campaigned for a polar bear for the Reykjavík’s zoo, free towels at
public swimming pools, and a “drug-free Parliament by 2020.”
In the party’s electoral debut, the Best Party emerged as the biggest winner in what
was widely seen as a protest vote against the forces that caused Iceland’s economic
collapse. To form a coalition government, Gnarr ruled out any coalition partners that
had not seen all five seasons of The Wire.
Gnarr, whose foreign relations experience included a radio show in which he
regularly crank-called the White House, the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and police stations in the
Bronx to see if they had found his lost wallet, was soon meeting international leaders
and being taken seriously as the mayor of a European capital.
Here Gnarr recounts the formation of the Best Party, his own political journey,
and shares some lessons from his campaign and time in office. With admirable candor,
Gnarr describes his career, his vision of a more enlightened and enjoyable politics.
+ Gnarr has been profiled by The New York Times and by hundreds of international
media outlets. A documentary about the Best Party elections Gnarr debuted in
2010 and is now streaming on Netflix.
+ Gnarr is a professional comedian, and we have confidence in major media
bookings. Gnarr’s term ends on June 15, 2014, so the book tour will allow for “exit
interview” conversations about the success and failures of the Best Party.
Radio interview campaign including
NPR and talk radio
Praise for Jón Gnarr:
• “Definitely my favorite mayor. There’s actually no competition.”
—Noam Chomsky
• “More mayors in the world should be like Jón Gnarr.” —Lady Gaga
• “Jón Gnarr has lent real humanity to the mayor’s office with his wonderfully radical
comedy, and dispelled all stagnancy through incendiary humor. His Best Party
tackled the finance kings with prudent budgets and freed politics from corrupt
power games. All in all: The Best Party has changed Iceland!” —Björk
Galley mailing to booksellers and
librarians
Public library selector mailing
J Ó N G NAR R was born in 1967 in Reykjavík. He formed the Best Party in 2009 and
Dedicated newsletters to booksellers,
librarians
became mayor of Reykjavík in 2010. He starred in the series The Night Shift, which
aired on BBC 4 in 2011.
Social media campaign:
#JustSayGnarr
A N D R EW BROW N ’s recent translations include works by Proust, Zola, Flaubert,
Confirmed appearance on NBC’s Meet
the Press
Print features in major daily
newspapers, and political/cultural
outlets
Author has large social media
following
Stendhal, Rabelais, and Baudelaire.
11
THE ANNALS OF
UNSOLVED CRIME
EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN
Now in paperback, with new chapters on the mysterious deaths of
Boris Berezovsky and Yasser Arafat
Edward Jay Epstein’s book on the Kennedy assassination, Inquest: The Warren
Commission and the Establishment of Truth, was one of the first books on the case and
an instant bestseller. After interviewing every member of the Warren Commission,
Epstein concluded that enough remained uninvestigated that conspiracy theories
would persist for years.
Ever since, Epstein has remained a skeptic—and a dogged investigator. Writing
for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, he has reported on dozens of famous crimes.
His method is simple: outline what is known and unknown, and show the plausible
theories of the case. Where more than one theory exists, he shows the evidence for
and against each. And when something remains to be proved, he says as much.
In The Annals of Unsolved Crime, Epstein revisits his most famous investigations
and adds dozens of new cases. From the Lindbergh kidnapping to the JonBenet
Ramsey murder case, from the Lincoln assassination to anthrax attacks on America,
Epstein looks at history’s most famous crimes and their tangled histories—and again
proves himself one of the most penetrating journalists in America.
ON SALE:
MAY 20
978-1-61219-317-5
$18.95 U.S./CAN.
TRUE CRIME / HISTORY
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368 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
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WORLD
Mailing to paperback columns
and op-ed writers
Satellite radio tour
Author op-ed campaign
Dedicated newsletter to mystery
and crime booksellers
Timed for Father’s Day
+ Will appeal to true crime and history fans—Epstein’s take on each case varies in
some way from the “accepted” theory
+ Epstein is a well-connected journalist who attracts attention
Praise for The Annals of Unsolved Crime:
• “A grand figure of modern journalism . . . Show Epstein a juicy crime and he will
show you how it has been subverted by unseen powers for their own agenda, by
the inevitable incompetence of investigative authorities and by the media because
it likes a simple story line.” —Michael Wolff, USA Today
• “[Written by] one of the greatest American investigative journalists, a compelling
and informed account of how crime and the needs of power and politics
intertwine.” —Patrick Cockburn, The Independent
• “Epstein . . . undermines the accepted version with careful research and close
reasoning. It’s really good fun whether or not you end up convinced, but if you like
conspiracy theories, read this book.” —Fareed Zakaria, CNN
About the author
E DWA R D JAY EPSTEIN is the author of fourteen books, including the bestselling
ALSO AVAILABLE:
THE HOLLYWOOD
ECONOMIST 2.0
978-1-61219-050-1
12
Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth and News from
Nowhere. He is the recipient of numerous foundation grants and awards, including the
prestigious Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award for
both best biography and best business book for Dossier: The Secret History of Armand
Hammer. He is also the author of two books on Hollywood, The Big Picture: Money
and Power in Hollywood and The Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality
Behind the Movies. He has written for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The
New York Times Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York City.
A SHORT HISTORY OF
NUCLEAR FOLLY
RUDOLPH HERZOG
Translated by Jefferson Chase
In the spirit of Dr. Strangelove and The Atomic Café, a blackly sardonic
people’s history of atomic blunders and near-misses revealing the hushed-up
and forgotten episodes in which the great powers gambled with catastrophe
ON SALE:
JUNE 3
978-1-61219-330-4
$16.95 U.S./CAN.
HISTORY / POLITICAL SCIENCE
PAPERBACK
256 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
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WORLD
Mailing to paperback columns
and op-ed writers
Trade advertising in Shelf Awareness
Father’s Day promotion
Online map of nuclear mishaps
Rudolph Herzog, the acclaimed author of Dead Funny, presents a devastating account
of history’s most irresponsible uses of nuclear technology. From the rarely-discussed
nightmare of “Broken Arrows” (40 nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War)
to “Operation Plowshare” (a proposal to use nuclear bombs for large engineering
projects, such as a the construction of a second Panama Canal using 300 H-Bombs),
Herzog focuses in on long-forgotten nuclear projects that nearly led to disaster.
In an unprecedented people’s history, Herzog digs deep into archives, interviews
nuclear scientists, and collects dozens of rare photos. He explores the “accidental” drop
of a Nagasaki-type bomb on a train conductor’s home, the implanting of plutonium
into patients’ hearts, and the invention of wild tactical nukes, including weapons
designed to kill enemy astronauts.
Told in a riveting narrative voice, Herzog—the son of filmmaker Werner Herzog—
also draws on childhood memories of the final period of the Cold War in Germany,
the country once seen as the nuclear battleground for NATO and the Warsaw Pact
countries, and discusses evidence that Nazi scientists knew how to make atomic
weaponry . . . and chose not to.
+ Told in an accessible, episodic style
+ Based on archival material: book will likely generate a new round of news stories
on nuclear policy
Praise for A Short History of Nuclear Folly:
• “The author and son of filmmaker Werner Herzog presents a sardonic, little-known
history of misguided, accidental and irresponsible uses of nuclear technology.”
—Los Angeles Times
• “Shocking and vitally important.” —Publishers Weekly
• “Unflinching . . . Herzog’s use of the word ‘folly’ is an understatement.”
—The Village Voice
RUD O L PH H ERZO G is the author of Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler’s Germany. His
documentary on humor in the Third Reich, Laughing with Hitler, scored top audience
ratings on German Channel 1 and was also broadcast on the BBC. He is the son of the
celebrated filmmaker Werner Herzog. A documentary by Rudolph Herzog based on
A Short History of Nuclear Folly will be released in 2014.
ALSO AVAILABLE:
J E F F E R SO N C H AS E is one of the foremost translators of German history. He
DEAD FUNNY
978-1-61219-130-0
has translated Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Thomas Mann, and Götz Aly, among many
other writers.
13
A PRIVATE VENUS
A DUCA LAMBERTI NOIR
GIORGIO SCERBANENCO
Translated by Howard Curtis
A classic Italian noir novel, from one of the greatest Italian crime writers,
translated for the first time
MELVILLE
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CRIME
ON SALE:
MARCH 25
978-1-61219-335-9
$16.95 U.S./CAN.
CRIME FICTION
PAPERBACK
256 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-336-6
NORTH AMERICA
National print and online review
campaign
Special promotion during
International Crime Month (June
2014)
Outreach to crime magazines,
journals, and blogs
Pitch to men’s magazines and culture
outlets for features, stressing the
stylishness of the series set in 1960s
Milan
Advertising for the Melville House
International Crime Series in
Crimespree, Thuglit, Mystery Scene,
The Strand
Feature at Bouchercon 2014
Galleys to mystery bookstores, crimeinterested booksellers
Display at the American Library
Association Conferences
14
Milan, 1966: When Dr. Duca Lamberti is released from prison, he’s lost his medical
license and his options are few. But thanks to an old connection, he lands a job,
although it’s a tricky one: guarding the alcoholic son of a plastics millionaire.
But Lamberti soon discovers that the young man has a terrible secret, rooted
in the mysterious death of a beautiful woman on the gritty side of town. The fast
cars, high fashion, and chic nightclubs of glitzy and swinging Milan conceal a dirty
reality . . . This is no dolce vita.
A Private Venus marks the beginning of Italian noir: Giorgio Scerbanenco
pioneered a new type of novel that trained its gaze on the crime and desperation that
roiled under prosperous Italian society in the 1960s. And at the heart of this book is
Duca Lamberti, an unforgettable protagonist: obsessive, world-weary, unconventional
in his methods, and trying hard not to make another fatal mistake.
+ A major rediscovery from the godfather of Italin noir, who has been compared to
Simenon, Sciascia, Sjowall and Wahlöö, and other greats of the noir genre
+ Period setting, with sixties cars, Italian food, and the moody city of Milan, makes
for incredible atmosphere
+ Introduction of the principled, implacable, and deeply sympathetic Duca Lamberti
Praise for Giorgio Scerbanenco:
• “A crackling new translation . . . Read it in a single sitting . . . Scerbanenco
was a trailblazing radical who pulled the mask off a whole era.”
—John Powers, Fresh Air
• “A gem . . . A vivid portrait of Milan’s seamy underbelly.” —Crime Fiction Lover
• “Scerbanenco’s dark, moody novels have much in common with the darkest of
Scandinavian crime fiction . . . This forgotten noir classic from 1966 is finally
available in translation. That’s good news!” —Library Journal
G I O RG I O SC ER BAN EN CO was born in Kiev in 1911 to a Ukrainian father and
an Italian mother, grew up in Rome, and moved to Milan at the age of eighteen.
He had a prolific career, writing for women’s magazines, including a very popular
advice-for-the-lovelorn column, and publishing dozens of novels and short stories.
But he is best known for the four books that make up the Milano Quartet, A Private
Venus, Traitors to All, The Boys of the Massacre, and The Milanese Kill on Saturdays.
The quartet of novels was immediately hailed as noir classics, and on its publication
in 1966, Traitors to All received the most prestigious European crime prize, the Grand
Prix de Littérature Policière. The annual prize for the best Italian crime novel, the
Premio Scerbanenco, is named after him. He died in 1969 in Milan.
H OWA R D CURTIS was awarded the John Florio Prize in 2004 as well as the Europa
Campiello Literary Prize in 2010.
TRAITORS TO ALL
A DUCA LAMBERTI NOIR
GIORGIO SCERBANENCO
Translated by Howard Curtis
“Scerbanenco is the real, down and dirty deal,” says Terry Gross on Fresh Air
One balmy spring evening on the outskirts of Milan, a Fiat with two passengers
plunges into a canal. At first, their deaths are registered as an accident.
But Duca Lamberti, the doctor-turned-detective of Giorgio Scerbanenco’s
legendary series, suspects there’s more to it than that. Because that same canal has
been the scene of other deaths, and all the incidents have one man in common: a
lawyer with a murky past stretching all the way back to World War II—a man who, in
fact, once shared a prison cell with Lamberti.
Winner of the most prestigious European crime prize on its original publication
in 1966, Traitors to All is classic noir by one of the greatest writers of the genre—a book
that lays bare the connections between Milan’s troubled history during the war and its
swinging sixties affluence, as well as an utterly absorbing tale of betrayal and revenge.
MELVILLE
INTERNATIONAL
CRIME
ON SALE:
JUNE 3
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CRIME FICTION
PAPERBACK
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EBOOK: 978-1-61219-367-0
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International Crime Month
(June 2014)
journals, and blogs
Pitch to men’s magazines and culture
outlets for features, stressing the
stylishness of the series set in 1960s
Milan
The Strand
+ A second book from the godfather of Italian noir, who has been compared to
Simenon, Sciascia, Sjowall and Wahloo, and other greats of the noir genre
+ Won the 1966 Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, the most prestigious European
crime prize—other winners have included Patricia Highsmith, P. D. James, and
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Praise for Traitors to All:
• “Compelling.” —The Wall Street Journal
• “There is courage in his books, the courage to call things by their name . . . No
filters shield you from the reality, which is as desperate, fierce, and stark as in the
best novels of James Ellroy or Jim Thompson.” —Carlo Lucarelli
• “[Scerbanenco can be] as dark as Leonardo Sciascia, as deadpan realistic as Maj
Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, as probing in his observation of people as Simenon, as
humane as Camilleri, as noir as Manchette . . . but with a dark, dark humor all
his own.” —Detectives Beyond Borders
G I O R G I O S C E R BA N E N CO was born in Kiev in 1911, grew up in Rome, and
moved to Milan at the age of eighteen. He had a prolific career, writing for women’s
magazines, including a very popular advice-for-the-lovelorn column, and publishing
dozens of novels and short stories. He is best known for the four books that make up
the Milano Quartet, A Private Venus, Traitors to All, The Boys of the Massacre, and
The Milanese Kill on Saturdays. The annual prize for the best Italian crime novel, the
Premio Scerbanenco, is named after him. He died in 1969 in Milan.
H OWA RD CURTIS was awarded the John Florio Prize in 2004 as well as the Europa
Campiello Literary Prize in 2010.
15
PHANTOMS OF BRESLAU
AN INSPECTOR MOCK INVESTIGATION
MAREK KRAJEWSKI
Translated by Danusia Stok
The return of Inspector Eberhard Mock and the series The Independent calls
“As noir as it gets”
MELVILLE
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CRIME
ON SALE:
DECEMBER 2
978-1-61219-344-1
$15.95 U.S./CAN.
CRIME FICTION
PAPERBACK
288 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-273-4
NORTH AMERICA
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journals, and blogs
Mailing to literary writers & bloggers
The Strand
Feature in Melville House International
Crime dedicated newsletter
Breslau, 1919: The hideously battered, naked bodies of four sailors are discovered on
an island in the River Oder. As he pieces together the elements of this brutal crime,
which has disturbing overtones of the supernatural, Criminal Assistant Eberhard
Mock combs the brothels and drinking dens of Breslau, and is drawn into a dangerous
game: it seems that anyone he questions during the course of the investigation is
destined to become the next victim.
At the same time, he is haunted by appalling nightmares; only nights spent
drinking and carousing can keep his demons at bay.
Dark, sophisticated, and uncompromising, the distinctive Breslau series has
already received broad critical acclaim. Phantoms of Breslau confirms Eberhard Mock
as the most outrageous and original detective in crime fiction.
+ Third novel from the series, which is already an international phenomenon
+ Set in Nazi occupied Breslau; the city is in the grip of the Gestapo, and has become
a place where spies are everywhere, corrupt ministers torture confessions from
Jewish merchants, and Freemasons guard their secrets with blackmail and violence
Praise for Marek Krajewski:
• “Who knew Polish noir could be this good? An excellent translation . . . Krajewski
never lets go of the narrative and his vision of mean streets is as dark as it gets.”
—The Globe and Mail
• “Rich in period detail, from nascent nationalist movements to the rising interest
in the theories of Freud and Jung and spiritualism and the occult, this compelling
mystery should appeal to fans of hard-boiled historical mysteries such as Philip
Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels.” —Library Journal
• “Krajewski has Mankell’s sharp eye for detail, but he has, too, a more sophisticated
frame of reference that may intrigue fans of Umberto Eco and Boris Akunin . . .
A stylish, intelligent and original addition to the canon.” —Financial Times
• “Atmosphere and piquant period detail saturate the pages, and push these books
into the upper echelons of literary crime.” —The Times (UK)
Born in 1966 in Wrocław, Poland, formerly the city known as Breslau, M A R E K
K RA J EWSKI has been awarded Poland’s top literary and crime prizes. His series of
novels featuring Inspector Eberhard Mock has been translated into fourteen languages
and enjoyed massive success throughout Europe. Titles in the series include Phantoms
of Breslau (set in 1919), The End of the World in Breslau (set in 1927), Death in Breslau
(set in 1933), and The Minotaur’s Head (set in 1939). A linguist by training, Krajewski
is a former lecturer in classical studies at the University of Wrocław.
DA N U S IA STO K is the translator of four books in the Inspector Mock series, as
well as The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski.
16
THE MINOTAUR’S HEAD
AN INSPECTOR MOCK INVESTIGATION
MAREK KRAJEWSKI
Translated by Danusia Stok
The final volume in the acclaimed Inspector Eberhard Mock series
MELVILLE
INTERNATIONAL
CRIME
ON SALE:
Breslau, 1939: When Captain Eberhard Mock is called from his New Year’s Eve revelries
to attend a particularly grisly crime scene, his notoriously robust stomach is turned.
A young girl—and suspected spy—who arrived by train from France just days before,
has been found dead in her hotel room, the flesh torn from her cheek by her assailant’s
teeth. Ill at ease with the increasingly open integration of S.S., Gestapo and police,
Mock is relieved to be assigned to liaise with officers in Lvov, Poland, where a series of
similar crimes—as yet unsolved—cast a long shadow over the town.
In Lvov he joins the ongoing investigation conducted by Commissioner Popielksi,
a fellow classicist who relies on a highly unorthodox method of deduction.
Eberhard Mock—older, a little wiser, but still a libertine at heart and equally
at home in the underworld as in the ranks of authority—once again confirms his
position as the most outrageous and unpredictable detective in crime fiction. The
Minotaur’s Head is a stunning conclusion to the series the Independent called “As
Noir as it gets” by the The Independent (UK).
AUGUST 26
978-1-61219-342-7
$25.95 U.S./CAN.
+ Fourth novel from the series, which is already an international phenomenon
+ Set in several bizarre and creepy different settings in Nazi-occupied Poland—will
be fascinating to history buffs and makes for a very noirish story
CRIME FICTION
HARDCOVER
304 PAGES, 6" × 9"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-343-4
NORTH AMERICA
campaign
journals, and blogs
The Strand
Praise for Marek Krajewski:
• “Move over Scandinavian noir, here comes the Polish gumshoe . . . Marek
Krajewski, whose retro series starring Inspector Eberhard Mock has been
published in over 20 languages . . . has mined his country’s past for his popular
historical thrillers.” —The New York Times
• “This intelligent, atmospheric crime novel, which flashes forward to such
events as the 1945 Dresden firebombing and the beginnings of the cold war,
possesses a distinctly European, Kafkaesque sensibility.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
• “Krajewski’s thriller . . . will intrigue and compel readers to its end.”
—New York Daily News
ALSO AVAILABLE:
DEATH IN BRESLAU
978-1-61219-179-9
THE END OF THE WORLD
IN BRESLAU
978-1-61219-274-1
17
THE DOG KILLER OF UTICA
AN ELIOT CONTE MYSTERY
FRANK LENTRICCHIA
Someone’s shooting dogs in Utica . . .
Ex-PI Eliot Conte (“part Mike Hammer and part William S. Burroughs,” according to
The Washington Post) thought he’d escaped the sordid underworld of long-established
Mafia networks, unsolved crimes, and the specter of his political kingmaker
father that make up the background in his gritty hometown of Utica, New York.
He’s returned to his old love, teaching American literature, and a new love,
policewoman Catherine Cruz. But the peace doesn’t last long. First, one of Eliot’s students, a Bosnian Muslim, disappears, leaving a trail of
texts and e-mails that suggest a terrorism plot underway. Meanwhile, the tightknit
community is disturbed by a series of brutal murders of dogs. And no matter where he looks, the trail seems to lead back to secrets Conte hoped
he’d buried forever.
MELVILLE
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+ Highly original protagonist and classic noir style
+ Unique American setting
ON SALE:
APRIL 22
978-1-61219-337-3
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Author tour: NYC, upstate NY, North
Carolina
journals, and blogs
Promotion at ALA and MLA 2014
Praise for The Dog Killer of Utica:
• “The story, which is told in the present tense for maximum suspense, is dark and
tragic, and it’s nearly impossible to turn away from it. A terrific crime novel.”
—Booklist, starred review
• “The pages sizzle with intensity in this gritty, operatic, and wholly engaging tale.
No matter if readers are new to the characters (introduced in The Accidental
Pallbearer), Lentricchia’s crystal-clear prose spells it out. Reckless and passionate,
his protagonist demands attention.” —Library Journal (starred review)
• “Lentricchia . . . writes great scenes and sentences, and several of the characters—
especially a tough-girl bodyguard, a right-wing radio ranter and Conte’s
precocious 13-year-old neighbor—are keepers.” —Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Frank Lentricchia and The Accidental Pallbearer:
• “Frank Lentricchia’s new novel ranks as entertainment of a high order—funny,
fast-moving, and hot-blooded. It’s also the kind of novel that will appeal to
readers who like their fiction to carry depth and range.” —Don DeLillo
• “Bravissimo!” —Lisa Scottoline, author of Accused
About the author
F RA N K L E N T R I CC H I A was raised in Utica, New York, to working-class, first-
generation Italian-American parents. He’s the author of The Accidental Pallbearer, the
first book in the Eliot Conte series, and seven other novels, and a number of highly
acclaimed critical studies. He is a professor of American literature at Duke University.
ALSO AVAILABLE:
THE ACCIDENTAL
PALLBEARER
978-1-61219-171-3
18
COME, SWEET DEATH
WOLF HAAS
Translated by Annie Janusch
Another dose of hilarity and mayhem from the author Carl Hiaasen calls
“the real deal”
Disillusioned ex-cop Simon Brenner decides to take a job as an ambulance driver,
in the hopes of getting away from the drudgery and corruption in the police force
and finding a “worthy profession.” But the ambulance service he goes to work for
has a problem: their major competitors are beating them to every pickup, somehow
listening in on their radio communications. And Brenner can’t help himself from
doing a little detective work . . .
Things turn considerably darker as he digs deeper, and it turns out that ambulance
services are, literally, a cutthroat business. And there are people who don’t want their
business exposed. Brenner races around summertime Vienna, lights flashing, siren
blaring, in a desperate attempt to fit it all together before there’s another dead body
on his conscience.
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CRIME
ON SALE:
JULY 8
978-1-61219-339-7
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CRIME FICTION
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224 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-340-3
WORLD
campaign
journals, and blogs
The Strand
+ Book 4 in the quirky, beloved crime series
+ This book was made into an extremely popular and successful German movie
+ A new and completely realized setting: whereas previous books took on the worlds
of real estate, food snobbery, and ski resorts, here Brenner works for an ambulance
service and learns his way around the world of ERs, EMTs, and speed-happy,
daredevil ambulance drivers
Praise for Wolf Haas and Brenner and God:
• “Full of wit and sparkle; it’s a novel that leaves you laughing even as you work to
solve the mystery . . . Fans of Carl Hiaasen ought to love this series, and there are at
least seven more books awaiting translation.” —The Globe and Mail
• “One of the cleverest—and most thoroughly enjoyable—mysteries that I’ve read in
a long time. Wolf Haas is the real deal, and his arrival on the American book scene
is long overdue.” —Carl Hiaasen
• “Simon Brenner, the hero of Wolf Haas’s marvelous series of crime thrillers, is a
wildly likable and original character—a delightful and unexpected hero to show up
in this noble and enduring genre.” —Jonathan Demme
• “A wry sense of humor . . . American readers will look forward to seeing more of
Simon Brenner.” —Publishers Weekly
WO L F H A A S was born in 1960 in the Austrian province of Salzburg. He is the
author of seven books in the bestselling Detective Brenner mystery series, three
volumes of which have been made into popular German language films. Among other
prizes, the Brenner books have been awarded the German Thriller Prize and the 2004
Literature Prize from the City of Vienna.
A N N I E JA N U S C H is the translator of the Art of the Novella series edition of
Heinrich von Kleist’s The Duel and of three Detective Brenner books, Brenner and
God, The Bone Man, and Resurrection. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.
19
M E LVI LLE I NTE R NATIONAL CR I M E
CUT THROAT DOG
978-1-935554-21-9
KISMET
978-1-935554-23-3
DEATH AND THE
PENGUIN
978-1-935554-55-4
PENGUIN LOST
978-1-935554-56-1
HE DIED WITH HIS
EYES OPEN
978-1-935554-57-8
MURDER IN THE
CENTRAL COMMITTE
978-1-61219-036-5
HOW THE DEAD LIVE
978-1-935554-59-2
THE ANGST-RIDDEN
EXECUTIVE
978-1-61219-038-9
THE BONE MAN
978-1-61219-169-0
BRENNER AND GOD
978-1-61219-113-3
20
HAPPY BIRTHDAY,
TURK!
978-1-935554-20-2
THE CASE OF THE
GENERAL’S THUMB
978-1-61219-060-0
THE DEVIL’S HOME
ON LEAVE
978-1-935554-58-5
THE BUENOS AIRES
QUINTET
978-1-61219-034-1
RESURRECTION
978-1-61219-270-3
MORE BEER
978-1-935554-43-1
NAIROBI HEAT
978-1-935554-64-6
I WAS DORA SUAREZ
978-1-935554-60-8
OFF SIDE
978-1-61219-115-7
ONE MAN, ONE
MURDER
978-1-935554-54-7
THE CRAIGSLIST
MURDERS
978-1-61219-019-8
BLACK STAR
NAIROBI
978-1-61219-210-9
MURDER IN
MEMORIAM
978-1-61219-146-1
DEAD MAN UPRIGHT
978-1-61219-062-4
A VERY PROFITABLE
WAR
978-1-61219-184-3
SOUTHERN SEAS
978-1-61219-117-1
NAZIS IN THE METRO
978-1-61219-296-3
THE WHITE GUARD
A NOVEL
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
Translated by Michael Glenny
A new edition of the novel that launched Bulgakov’s career, part of
Melville House’s reissue of the Bulgakov backlist in Michael Glenny’s
celebrated translations
ON SALE:
JULY 1
978-1-61219-365-6
$15.95 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
PAPERBACK
304 PAGES, 5" × 8"
NORTH AMERICA
We will focus on feature coverage of
author/translator in literary outlets
Mailing to writers who have covered
Bulgakov in the past
Bookseller newsletter
Featured title at the MLA Conference
E-mail blast to Russian Literature
professors
E-mail blast to Russian and Theatre
professors
White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakov’s semi-autobiographical first novel, is the story of the
Turbin family in Kiev in 1918. Alexei, Elena, and Nikolka Turbin have just lost their
mother—their father had died years before—and find themselves plunged into the
chaotic civil war that erupted in Ukraine in the wake of the Russian Revolution. The
Turbin household is sanctuary for a ragtag, close-knit crowd of friends and family. As
the brothers prepare to fight for the White Guard, friends charge in from the riotous
streets amidst an atmosphere of heady chaos, quaffing vodka, keeling over, taking
baths, playing guitar, falling in love. But the new regime is poised for victory and in its
brutal triumph lies destruction for the Turbins and their world.
In the context of this family’s personal loss and the social turmoil surrounding
them, Bulgakov creates a brilliant picture of the existential crises brought about by
the revolution and the loss of social, moral, and political certainties. He confronts the
reader with the bewildering cruelty that ripped Russian life apart at the beginning of
the last century as well as with the extraordinary ways in which the Turbins preserved
their humanity.
+ Formed the basis for one of the most successful plays of the 1930s, The Day of the
Turbins—one of Stalin’s favorite plays and perhaps the reason that Bulgakov was
protected during the Soviet era
+ Will appeal to those interested in Russian history, with its portrait of a nation
divided between Whites and Reds
+ Series packaging brings the Bulgakov titles together with a fresh new look
Praise for The White Guard:
• “It was a shock to discover that a modern European city, unknown to almost all
west Europeans, had been described with such love in literature, to find that a
poetic imagination as harsh and lyrical as Mikhail Bulgakov’s had faced the surreal
sequence of invasions and sieges recounted in the novel, and recounted their
absurd horrors without flinching.” —James Meek
M I K H A I L B ULGAKOV was born in Kiev on May 15, 1891. He graduated as a doctor
ALSO AVAILABLE:
THE HEART OF A DOG
978-1-61219-288-8
BLACK SNOW
978-1-61219-214-7
A COUNTRY DOCTOR’S NOTEBOOK
978-1-61219-190-4
but gave up the practice of medicine in 1920 to devote himself to literature. He went on
to write some of the greatest novels in twentieth century Russian literature, including
White Guard, The Heart of a Dog, and his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita. He
died in Moscow of kidney disease in 1940.
M I C H A E L G L E N N Y (1927–1990) was one of the world’s leading translators of
Russian literature, translating the works of Gogol and Dostoevsky, and bringing the
works of dissident writers to the fore, including Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Georgi
Vladimov. He was the first person to translate Mikhail Bulgakov into English.
21
THIRST
A NOVEL
MAHMOUD DOWLATABADI
Translated by Martin E. Weir
Further confirmation of Mahmoud Dowlatabadi as the foremost chronicler of
Iranian history and one of the world’s most important writers. Melville House
continues to advocate for this fearless and uncensored voice and to promote
his masterworks in the English-speaking world.
ON SALE:
JUNE 3
978-1-61219-300-7
$16.95 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
PAPERBACK
128 PAGES, 5" × 8"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-301-4
NORTH AMERICA
National print media campaign
Outreach to foreign affairs magazines,
journals, and blogs
Mailing to writers and critics with an
interest in Iran/Iraq
Pitch for profile coverage and literary
reviews
Featured as part of the National
Endowment for the Humanities’ Poetic
Voices of the Muslim World funding for
libraries in five major cities
Featured at regional bookseller
conferences: Heartland, NAIBA
Display at Modern Language
Association, Middle Eastern Studies
Association, and American Library
E-mail blast to Middle Eastern Studies
professors
Feature in the Melville House Middle
Eastern Studies brochure
22
In the midst of the Iran–Iraq War, an Iraqi journalist is given a tour of a military
prison. The Major in charge of the camp informs the writer of what is expected: he is
to write a fabricated report about a murder that has occurred in the camp, with the
aim of demoralizing Iranian soldiers.
Reluctant, the writer spends a long night talking and drinking with the Major and
detailing a work of fiction he is composing about a group of soldiers trapped on a hill,
dying of thirst as they battle for a water tank with a group of enemy soldiers perched
on the opposite hill. Neither group has a hope of reaching it without being killed.
In a narrative riddled with surreal images, shifting perspectives, and dark humor,
Mahmoud Dowlatabadi—widely acknowledged as the most important living Iranian
writer—offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of the warring countries as he questions the
meaning of national identity and does something that has been nearly impossible to
do in Iran for the last century: tell a true story.
+ Recently discussed as possible Nobel Prize winner, this is the third novel by
Mahmoud Dowlatabadi to be published by Melville House
+ Author’s previous novel The Colonel was the winner of the Jan Michalski Prize for
Literature; longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Award; and shortlisted for the
Haus der Kulturin’s International Literary Award
+ Dowlatabadi is currently prevented from publishing in Iran by the Iranian
Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance
Praise for The Colonel:
• “A detailed, realist picture of Iranian life . . . Complex and lyrical.”
—The Financial Times
• “Examine[s] the complexities and moral ambiguities of the experience of the poor
and forgotten, mixing the brutality of that world with the lyricism of the Persian
language.” —The New York Times
• “With this highly topical new novel Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Iran’s most important
novelist, sheds light on the upheavals, which haunts his country until today.”
—Man Asian Literary Prize nomination citation
About the author
M A H M O U D D OW L ATA BA D I was born in 1940 in a remote farming region of
Iran, the son of a shoemaker. His books include Missing Soluch, published by Melville
House and his first work to be translated into English, and a ten-book portrait of
Iranian village life, Kelidar. In 1974, Dowlatabadi was arrested by the Savak, the shah’s
secret police force. When he asked what crime he’d committed, he was told, “None, but
everyone we arrest seems to have copies of your novels, so that makes you provocative
to revolutionaries.” He was in prison for two years.
L
L
A
F
4
1
0
2
23
WITTGENSTEIN JR
A NOVEL
LARS IYER
The writer Hari Kunzru says “made me feel better about the Apocalypse than
I have in ages” is back—with a hilarious coming-of-age love story
ON SALE:
SEPTEMBER 2
978-1-61219-376-2
$23.95 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
HARDCOVER
208 PAGES, 5 5⁄16" × 8 1⁄2"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-377-9
WORLD
Major review coverage in national
outlets including daily newspapers
and literary publications, using the
strength of past reviews of Iyer and
the accessibility of this book
Academic pitch to Chronicle of Higher
Education, Crooked Timber and others
Galley mailing to booksellers
Feature at bookseller conferences:
BEA, NAIBA, NEIBA, Heartland Fall
Forum
Goodreads giveaway
Author tour: NYC, with an appearance
at the Brooklyn Book Festival
ALSO AVAILABLE:
SPURIOUS
978-1-935554-28-8
DOGMA
978-1-61219-046-4
EXODUS
978-1-61219-182-9
24
The unruly undergraduates at Cambridge have a nickname for their new lecturer:
Wittgenstein Jr. He’s a melancholic, tormented genius who seems determined to make
them grasp the very essence of philosophical thought.
But Peters—a working-class student surprised to find himself among the elite—
soon discovers that there’s no place for logic in a Cambridge overrun by posh boys
and picnicking tourists, as England’s greatest university is collapsing under market
pressures.
Such a place calls for a derangement of the senses, best achieved by lethal
homemade cocktails consumed on Cambridge rooftops, where Peters joins his fellows
as they attempt to forget about the void awaiting them after graduation, challenge one
another to think so hard they die, and dream about impressing Wittgenstein Jr with
one single, noble thought.
And as they scramble to discover what, indeed, they have to gain from the
experience, they realize that their teacher is struggling to survive. For Peters, it leads
to a surprising turn—and for all of them, a challenge to see how the life of the mind
can play out in harsh but hopeful reality.
Combining his trademark wit and sharp brilliance, Wittgenstein Jr is Lars Iyer’s
most assured and ambitious novel yet—as impressive, inventive and entertaining as it
is extraordinarily stirring.
+ Iyer’s Exodus was shortlisted for the 2013 Goldsmiths Prize
+ Iyer is a dogged blogger and social media user
+ We will target mailings to independent university stores, writing program
professors, literary journals to build early buzz
Praise for Lars Iyer’s trilogy:
• “It’s wonderful. I’d recommend the book for its insults alone.”
—Sam Jordison, The Guardian
• “Uproarious.” —The New York Times Book Review
• “I’m still laughing, and it’s days later.” —Los Angeles Times
• “Viciously funny.” —San Francisco Chronicle
• “A tiny marvel . . . [A] wonderfully monstrous creation.” —Steven Poole, The
Guardian
• “This novel has a seductive way of always doubling back on itself, scorching the
earth but extracting its own strange brand of laughter from its commitment to
despair.” —The Believer
About the author
L A RS I YER is the author of two books on Blanchot (Blanchot’s Communism: Art,
Philosophy, Politics and Blanchot’s Vigilance: Phenomenology, Literature, Ethics) and the
novels Spurious (which was 3:AM Magazine’s Book of the Year in 2011), Dogma, and
Exodus. His literary manifesto, “Nude in Your Hot Tub, Facing the Abyss,” appeared
in Post Road and The White Review.
AGAINST FOOTBALL
ONE FAN’S RELUCTANT MANIFESTO
STEVE ALMOND
In a searing manifesto sure to enrage at least half the nation, New York
Times bestselling author Steve Almond takes on America’s biggest sacred
cow: football
ON SALE:
SEPTEMBER 2
978-1-61219-415-8
$22.95 U.S./CAN.
SPORTS
HARDCOVER
192 PAGES, 5 1⁄4" × 7 1⁄2"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-416-5
WORLD
Author Tour: NYC, Boston
National television interviews
including morning and daytime talk,
political shows, and cable news
National radio interviews including
NPR and talk radio
Sports media campaign including
print, TV, and radio
Print and online features and reviews
in men’s, parenting, sports, health,
and general interest publications; and
national newspapers
Timed to coincide with start of
football season
Extensive galley mailing
Display at BEA, regional bookseller
conferences
Book club outreach / giveaways
Online giveaways: Goodreads / Shelf
Awareness
On any given Sunday, football functions more like a national religion than a sport.
But simply put: the game isn’t good for us. Medical research confirms what the
grim headlines keep reporting: football causes brain damage. Beloved Hall of Famers
are now suffering from dementia, and taking their own lives. Children and teenagers
are susceptible to the same sorts of injuries with the same long-term results.
But football’s psychological and economic hazards—though more subtle—are just
as profound.
In Against Football, Steve Almond details why, after forty years as a fan, he can
no longer watch the game he still loves. Using a synthesis of memoir, reportage, and
cultural critique, Almond asks a series of provocative questions:
• What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of
childhood—run, leap, throw, tackle—into a billion-dollar industry?
• How did a sport that causes brain damage become the leading signifier of our
institutions of higher learning?
• Does our addiction to football foster a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and
homophobia?
There has never been a book that exposes the dark underside of America’s favorite
game with such searing candor.
+ The first book to take on the larger cultural implications of the medical studies
+ Advocates for immediate action against the game
Praise for Steve Almond’s Candy Freak:
• “This book will, yes, make you hungry, but it will also make you grateful-for wit,
for self-effacing humor, for joyful obsessiveness, for the precise and loving use of
language to crack open and celebrate our oddness-in short, for a writer as funny
and big-hearted as Steve Almond.” —George Saunders
• “I got a real sugar rush and cluster headache reading this bittersweet book by Steve
Almond-joy, the sugar daddy himself.” —Amy Sedaris
About the author
S T E V E A L M O N D was raised in Palo Alto, California, and was a newspaper
reporter in Texas and Florida before writing his first book, the story collection My
Life in Heavy Metal. His second book, Candy Freak, was a New York Times bestseller,
was named the Booksense Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year, and won the American
Library Association Alex Award. His short fiction has been included in The Best
American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and he writes commentary
and journalism regularly for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Los
Angeles Times. Almond lives outside Boston with his wife and three children.
25
DEBT: THE FIRST
5,000 YEARS
REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION
DAVID GRAEBER
A revised and updated edition of the international bestseller, to be launched
with major advertising push—just months before the launch of Graeber’s new
book with Melville House
ON SALE:
OCTOBER 28
978-1-61219-419-6
$22.00 U.S./CAN.
ECONOMICS / HISTORY
PAPERBACK
560 PAGES, 5 5⁄8" × 8 3⁄8"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-420-2
WORLD
Major ad support for new edition
6-week on-air RADIO campaign on
PRI/NPR’s MARKETPLACE
• Covering 92% of the U.S. pop. in all
of the top 50 markets
• Combined carriage of 469 stations
• Reaches over 2 million listeners per
quarter hour and almost 6 million
listeners each week
• Ads will run with average frequency
of 2.3 times per day
6-week on-air TV campaign on
BLOOMBERG TV
• Dedicated and affluent business
audience
• In about 75 million U.S. homes
• 10% of the audience for TV business
news
• Daily ads on key programs
26
Here anthropologist David Graeber, one of the early organizers of Occupy Wall Street
and a major scholar, presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows
that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the
beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems
to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this
era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and
creditors. Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been
at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable
insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works
of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part
from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and
wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it.
Key points
+ Will feature a new quote by Russell Brand: “When you read this you’ll be cleverer.”
+ Will feature a new blurb from Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the TwentyFirst Century: “I loved this book . . . it shows that debt plays a much more
important role than has been previously suggested. In particular, the book exposes
the many fairy tales told by economists about the accumulation of capital, barter,
and the creation of the currency. The way Graeber focuses on the power and
domination at work in debt relationships is excellent.”
+ This edition will include a new afterword, detailing the book’s impact from Occupy
to the student loan movement, as well as updates to Chapter 12, which focuses on
the economic crisis of 2008.
+ Winner of the Bateson Book Prize, 2012, awarded by the Society for Cultural
Anthropology
+ Winner of The Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing
About the author
DAV I D G R A E B E R teaches anthropology at the London School of Economics.
He is the author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Towards an Anthropological Theory of
Value, Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar, Fragments of an
Anarchist Anthropology, Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire, and
Direct Action: An Ethnography. He has written for Harper’s, The Nation, The Baffler,
The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New Left Review.
In the summer of 2011, he worked with a small group of activists to plan Occupy
Wall Street. It was also Graeber, a lifelong hater of corporate smoke and mirrors, who
coined the movement’s ingenious slogan, “We are the 99%.”
BUREAUCRACY
DAVID GRAEBER
A follow-up to David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years, which has sold
100,000 copies for Melville House and been published in 26 foreign editions
ON SALE:
FEBRUARY 3, 2015
978-1-61219-374-8
$25.95 U.S./CAN.
SOCIAL SCIENCE
HARDCOVER
256 PAGES, 5 3⁄4" × 8 3⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-375-5
WORLD
Author tour including events in New
York, Boston, and Washington, DC
National television interviews on news,
cable news, and talk shows
National and regional radio interviews
on NPR, talk, political, and business
radio outlets
Mailing to people who have covered
Graeber’s previous books
Pitch business magazines, websites
Galley mailing to booksellers,
librarians, academics
conferences: Winter Institute, NAIBA,
NEIBA, Heartland Fall Forum
Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from?
How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms?
To answer these questions, anthropologist David Graeber—one of the most
prominent and provocative thinkers working today—takes a journey through ancient
and modern history to trace the peculiar and fascinating evolution of bureaucracy
over the ages.
He starts in the ancient world, looking at how early civilizations were organized
and what traces early bureaucratic systems have left in the ethnographic literature. He
then jets forward to the nineteenth century, where systems we can easily recognize
as modern bureaucracies come into being. In some areas of life—like with the
modern postal systems of Germany and France—these bureaucracies have brought
tremendous efficiencies to modern life. But Graeber argues that there is a much darker
side to modern bureaucracy that is rarely ever discussed. Indeed, in our own “utopia
of rules,” freedom and technological innovation are often the casualties of systems that
we only faintly understand.
Provocative and timely, the book is a powerful look and history of bureaucracy
over the ages and its power in shaping the world of ideas.
+ Recent and future healthcare discussion are a good hook even for less academic
readers. Graeber focuses on his own experiences caring for aging parents, for
instance.
+ Graeber’s willingness to start discussions, and the book’s natural social media
angles, will lend themselves to online discussion
Praise for Debt: The First 5,000 Years:
• “Written in a brash, engaging style, the book is also a philosophical inquiry into
the nature of debt—where it came from and how it evolved.”
• “An absolutely indispensable—and enormous—treatise on the history of money
and its relationship to inequality in society.” —Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing
• “[A]n engaging book. Part anthropological history and part provocative political
argument, it’s a useful corrective to what passes for contemporary conversation
about debt and the economy.” —Jesse Singal, Boston Globe
• “This timely and accessible book would appeal to any reader interested in the past
and present culture surrounding debt, as well as broad-minded economists.”
—Library Journal
About the author
DAV I D G R A E B E R teaches anthropology at the London School of Economics.
He is the author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Towards an Anthropological Theory of
Value, Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar, Fragments of an
Anarchist Anthropology, Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire, and
Direct Action: An Ethnography. He has written for Harper’s, The Nation, The Baffler,
The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New Left Review.
27
THE QUEST FOR A
MORAL COMPASS
A GLOBAL HISTORY OF ETHICS
KENAN MALIK
The story of the global search for moral truths
ON SALE:
SEPTEMBER 9
978-1-61219-403-5
$26.95 U.S./CAN.
PHILOSOPHY / HISTORY
HARDCOVER
400 PAGES, 6" × 9"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-404-2
NORTH AMERICA
ARCs to media, booksellers
Print and online reviews in culture,
history, general interest publications,
and national newspapers
Display at regional bookseller
conferences
Blog outreach to history and religion
websites
Online giveaways: Goodreads
In this remarkable and groundbreaking book, Kenan Malik explores the history of
moral thought as it has developed over three millennia, from Homer’s Greece to
Mao’s China, from ancient India to modern America. It tells the stories of the great
philosophers, and breathes life into their ideas, while also challenging many of our
most cherished moral beliefs.
Engaging and provocative, The Quest for a Moral Compass confronts some of
humanity’s deepest questions. Where do values come from? Is God necessary for
moral guidance? Are there absolute moral truths? It also brings morality down to
earth, showing how, throughout history, social needs and political desires have shaped
moral thinking. It is a history of the world told through the history of moral thought,
and a history of moral thought that casts new light on global history.
+ The first global history of ethics and moral thought—extending beyond the West
to include Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, as well as studies of the Chinese masters,
Confucius, Mo Tzu and Lao Tzu and their contemporary heirs
Praise for The Quest for a Moral Compass:
• “What I love about Kenan Malik’s book is its unashamed, unabashed ambition: he
wants to write the history of moral thought, not just in the Western tradition, but
of all the traditions that make up the global argument about the direction that the
human moral compass should point. The result is a tour de force of lucidity and
narrative skill.” —Michael Ignatieff
• “An absolute tour de force. I can imagine it replacing Bertrand Russell’s History of
Western Philosophy on many a bookshelf—certainly mine.”
—Tom Holland, author of In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and
the Rise of the Global Arab Empire
• “This is an extraordinarily rewarding investigation of the most striking, and
contested, aspect of our humanity . . . To read it is not only to be better informed
but also to be more alert to the assumptions that have guided human beings in
the past, and to our capacity for goodness and wickedness.”
—Raymond Tallis, author of The Kingdom of Infinite Space
About the author
K E N A N M A L I K is a writer, lecturer, and broadcaster. He is a presenter of The
ALSO AVAILABLE:
FROM FATWA
TO JIHAD
(HARDCOVER)
978-1-935554-00-4
PAPERBACK
ON SALE
AUGUST 5
978-1-61219-405-9
28
Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4 (UK). He has taught at universities in Britain, Europe,
Australia and the USA, presented many TV documentaries and writes regularly for
newspapers across the world including as a columnist for the International New York
Times. His books include Man, Beast and Zombie; Strange Fruit; and From Fatwa to
Jihad (Melville House, 2010), which was shortlisted for the 2010 Orwell Book Prize.
EVENT
A PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNEY THROUGH A CONCEPT
SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
Probably the most famous living philosopher, Slavoj Žižek explores the
meaning of events in this short and digestible book
An event can be an occurrence that shatters ordinary life, a radical political rupture,
a transformation of reality, a religious belief, the rise of a new art form, or an intense
experience such as falling in love.
Taking us on a trip that stops at different definitions of event, Žižek addresses
fundamental questions such as: are all things connected? How much are we agents of
our own fates? Which conditions must be met for us to perceive something as really
existing? In a world that’s constantly changing, is anything new really happening?
Drawing on references from Plato to arthouse cinema, the Big Bang to Buddhism,
Event is a journey into philosophy at its most exciting and elementary.
ON SALE:
AUGUST 26
978-1-61219-411-0
$15.95
PHILOSOPHY
PAPERBACK
224 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-412-7
U.S. ONLY
ARCs available
Author tour: New York, Philadelphia
Cross-marketing with author’s
university appearances
Pitch to TV and radio
+ Žižek has been profiled in the New Yorker and is the star of several recent films,
including Sophie Fiennes’s The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema and The Pervert’s Guide
to Ideology and the documentary Žižek!
+ Like much of Žižek’s work, Event contains much discussion of film—independent,
classic Hollywood cinema and blockbusters—alongside talk of serious philosophy.
Žižek simplifies and explains using film and jokes (including lots of dirty ones).
+ Žižek’s work is the subject of much criticism (there have been recent takedowns in
the New Republic and New York Review of Books). He is also frequent commentator
on current events in the Guardian and London Review of Books.
Praise for Slavoj Žižek:
• “The giant of Ljubljana provides the best intellectual high since Anti-Oedipus.”
—The Village Voice
• The most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural
theory in general, to have emerged in many decades.” —Terry Eagleton
• “Unafraid of confrontation and with a near limitless grasp of pop symbolism.”
—The Times
• “Žižek is a thinker who regards nothing as outside his field: the result is deeply
interesting and provocative.” —Guardian
• “Žižek leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized, and is master of the
counterintuitive observation.” —The New Yorker
About the author
S L AVO J Ž I Ž E K is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor
at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute
for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher
at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include
Living in the End Times; First as Tragedy, Then as Farce; In Defense of Lost Causes; and
many more.
29
THE BIOGRAPHICAL
DICTIONARY OF
LITERARY FAILURE
C. D. ROSE
A darkly comic, satirical reference book about writers who never made it into
the literary canon
ON SALE:
NOVEMBER 4
978-1-61219-378-6
$18.95 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
HARDCOVER
192 PAGES, 5 1⁄4" × 7 1⁄2"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-379-3
WORLD
Melville House is reaching out to
bloggers, booksellers, authors, and
reviewers to post their appreciation
for fictional authors and works cited
in the book, generating further trade
stories and curiosity
Print features, reviews, and interviews
in literary, arts, culture, and general
interest outlets
Pitch for holiday gift guides
Galley mailing
Feature at bookseller conferences:
BEA, NAIBA, NEIBA, Heartland Fall
Forum
Weekly excerpts on MobyLives
(mhpbooks.com)
Pitch for debut fiction lists: B&N
Discover, ABA Indies Introduce
Librarian outreach with an email
promoting the fictional authors,
generating curiosity and interest in
digital review copy offer on Edelweiss.
30
A signal event of literary scholarship, The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure
compiles the biographies of history’s most notable cases of a complete lack of literary
success. As such, it is the world’s leading authority on the subject.
Compiled in one volume by C. D. Rose, a well-educated person universally
acknowledged in parts of England as the world’s pre-eminent expert on inexpert
writers, the book culls its information from lost or otherwise ignored archives
scattered around the globe, as well as the occasional dustbin.
The dictionary amounts to a monumental accomplishment: the definitive
appreciation of history’s least accomplished writers. Thus immortalized beyond
deserving and rescued from hard-earned obscurity, the authors presented in this
historic volume comprise a who’s who of the talentless and deluded, their stories
timeless litanies of abject psychosis, misapplication, and delinquency.
It is, in short, a treasure.
Key points
+ Found illustrations featured in a design by Sam Potts, who has worked for the New
York Times, The Believer, McSweeney’s, and who designed John Hodgman’s books
+ We’ll be pitching features and interviews with Rose with an emphasis on his
creativity and process of conceiving and writing the book. Though this is a debut,
it’s the perfect gift book for any bibliophile.
About the author
C. D. ROSE was born in Manchester at the tail end of the 1960s. Since then, he has
lived and worked in half a dozen different countries, but now resides in Norwich, in
the east of England, where he went to do an MA in creative writing at the University of
East Anglia, six years ago. His story “Arkady who couldn’t see and Artem who couldn’t
hear” was listed for the Sunday Times/EFG Bank award (the world’s richest short story
prize) in 2013, and he has been published in Granta. Ironically, a work about failure
has turned out to be his greatest success.
THE JANE AUSTEN RULES
A CLASSIC GUIDE TO MODERN LOVE
SINÉAD MURPHY
What Would Jane Do?
What’s a strong, independent-minded woman supposed to do in a world of insipid
dating guides? Sinéad Murphy responds by asking: Who has more time-tested secrets
than Jane Austen, whose novels continue to captivate us almost two hundred years
later?
Whether you can recite paragraphs from Pride and Prejudice or just admired
Colin Firth in his wet t-shirt, the romance of Jane Austen’s world is one you’ll never
forget. Does love like that even exist today? Yes, it does . . .
If you look closely at the women of Jane Austen’s books, as the witty scholar Sinéad
Murphy has, you’ll discover Austen’s countless tips for finding the right leading man,
navigating the ups and downs of courtship, and building a happy, independent life for
yourself.
978-1-61219-382-3
$15.95 U.S./CAN.
For example, you’ll learn:
• How to flirt like a regular Lizzy Bennet • How to lead a conversation with a man (even if he’s leading the dance) • When to ignore advice from your girlfriends • How to discuss your future with your own Mr. Darcy
SELF-HELP
PAPERBACK
144 PAGES, 5" × 7 3⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-383-0
WORLD
Whether you’re in the throes of early dating or pondering a leap in a long-term
relationship, The Jane Austen Rules is your essential guide to approaching love with
sense and sensibility.
Key points
ON SALE:
OCTOBER 14
Print features, reviews and interviews
in women’s magazines, feminist
magazines, and literary, political, and
cultural outlets
+ Handsome package makes this the perfect gift for smart women—many readers
have a bottomless appetite for books about Divine Jane
+ Can be read as a traditional dating guide (and as more serious criticism likely to
appeal to Bust, Bitch, Jezebel, Feministing, etc.)
+ This is a sharp young critic, a rising star. We plan to get Murphy engaged in a
conversation, possibly generating controversy: op-ed about dating, interviews on
TV morning shows
+ Austeniana lends itself to social media success
Online features and reviews at major
websites like Jezebel and Feministing
About the author
Pitch op-eds at major newspapers to
drive discussion and buzz
S I N É A D M U R P H Y is an outspoken critic and feminist. She’s a professor of
philosophical studies at Newcastle University and the author of The Art Kettle.
National television interviews. We will
pitch to morning shows, late night
shows, and cable news
National radio interviews. We will
pitch to both NPR and talk radio
Pitch author interviews for TV & radio
on feminist, women’s interest, and
political/news shows
Galley mailing to booksellers,
librarians
conferences: BEA, NAIBA, NEIBA,
Heartland Fall Forum, Brooklyn Book
Festival
Librarian Top 50 Mailing
31
ADA LOVELACE
Ada Lovelace
HOW LORD BYRON’S
DAUGHTER STARTED
THE COMPUTER AGE
James
Essinger
ON SALE:
OCTOBER 14
978-1-61219-408-0
$25.95 U.S./CAN.
BIOGRAPHY
HARDCOVER
288 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-409-7
NORTH AMERICA
HOW LORD BYRON’S DAUGHTER STARTED THE
COMPUTER AGE
JAMES ESSINGER
The world’s first computer programmer and daughter of Lord Byron finally
gets credit for her research in this gossipy short biography
Over 150 years after her death, a widely-used scientific computer program was named
“Ada,” after Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate daughter of the eighteenth century’s
version of a rock star, Lord Byron. Why?
Because, after computer pioneers such as Alan Turing began to rediscover her, it
slowly became apparent that she had been a key but overlooked figure in the invention
of the computer.
In Ada Lovelace, James Essinger makes the case that the computer age could have
started two centuries ago if Lovelace’s contemporaries had recognized her research
and fully grasped its implications.
It’s a remarkable tale, starting with the outrageous behavior of her father, which
made Ada instantly famous upon birth. Ada would go on to overcome numerous
obstacles to obtain a level of education typically forbidden to women of her day. She
would eventually join forces with Charles Babbage, generally credited with inventing
the computer, although as Essinger makes clear, Babbage couldn’t have done it without
Lovelace. Indeed, Lovelace wrote what is today considered the world’s first computer
program—despite opposition that the principles of science were “beyond the strength
of a woman’s physical power of application.”
Based on ten years of research and filled with fascinating characters and
observations of the period, not to mention numerous illustrations, Essinger tells Ada’s
fascinating story in unprecedented detail to absorbing and inspiring effect.
+ Written in a commercial style for the general-interest reader, the gossip ranges
from her father Lord Byron’s love affairs to Ada’s elopement to speculation that she
may have had an affair with Charles Babbage
+ Story of an underappreciated genius, who studied and exceled at mathematics at a
time it was believed to be bad for the female brain
+ Based on more than ten years of research, Essinger explains her calculations in a
comprehensive (and energetic!) way
Print features and reviews in science,
feminist, women’s interest, history,
and general interest publications; and
national newspapers
Blog outreach: BoingBoing; io9; Wired
Online interviews with author
Timed for International Ada Lovelace
Day (October 15, 2014)
Series of blog posts introducing Ada
Lovelace
conferences
Targeted galley mailing: booksellers,
Praise for Ada Lovelace:
“Entertaining and illuminating.” —Times Literary Supplement
“Essinger displays not only verve and affection . . . but also great scholarship.”
—Times Educational Supplement
“Essinger tells his story with passion and with a gracious willingness to help the lay
reader grasp the intricacies of technology.” —Wall Street Journal
Online giveaways: Goodreads, etc.
About the author
Social media campaign: #ThanksAda
JA M ES ESSIN G ER is a writer with a particular interest in the history of ideas that
32
have had a practical impact on the modern world. His previous book, Jacquard’s Web:
How a Hand-Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age (2004), was chosen as one
of the top 5 popular science books of the year by the Economist.
EVERLASTING LANE
A NOVEL
ANDREW LOVETT
A captivating, absorbing, and suspenseful evocation of the spells
of childhood
ON SALE:
JANUARY 13, 2015
978-1-61219-380-9
$25.95 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
HARDCOVER
368 PAGES, 5 3⁄4" × 8 1⁄2"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-381-6
WORLD EXCLUDING U.K.
1,500-copy ARC mailing to booksellers,
media
Pitch for debut author citations: B&N
Discover, ABA “Indies Introduce,”
IndieNext
Bookseller blurb campaign
Goodreads giveaway
Author appearances at regional
bookseller conferences: BEA, NAIBA,
NEIBA, Heartland Fall Forum
In a timeless coming-of-age tale as charming and haunting as the movie Stand By
Me, Andrew Lovett’s Everlasting Lane tells the story of what happens when nine-yearold Peter’s father dies and his mother moves them from the city to a house in the
countryside, for what seem to Peter to be mysterious reasons.
He’s soon distracted, though, by the difficulties of being the new, shy kid at school,
and he befriends the other two kids who seem to be outcasts: overweight Tommie and
too-smart-for-her-own-good Anna-Marie. Together they try to weather the storm of
bullying teachers and fellow students, by escaping into explorations of the seemingly
bucolic countryside.
There, though, they find other outcasts from society such as cranky Mr. Merridew,
who won’t leave his cottage in the woods, and Scarecrow Man, who stands in the fields
searching the skies. And meanwhile, Peter is disturbed by the growing awareness that
his own mother may be some sort of outcast, too—and that she’s hiding something
from him in a locked room in the attic, a room she’s expressly forbidden him from
entering.
Written in beautiful prose, Everlasting Lane is a captivating, absorbing, and
suspenseful evocation of the spells of childhood: sun-soaked, nostalgic, with the soft
focus and warm glow of a Polaroid—but it’s darker than it seems. Will Peter and his
mother find the light in that darkness?
Key points
+ A debut novel with breakout potential. Based in part on the author’s childhood, we
see this as working well for book clubs, as it is a very strong novel with a dark edge.
+ Breakout of an exciting new voice
+ Perfect read for all ages
+ A book you can feel comfortable recommending to any reader—literary and pop,
young and old
About the author
A N D REW LOVETT lives near York, England, with his family. Everlasting Lane is
his first novel, based, in part, on his own childhood.
LitBreaker Advertising campaign
Top 50 Librarian Mailing
Random House Library Blog
promotion to book groups
Featured in Random House Book Club
Catalog
Review Copy available on Edelweiss
33
1913
THE YEAR BEFORE THE STORM
FLORIAN ILLIES
Translated by Shaun Whiteside and Jamie Lee Searle
Now in paperback, “An utterly delicious treat or an ideal present for anyone
even mildly interested in 20th-century art, music and literature . . . A sexy,
comic and occasionally heartbreaking soap opera . . . An irresistible book,”
writes The Washington Post’s Michael Dirda
ON SALE:
OCTOBER 7
978-1-61219-391-5
$16.95 U.S./CAN.
HISTORY
PAPERBACK
272 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-352-6
NORTH AMERICA
Mailing to “New in Paperback”
columns
Finished copy mailing to booksellers
and columnists
conferences
Book club outreach/mailings
Advertising in the Chronicle of
Higher Education
Outreach to European History
professors
It was the year Henry Ford first put a conveyer belt in his car factory, and the year
Louis Armstrong first picked up a trumpet. It was the year Charlie Chaplin signed
his first movie contract, and Coco Chanel and Prada opened their first dress shops. It
was the year Proust began his opus, Stravinsky wrote The Rite of Spring, and the first
Armory Show in New York introduced the world to Picasso and the world of abstract
art. It was the year the recreational drug now known as ecstasy was invented.
It was 1913, the year before the world plunged into the catastrophic darkness of
World War I.
In a witty yet moving narrative that progresses month by month through the
year, and is interspersed with numerous photos and documentary artifacts (such
as Kafka’s love letters), Florian Illies ignores the conventions of the stodgy tome so
common in “one year” histories. Forefronting cultural matters as much as politics, he
delivers a charming and riveting tale of a world full of hope and unlimited possibility,
peopled with amazing characters and radical politics, bristling with new art and new
technology . . . even as ominous storm clouds began to gather.
+ An international bestseller in hardcover
Praise for 1913:
• “A fascinating new structure of writing . . . With exceptional wit and understanding,
Illies shows the societal and cultural changes propelling man toward modern art,
new thought processes and war.” —Kirkus (starred review)
• “Illies’s stylish evocation of 1913 is thrilling entertainment for those who have heard
it all before but wish to experience—one more time, perhaps—the bleary-eyed
ecstasy that is the result of staying up all night reading a book in one sitting.”
—The Weekly Standard
• “The rich range of subjects, the vibrancy of the writing, here translated by
Whiteside and Searle, and the intimate details of the biographies all make
this a fast-paced and engrossing read . . . Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal, starred review
F LO R I A N I L L I ES is a German journalist who has worked for major European
newspapers and magazines and cofounded the art magazine Monopol. He is the
author of four previous bestselling books, which have sold more than 1 million copies.
1913 is his first book to be translated into English.
S H AU N W H I T ES I D E ’s translations include Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and
Robert Musil’s The Confusions of Young Törless. JA M I E L E E S E A R L E ’s recent
translations include works by Ursula Poznanski, Frank Schatzing, and Dora Heldt.
34
HALF THE KINGDOM
A NOVEL
LORE SEGAL
Now in paperback, the critically acclaimed novel by the longtime
New Yorker writer
ON SALE:
NOVEMBER 4
978-1-61219-392-2
$15.95 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
PAPERBACK
176 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-303-8
WORLD
Coverage in “new in paperback
columns”
Finished copy mailing to reader’s
groups
E-mail blast to 1,500 book clubs in
the U.S.
Academic newsletter to Writing and
English Professors
At Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, doctors have noticed a marked uptick in Alzheimer’s
patients. People who seemed perfectly lucid just a day earlier suddenly show signs of
advanced dementia. Is it just normal aging, or an epidemic? Is it a coincidence, or a
secret terrorist plot?
In the looking-glass world of Half the Kingdom—where terrorist paranoia and
end-of-the-world hysteria mask deeper fears of mortality; where parents’ and their
grown children’s feelings vacillate between frustration and tenderness; and where
the broken medical system leads one character to quip, “Kafka wrote slice-of-life
fiction”—all is familiar and yet slightly askew.
Lore Segal masterfully interweaves her characters’ lives—lives that, for good or
for ill, all converge in Cedar’s ER—into a funny, tragic, and tender portrait of how we
live today.
+ A New York Times Notable Book of 2013
+ Short, comedic novel
+ Perfect as a gift for literary readers
Praise for Half the Kingdom:
• “The novel’s comedy beats back the darkness.” —New York Times Book Review
• “Underlying some extremely funny gallows humor is a damning commentary on
the cultural anxiety over tending to the elderly.” —Wall Street Journal
• “Segal portrays the absurd horrors of medically prolonged eternal life . . . [and] tells
their stories in poignant vignettes . . . Now 85, Segal herself is a heroic survivor.”
—Elaine Showalter, The Guardian
• “In the market for a witty, paranoid, tangent—happy, 9/11-influenced conspiracy
novel? No need to limit yourself to the new Thomas Pynchon. The less heralded
but very wonderful Lore Segal’s Half the Kingdom is about terror, aging, insanity,
eschatology, our health-care system, and a Blindness-esque epidemic of Alzheimer’s
in a post-September 11 Manhattan emergency room.” —New York
About the author
LO R E S EGAL is the author of the novels Lucinella, Other People’s Houses, Her First
American and the story collection Shakespeare’s Kitchen, a finalist for the Pulitzer
Prize. She is the recipient of an American Academy and the Institutes of Arts and
Letters award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an O’Henry Award and the Harold U.
Ribalow Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times,
Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic and other publications. At eighty-five years old,
Segal lives and writes in New York City.
ALSO AVAILABLE:
LUCINELLA
978-1-933633-79-4
35
GB84
A NOVEL
DAVID PEACE
Never before published in the U.S., GB84 will be launched in 2014 alongside
two other novels by David Peace: The Damned Utd and Red or Dead
ON SALE:
NOVEMBER 4
978-1-61219-393-9
$16.95 U.S.
FICTION
PAPERBACK
480 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-394-6
U.S. ONLY
Major review campaign in men’s,
history, culture, general interest
publications, and national newspapers
Finished book mailing to booksellers,
librarians
Library newsletter giveaway
Display at the American Historical
Association
conferences
Online giveaways on Goodreads
In taut and gripping prose that often feels like the relentless text of a surveillance
report, GB84 tells the story of the British coal miner’s strike of 1984—including the
actual bombings, riots and protests that brought the country to the brink of civil war.
Called by its author “fiction based on fact,” the book depicts a real-life 1984
more violently dystopian than even Orwell imagined. Slowly starving strikers find
themselves pitted against a prime minister—Margaret Thatcher—determined to crush
them . . . a police force willing to use infiltration and violence to achieve her will . . . and
equally hungry scabs who need a job . . .
Mixing real events and characters with the voices of the increasingly desperate
strikers, the book becomes a stirring saga of courage against overwhelmingly sinister
forces, and paints a searing and haunting portrait of events that changed the course
of British history.
+ Timed for the thirty-year anniversary of the events being recounted.
+ Follows on the massive publicity for Red or Dead (May 2014)
Praise for GB84:
• “Haunting, seminal, bleak, iconic, furied . . . it’s a necessary novel, vital even . . .”
—The Observer
• “A conspiracy thriller laced with apocalyptic poetry.” —The Independent
• “The writing is clever, terse, incisive . . . This mammoth conspiracy tale is a thriller
daubed with horror.” —The Scotsman
• “Superb . . . He has turned the whole episode into a gripping thriller, with no
detriment to documentary realis . . . GB84 is a bold mixture of thriller, monologue,
theatre script, chants, slogans, crime story, sexual subplot and documentary
fiction . . . This is an epic novel . . . a crowded, ambitious, quick-moving novel, and
as such is the literary equal of the epic events it commemorates.” —The Guardian
• “A violently original novel.” —The Times
• “Exhilarating . . . Compelling . . .” —The Times Literary Supplement
• “The book is so compelling . . . Peace’s terse, urgent sentences are perfectly suited
to depicting a large-scale confrontation. The tactics and resources of both sides,
their histories, their mindsets, the likely battlefields—all are vividly laid out in
little more than a few paragraphs. Alliteration and repetition establish a marching
rhythm like massing pickets or policemen . . . Only a rare political novel manages
that.” —The London Review of Books
About the author
DAV I D PEAC E —named in 2003 as one of Granta’s Best of Young Novelists—is the
ALSO AVAILABLE:
RED OR DEAD
978-1-61219-368-7
THE DAMNED UTD
978-1-61219-370-0
36
acclaimed author of the Red Riding Quartet (1974, 1977, 1980, and 1983), which was
adapted into a BBC television series that was released theatrically in the United States.
Peace is also the author The Damned Utd and the highly praised Tokyo Trilogy, which
so far includes Tokyo Year Zero and Occupied City. His book GB84 was awarded the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and his newest book, Red or Dead, was shortlisted
for the UK’s prestigious Goldsmiths Prize.
THE SCAPEGOAT
A NOVEL
SOPHIA NIKOLAIDOU
Translated by Karen Emmerich
From a major new Greek writer, never before translated—a wide-ranging,
muck-racking, beautifully written novel about the unsolved murder of an
American journalist in Greece in the forties
ON SALE:
FEBRUARY 3, 2015
978-1-61219-384-7
$23.95 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
HARDCOVER
320 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-385-4
WORLD
Major review campaign in daily
newspapers & national magazines
Print and online features and
interviews in political, cultural, literary,
historical, and general interest outlets
Coverage in Greek-American outlets:
Hellenic News of America, Greek Star,
National Herald, Greek News, etc.
Top 50 Library Mailing
Teaching guide with contextual
materials
Random House Library Blog
promotion to book groups
Featured in RH Book Club Catalog
Manuscript available on Edelweiss
Galley mailing to bookstores
conferences: NAIBA, NEIBA, Heartland
Fall Forum, Winter Institute
Display at MLA, AWP, and ALA
Conferences
Pitch for debut/discovery prizes and
citations: ABA, B&N
In 1948, the body of an American journalist is found floating in the bay off Thessalonika.
A Greek journalist is tried and convicted for the murder . . . but when he’s released
twelve years later, he claims his confession was the result of torture.
Flash forward to modern day Greece, where a young, disaffected high school
student is given an assignment for a school project: find the truth.
Based on the real story of famed CBS reporter George Polk—journalism’s
prestigious Polk Awards were named after him—who was investigating embezzlement
of U.S. aid by the right-wing Greek government, Nikolaidou’s novel is a sweeping saga
that brings together the turbulent Greece of the post-war period with the current era,
where the country finds itself facing turbulent political times once again.
Told by key players in the story—the dashing journalist’s Greek widow; the
mother and sisters of the man convicted of the murder; the brutal Thessalonika Chief
of Police; a U.S. Foreign Office investigator—it is the modern day student who is most
effecting of them all, as he confronts questions truth, justice and sacrifice . . . and how
the past is always with us.
+ A mystery with an American hook: the George Polk case has never been solved
and continues to be investigated to this day
+ An exciting new writer from a part of the world that readers are curious about . .
and rarely read fiction from
+ Told in the large part from the perspectives of the women—mothers, sisters, and
wives—affected by the case
Praise for The Scapegoat:
• “The book, with strong writing and the well-orchestrated voices of its many
characters, dares to suggest correlations with the current Greek crisis.” —Ethnos
• “The author conveys, in this book and her last, a common subject: a sense of
frustration and bitterness in past and present Greece at the mortgaging of their
future.” —To Vima
• “Moves deftly from the historic to the present day.” —Athens News Agency
S O F I A N I KO L A I D O U was born in Thessalonika in 1968. She teaches literature
and creative writing and writes criticism for various newspapers, including Ta Nea.
She has published two collections of short stories and three novels, all of which have
been translated into eight languages. Her last novel, Tonight We Have Friends, won the
2011 Athens Prize for Literature, and The Scapegoat was shortlisted for the 2012 Greek
State Prize for Fiction.
K A R E N E M M E R I C H ’s translations include Rien ne va plus by Margarita
Karapanou, Landscape with Dog and Other Stories by Ersi Sotiropoulos, I’d Like by
Amanda Michalopoulou, and Poems (1945-1971) by Miltos Sachtouris.
37
THE SCIENCE DELUSION
ASKING THE BIG QUESTIONS IN A
CULTURE OF EASY ANSWERS
CURTIS WHITE
Now in paperback, with a new afterword by the author
ON SALE:
AUGUST 5
978-1-61219-390-8
$16.95 U.S./CAN.
SCIENCE/PHILOSOPHY
PAPERBACK
256 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄2"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-201-7
WORLD
Mailing to paperback columnists
Advertising on nytimes.com
National radio tour
Op-ed campaign
Finished copy mailing: booksellers,
librarians, and academics
Library newsletter giveaway
Blog outreach
The so-called new atheists, most famously Richard Dawkins and Christopher
Hitchens, made a splash in the new millennium. They told the evangelical and the
liberal believer that they must give up religion and submit to science.
More recently, neuroscientists and their fans in the media have delivered a
variation on this message: the mapping of the human brain will soon be completed,
and we will know what we are and how we should act. Their faith is that the scientific
method provides the best understanding not only of the physical world but also of art,
culture, economics, and anything left over. The message is nearly the same as that of
the new atheists: submit to science.
In short, the rich philosophical debates of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
have been nearly totally abandoned, argues Curtis White. An atheist himself, White
fears what this new turn toward “scientism” will do to our culture if allowed to flourish
without challenge. After all, is creativity really just chemicals in the brain? Is it wrong
to ponder “Why is there something instead of nothing?” or “What is our purpose on
Earth?” These were some of the original concerns of the Romantic movement, which
pushed back against the dogmas of science in a nearly forgotten era.
In this brilliant multipart critique, White aims at a TED talk by a distinguished
neuroscientist in which we are told that human thought is merely the product of our
“connectome”—neural connections in the brain that are yet to be fully understood . . .
He examines the ideas of a widely respected physicist who argues that a new
understanding of the origins of the universe trumps all religious and philosophical
inquiry . . . and ends with an eloquent defense of the poetry and philosophy of
Romanticism, which White believes our technology and science-obsessed world
desperately needs to rediscover.
Quotes
Praise for The Science Delusion:
• “A symptomatic tour of the real sense of anxiety about the disenchantment of all
those qualities that make us feel most alive and unique in the world.” —The New
York Times Book Review
• “A witty critique of scientific overreach that celebrates the totality of human
achievement.” —Kirkus Reviews
• “His brisk takedowns of Hitchens, Hawking, Krauss, Lehrer and others are sharp
and necessary, wielding elementary logic against figures who should know better.
[White shows] just how easily good science can shade into the self-aggrandizing
ideology of scientism.” —Mark Kingwell, The Globe and Mail
About the author
CURT I S WH ITE is the author of the novels Memories of My Father Watching TV and
Requiem. A widely acclaimed essayist, he has had work appear in Harper’s Magazine,
Context, Lapham’s Quarterly, Orion, and Playboy. His book The Middle Mind: Why
Americans Don’t Think for Themselves was an international bestseller in 2003.
38
COTTON TENANTS
THREE FAMILIES
JAMES AGEE AND WALKER EVANS
Now in paperback, the re-discovered masterpiece of reporting by a literary
icon and a celebrated photographer
ON SALE:
SEPTEMBER 23
978-1-61219-398-4
$16.95 U.S./CAN.
HISTORY / ESSAYS
PAPERBACK
224 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 7 1⁄2"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-213-0
WORLD
Finished copy mailing: booksellers,
conferences
Book club outreach/ giveaways
Display at the Southern Historical
Society
Events in NYC, Boston, and Alabama
In 1941, James Agee and Walker Evans published Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,
a four-hundred-page prose symphony about three tenant farming families in Hale
County, Alabama at the height of the Great Depression. The book shattered journalistic
and literary conventions. Critic Lionel Trilling called it the “most realistic and most
important moral effort of our American generation.”
The origins of Agee and Evan’s famous collaboration date back to an assignment
for Fortune magazine, which sent them to Alabama in the summer of 1936 to report a
story that was never published, and for years the original report was lost.
But fifty years after Agee’s death, a trove of his manuscripts turned out to include
a typescript labeled “Cotton Tenants.”
Accompanied by thirty of Walker Evans’s historic photos, Agee’s dispatch remains
relevant as one of the most honest explorations of poverty in America ever attempted
and as a foundational document of long-form reporting.
+ Co-published with The Baffler magazine
+ An NPR recommended title
+ A rave reception for a rediscovered masterpiece, which included a front page
feature in the Arts section of the New York Times
Praise for Cotton Tenants:
• “Reading Cotton Tenants: Three Families all the way through without taking Let Us
Now Praise Famous Men down from the shelf for cross-reference may be possible,
but I couldn’t do it. Each book makes you curious about the other and acts as the
other’s gloss.” —Ian Frazier, New York Review of Books
• “A wonderful piece of writing . . . An example of what documentary journalism can
do as an organ of social justice.” —Kirkus Reviews
• “Highbrow . . . Brilliant” —New York Magazine’s approval matrix
JA M ES AG EE ’s book about Alabama tenant farmers during the Great Depression,
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, appeared in 1941. Agee was later renowned for his
film criticism, which appeared regularly in The Nation and Time, and for co-writing
the screenplays for The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter. He died two years
before his major work of fiction, A Death in the Family, was published and won the
Pulitzer Prize.
Photographer WA L K E R E VA N S (1903–75) joined the staff of Time in 1945 and
shortly afterward became an editor at Fortune, where he stayed for the next two
decades. In 1964, he became a professor at the Yale University School of Art, teaching
until his death in 1975.
A DA M H ASLETT (introduction) is the author of Union Atlantic and You Are Not a
Stranger Here. JO H N SUM M ER S (editor) is the editor in chief of The Baffler.
39
PIES AND TARTS FOR
DINNER AND DESSERT
STÉPHANE REYNAUD
From the bestselling author of the new classics Rôtis and Pork and Sons,
Stéphane Reynaud, a delicious overview of pies and tarts from every corner
of France
ON SALE:
From this much-loved French chef comes a delicious overview of pies and tarts from
France. The book is organized into six sections: Vegetable & Mushroom; Poultry; Beef
& Meats; Fish & Seafood; Cheese; and Fruit and Sweet.
Reynaud has travelled the length and breadth of France to bring together the very
best in regional variations on this favorite of dishes. Complete with a chapter on the
best kinds of pastries for each type of pie & tart, this is a perfect book for creating
show-stopping favorites for family and friends. Highlights include a savory pumpkin
pie, chicken pie with 30 cloves of garlic, and an easy pâté en croûte.
NOVEMBER 4
978-1-61219-417-2
$32.00 U.S./CAN.
+ Includes a detailed guide for making 5 kinds of classic crusts—with nearly 50
photographs detailing every step of the process
+ Detailed charts allow for playful variations: “What can I put in my pie?”; “What
pastry should I use for my pies?”
+ Don’t want to make crust? Each recipe includes substitution information for storebought crust or pastry.
+ Contains 145 stunning photographs by Marie Pierre Morel
COOKING—FRENCH
HARDCOVER
192 PAGES, 8 1⁄4" × 11"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-418-9
NORTH AMERICA
National print campaign including
features and reviews in food, women’s,
and lifestyle magazines
Features and reviews in national and
regional newspapers’ dining and food
sections
Online features and reviews on food,
cooking, lifestyle, women’s, and
general interest websites
ALSO AVAILABLE:
RÔTIS
978-1-935554-65-3
Praise for Stéphane Reynaud:
• “Offers recipes for every course and appetite . . . The son of a butcher, Reynaud
grew up eating all manner of meat, innards and scraps, a kind of ratatouille of the
flesh . . . well suited to adherents of the nose-to-tail, no-waste philosophy.”
—Christine Muhlke, The New York Times Magazine
• “With Reynaud’s books, I always feel as if I can understand just where it is that
French food comes from. The dishes tend toward hearty, approachable fare from
the French countryside, but the recipes can guide a home cook to new comfort
with a sometimes intimidating cuisine.” —Don and Samantha Lindgren, owners
of Rabelais in Portland, Maine, in Bon Appetit
• “It might be presumptuous to say that anything could be a one-stop resource on
rustic French cooking, but Reynaud’s door-stopper cookbook comes pretty close.”
—Booklist
• “Always with excitement do I open a cookbook by Stéphane Reynaud . . . This is the
type of book to put next to your night table and read a few pages before going to
sleep and to dream of marvelous feasts.” —Colette Rossant, Super Chef
About the author
ST É PH A N E R EYN AUD is chef and owner of restaurant Villa 9 Trois in Montreuil,
just outside of Paris. He won the 2005 Grand Prix de la Gastronomie Française for his
book Pork & Sons. His other cookbooks include Terrine, Ripailles, Rôtis and Stéphane
Reynaud’s 365 Good Reasons to Sit Down to Eat. Reynaud has also appeared on TV and
radio, including The Martha Stewart Show and NPR’s The Splendid Table.
40
41
RAY BRADBURY
THE LAST INTERVIEW AND OTHER CONVERSATIONS
Edited by Sam Weller
Ray Bradbury was long the most influential sci-fi writer in the world, the
poetic and visionary author of such classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian
Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man
ON SALE:
DECEMBER 2
978-1-61219-421-9
$15.95 U.S./CAN.
BIOGRAPHY / AUTOBIOGRAPHY
PAPERBACK
192 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-422-6
WORLD
But he also lived a fascinating life outside the parameters of sci-fi, and was a masterful
raconteur of his own story, as he reveals in his wide-ranging and in-depth final
interview with his acclaimed biographer, Sam Weller. After moving to Los Angeles,
he became an inveterate fanboy of movie stars, spending hours waiting at studio gates
to get autographs. He would later get to know many of Hollywood’s most powerful
figures when he became a major screenwriter, and he details here what it was like to
work for legendary directors such as John Huston and Alfred Hitchcock. And then
there are all the celebrities—from heads of state like Mikhail Gorbachev to rocks stars
like David Bowie and the members of Kiss—who went out of their way to arrange
encounters with Bradbury.
But throughout that last talk, as well as the interviews collected here from earlier
in his career, Bradbury constantly twists the elements of his life into a discussion of the
influences and creative processes behind his remarkable developments and inventions
for the literary form he mastered. Mixed with cheerful gossiping about his travels
and the characters of his life, it makes for a rich reading experience and a revealing
collection of interviews.
Quotes
conferences
Praise for Ray Bradbury:
• “He was my muse for the better part of my sci-fi career . . . In the world of science
fiction and fantasy and imagination he is immortal.” —Steven Spielberg
• “Mr. Bradbury was the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction
into the literary mainstream.” —The New York Times
• “One of this country’s most beloved writers . . . A great storyteller, sometimes even
a mythmaker, a true American classic.” —The Washington Post
• “The uncrowned poet laureate of science fiction.” —The Times
• “Ray Bradbury has a powerful and mysterious imagination which would
undoubtedly earn the respect of Edgar Allen Poe.” —The Guardian
Academic e-mail to Writing and
English Professors
About the author and editor
Finished copy mailing to booksellers,
Association Conference
Last Interview series promotion to
libraries, bookstores
R AY B R A D B U RY (1920–2012) was for decades the world’s most preeminent
authors of science fiction and fantasy, acclaimed for such renowned titles as Fahrenheit
451 and The Martian Chronicles. He began writing quite young, selling jokes to radio
comedian George Burns when he was 14, and publishing his first short story—to
Imagination magazine—when he was 18. He would go on to write not only seminal
sci-fi, but numerous other kinds of books, as well as numerous television and movie
screenplays, such as for TV’s Twilight Zone and John Huston’s Moby Dick. When he
died in 2012, President Obama said, “His gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and
expanded our world.”
Editor SA M W E L L E R is the author of The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray
Bradbury, and has lectured across the United States on the life and work of Bradbury.
Weller is a professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago.
42
JAMES BALDWIN
THE LAST INTERVIEW AND OTHER CONVERSATIONS
Never before available, the unexpurgated last interview with James Baldwin
ON SALE:
DECEMBER 2
978-1-61219-400-4
$15.95 U.S./CAN.
PAPERBACK
192 PAGES, 5 1⁄2" × 8 1⁄4"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-401-1
WORLD
Finished copy mailing to booksellers,
conferences
Academic email to Writing and English
Professors
Last Interview series promotion to
libraries, bookstores
“I was not born to be what someone said I was. I was not born to be defined by someone
else, but by myself, and myself only.” When, in the fall of 1987, the poet Quincy Troupe
traveled to the south of France to interview James Baldwin, Baldwin’s brother David
told him to ask Baldwin about everything—Baldwin was critically ill and David knew
that this might be the writer’s last chance to speak at length about his life and work.
The result is one of the most eloquent and revelatory interviews of Baldwin’s
career, a conversation that ranges widely over such topics as his childhood in Harlem,
his close friendship with Miles Davis, his relationship with writers like Toni Morrison
and Richard Wright, his years in France, and his ever-incisive thoughts on the history
of race relations and the African-American experience.
Also collected here are significant interviews from other moments in Baldwin’s
life, including an in-depth interview conducted by Studs Terkel shortly after the
publication of Nobody Knows My Name. These interviews showcase, above all,
Baldwin’s fearlessness and integrity as a writer, thinker, and individual, as well as the
profound struggles he faced along the way.
+ This is the first time the full text of Baldwin’s last interview will be available
+ Baldwin’s interviewers include Studs Terkel, Quincy Troupe, and other important
journalists and public figures
Praise for James Baldwin:
• “Jimmy Baldwin was the creator of contemporary American speech even before
Americans could dig that.” —Amiri Baraka
• “I am completely indebted to Jimmy Baldwin’s prose. It liberated me as a writer.”
—Toni Morrison
• “Baldwin’s way of seeing, his clarity, precision, and eloquence are unique . . . He
manages to be concrete, particular . . . yet also transcendent, arching above the
immediacy of an occasion or crisis. He speaks as great black gospel music speaks,
through metaphor, parable, rhythm.” —USA Today
• “[Baldwin is] among the most penetrating and perceptive of American thinkers.”
—The New Republic
About the author
JA M ES BA L DW I N (1922–1987) was a novelist, essayist, and activist. He is best
known for the novels Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and Giovanni’s Room (1956),
and the collections Nobody Knows My Name (1961) and The Fire Next Time (1963). He
was an important figure in the civil rights movement, and his books addressing the
African-American and gay experiences have influenced generations of writers.
43
THE LAST INTERVIEW
A celebrated series of pocket-sized interview collections, featuring
conversations with some of the most iconic writers and thinkers of our time
ROBERTO BOLAÑO
978-1-933633-83-1
LEARNING TO LIVE FINALLY
(JACQUES DERRIDA)
978-1-61219-094-5
KURT VONNEGUT
978-1-61219-090-7
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
978-1-61219-206-2
JORGE LUIS BORGES
978-1-61219-204-8
HANNAH ARENDT
978-1-61219-311-3
44
45
THE NOSE
NIKOLAI GOGOL
Translated by Ian Dreiblatt
A masterpiece of satire and a key work of the Russian “fantastic”
movement—one of the most celebrated tales in Russian literature
Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov awakens one morning to discover that his nose is
missing, and immediately launches a search around St. Petersburg to find it. Finally
locating it in the Kazan Cathedral, he learns his nose has acquired a higher rank in the
civil services than he has—and that it refuses to return to his face. One of the earliest
works of what would later be called “magical realism,” the story is one of the greatest
satires of all time.
ON SALE:
JULY 29
978-1-61219-318-2
$12.00 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
PAPERBACK
128 PAGES, 5" × 7"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-319-9
WORLD
N I KO L AI G O G O L (1809–1852) was born in a Cossack village in the Ukraine, and
achieved enormous success through writing stories influenced by his local folklore.
His later writings, such as “The Overcoat” and Dead Souls, mixed bitter realism with
ironic humor and surrealism. Growing slowly unstable, he eventually renounced
writing as immoral and burned his last manuscript, a sequel to Dead Souls, days
before dying of self-imposed starvation.
I A N D R E I B L AT T has translated Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilynch and Nikolai
Leskov’s The Enchanted Wanderer for The Art of the Novella Series.
OROONOKO
APHRA BEHN
The bestselling story of a legendary female writer—a tale of love, slavery,
and rebellion
When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his
grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony
of Surinam. Oroonoko’s noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors,
but his struggle for freedom meets resistance. One of the most influential novels in
history, Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko was the first book to express sympathy for African
slaves. Renowned for the respect Behn gave each of her characters, this is her bestremembered novel.
About the author
ON SALE:
AUGUST 12
978-1-61219-324-3
$12.00 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
PAPERBACK
128 PAGES, 5” × 7”
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-325-0
WORLD
46
A P H RA B E H N (c. 1640–1689), was born in Kent, England, and wore many hats
throughout her lifetime, as a professional writer, notorious lover, and Bristish spy. She
wrote poetry, short stories, stage plays, and political propaganda for the Tory party, as
well as her great amorous and political novel, Love Letters Between a Nobleman and
His Sister.
THE INVISIBLE MAN
H. G. WELLS
One of the most beloved works of science fiction
H. G. Wells’ classic The Invisible Man is an artful combination of a psychological thriller
and science fiction novel. A young scientist who discovers the secret of invisibility
feels initial joy at his newfound freedoms and abilities, but quickly turns to despair
when he realizes the many things he has sacrificed in the pursuit of science. While
he struggles to create the formula that will restore his visibility and his connection to
other people, murder and mayhem ensue.
About the author
H E R B E RT G EO RG E WELLS (1866–1946) was born in Bromley, Kent, England,
ON SALE:
JULY 29
978-1-61219-322-9
$12.00 U.S./CAN.
and went on to study at the Normal School of Science in London. His immediately
successful first novel, The Time Machine, rescued him from a life of penury on a
schoolteacher’s salary. His later “scientific romances”—including The War of the
Worlds and The First Men in the Moon—cemented his reputation as the father of
science fiction.
FICTION
PAPERBACK
128 PAGES, 5" × 7"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-323-6
WORLD
THE ABBESS OF CASTRO
STENDHAL
Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
A Romeo-and-Juliet tale told with Stendhal’s particular biting realism—never
before available on its own
Elena de’ Campireali, the daughter of a nobleman, falls in love with her poor neighbor
Giulio Branciforte, only to find that he is a brigand. Elena’s family doesn’t approve, but
the lovers are undeterred. A rollicking tale of the Renaissance—complete with powerhungry Holy Sisters and a prince who’d do Machiavaelli proud (he tells his troops to
“lie at random”)—and a startlingly modern portrayal of a young and willful couple in
Stendhal›s beloved Italy, The Abbess of Castro is an essential text in the canon of starcrossed lovers.
ON SALE:
AUGUST 12
978-1-61219-320-5
$12.00 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
PAPERBACK
128 PAGES, 5” × 7”
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-321-2
WORLD
M A R I E-HEN R I B EYLE (1783–1842) had a post in the French Ministry of War and
followed Napoleon’s campaigns before retiring to Italy. There as “Stendhal,” he began
writing on art, music and travel—and later, masterful novels such as The Red and the
Black and The Charterhouse of Parma.
C. K . SCOTT M O N C R IEFF was a Scottish writer and translator, renowned for his
translation of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and various novels of Stendhal’s.
47
ALIENIST
CHARLES
IVAN
BAUDELAIRE
PROSPER
MÉRIMÉE
GUY
DE FIRS
ANTON
AFFAIR
POINTED
MAUPASSANT
CHEKHOV
AND THE
CHRISTOPHER
MACHADO
PRETTY
MORLEY
TURGENEV
THE ART
OFTHE
THE NOVELLA
A SIMPLE
THE
F.
SCOTT
WILLA
QUARRELLED
ABYSSINIA
FITZGERALD
CATHER
NIKOLAI
SAMUEL
GOGOL
JOHNSON
THE ART OF THE NOVELL A
THEART
ARTOFOFTHE
THENOVELL
NOVELL
THE
AA
A SLEEP
AND A
FORGETTING
WILLIAM
DEAN
HOWELLS
THE
AA
THEART
ARTOFOFTHE
THENOVELL
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFTHE
THE
NOVELL
THE
ART
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFOFTHE
NOVELL
AAA
THE HOUND
OF THE
BASKERVILLES
ARTHUR
CONAN
DOYLE
OF THE
HUSBAND
KATE
MASTER
FYODOR
CHOPIN
DOSTOEVSK
HENRY
JAMES
THE
MATHILD
THE DUEL
JOSEPH
DISTRACTE
MARY
CONRAD
PREACHER
SHELLEY
THOMAS
HARDY
BENITO
THE
DUEL
CERENO
ANTON
GIACOMO
CHEKHOV
HERMAN
CASANOVA
THE
ART
OFOFOF
THE
NOVELL
AA A
THE
ART
THE
NOVELL
THE
ART
THE
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFTHE
THE
NOVELL
THE
ART
NOVELL
THE
ART
OF
THE
NOVELL
AA A A
THE
ART
OFOF
THE
NOVELL
THE
THE
DIAMOND
DISTRACTED
AS BIG AS
PREACHER
THE RITZ
THOMAS
F. SCOTT
HARDY
FITZGERALD
THE
A SLEEP
DIAMOND
AND A
AS BIG AS
FORGETTING
THE
RITZ
WILLIAM
DEAN
F.
SCOTT
HOWELLS
FITZGERALD
THE
ART
OFOFTHE
NOVELL
AA A
THE
ART
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFTHE
THE
NOVELL
THE
ART
OF
NOVELL
AA AA
THE
ART
OFTHE
THE
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFTHE
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFTHE
NOVELL
THE
BENITO
THE DUEL
ETERNAL
CERENO
ANTON
HUSBAND
CHEKHOV
HERMAN
FYODOR
MELVILLE
DOSTOEVSKY
BENITO
THE DUEL
CERENO
ANTON
GIACOMO
CHEKHOV
HERMAN
CASANOVA
MELVILLE
THE HOUND OF THE
THE DUEL
(GIACOMO CASANOVA)
THE HOUND
BASKERVILLES
THE
OF THE 978-1-935554-49-3
978-0-9746078-7-0
DIAMOND
BASKERVILLES
A SIMPLE HEART
AS BIG
AS AFFAIR
THE
LEMOINE
ARTHUR 978-0-9746078-8-7
THE RITZ
978-1-933633-41-1
CONAN
THE LIFTED VEIL
F. SCOTT
THE
DIALOGUE OF DOYLE 978-0-9766583-0-6
FITZGERALD
THE
DOGS
THE TOUCHSTONE
978-1-933633-04-6
978-0-9746078-6-3
THE DUEL
THE DUEL
(ALEXANDER KUPRIN)
(HEINRICH VON KLEIST)
978-1-935554-52-3
978-1-935554-53-0
THE ENCHANTED
THE BEACH OF FALESÁ
978-0-9761407-1-9
WANDERER
978-1-61219-103-4
THE DUEL
(JOSEPH CONRAD)
ALEXANDER’S BRIDGE
978-1-935554-51-6
978-1-61219-105-8
THE DUEL
THE LESSON OF THE
(ANTON CHEKHOV)
MASTER
978-1-935554-50-9
978-0-9746078-4-9
A SLEEP AND A
MATHILDA
FORGETTING
978-0-9766583-7-5
978-0-9766583-8-2
THE DISTRACTED
PREACHER
978-1-61219-111-9
THE DIAMOND AS BIG
AS THE RITZ
978-1-61219-220-8
HOW
THE
JACOB’S
THE
DUEL
MATHILDA
TWO
IVANS
ROOM
JOSEPH
QUARRELLED
MARY
VIRGINIA
CONRAD
NIKOLAI
SHELLEY
WOOLF
GOGOL
JACOB’S
THE
MATHILDA
THE DUEL
ROOM
JOSEPH
DISTRACTED
MARY
VIRGINIA
CONRAD
PREACHER
SHELLEY
WOOLF
THOMAS
HARDY
THE AWAKENING
978-1-935554-12-7
THE ETERNAL HUSBAND
978-0-9761407-3-3
RASSELAS, PRINCE OF
ABYSSINIA
978-1-933633-44-2
THE
THE
THE DEAD
BEACH
LESSON
AWAKENING
JAMES
OF
FALESÁ
OF
THE
JOYCE
KATE
MASTER
ROBERT
CHOPIN
LOUIS
HENRY
STEVENSON
JAMES
THE DUEL
GIACOMO
CASANOVA
THE DUEL
ANTON
CHEKHOV
MAY DAY
978-1-933633-43-5
THEART
ARTOFOFTHE
THENOVELL
NOVELL
THE
AA
MATHILDA
MARY
SHELLEY
THE HAUNTED
BOOKSHOP
978-1-61219-224-6
THEART
ARTOFOFTHE
THENOVELL
NOVELL
THE
THE
A AA A
THEART
ARTOFOFTHE
THENOVELL
NOVELL
THE
BENITO
AWAKENING
CERENO
KATE
HERMAN
CHOPIN
MELVILLE
STEMPENYU:
A JEWISH ROMANCE
978-1-933633-16-9
TALES OF BELKIN
978-1-933633-73-2
THE
ART
OFTHE
THE
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFOFTHE
NOVELL
AAA
THE
ART
NOVELL
WOOLF
THEART
ARTOFOFTHE
THENOVELL
NOVELLA A
THE
THE COXON FUND
978-1-933633-42-8
BARTLEBY THE
SCRIVENER
978-0-9746078-0-1
THE
ART
OF
NOVELL
AA AA
THE
ART
OFTHE
THE
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFTHE
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFTHE
NOVELL
THEART
ARTOFOFTHE
THENOVELL
NOVELL
THE
AA
JACOB’S
MAY
THE DAY
DUEL
F.ROOM
SCOTT
JOSEPH
VIRGINIA
FITZGERALD
CONRAD
THE NICE OLD MAN
FREYA OF THE
SEVEN ISLES
978-1-933633-13-8
ADOLPHE
THE
BEACH
BENJAMIN
LESSON
OF
CONSTANT
OF FALESÁ
THE
MASTER
ROBERT
LOUIS
HENRY
STEVENSON
JAMES
THE DUEL
JOSEPH
CONRAD
JACOB’SAND THE PRETTY
BENITOGIRL
ROOM 978-1-933633-89-3
CERENO
PARNASSUS ON WHEELS
978-1-935554-11-0
VIRGINIAMY LIFE HERMAN
WOOLF 978-0-9746078-2-5
THE HORLA
MELVILLE
978-0-9761407-4-0
THE
POOR
THE
DUEL
ALEXANDER’S
RASSELAS,
CLARE
BRIDGE
HEINRICH
PRINCE OF
WILLA
ELIZABETH
VON
KLEIST
ABYSSINIA
CATHER
GASKELL
SAMUEL
JOHNSON
THE
ART
OFTHE
THE
NOVELL
THE
ART
OFOFTHE
NOVELL
AAA
THE
ART
NOVELL
THE
LESSON
OF THE
MASTER
HENRY
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978-1-61219-109-6
JACOB’S
RASSELAS,
ROOM OF
PRINCE
ABYSSINIA
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WOOLF
SAMUEL
JOHNSON
THE
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HENRY
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EDITH
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MAN
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OF
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KING
GEORGE
PUSHKIN
ELIOT
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KIPLING
THE HAUNTED
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MORLEY
THE DUEL
HEINRICH
VON KLEIST
THE
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EDITH
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FREYA
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TOUCHSTONE
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SEVEN
ISLES
EDITH
WHARTON
JOSEPH
CONRAD
TALES OF
BELKIN
ALEXANDER
PUSHKIN
THE DUEL
ALEXANDER
KUPRIN
CARMEN
978-1-61219-226-0
FIRST LOVE
978-0-9746078-9-4
THE ALIENIST
978-1-61219-107-2
THE COUNTRY OF
THE POINTED FIRS
978-1-935554-10-3
THE NARRATIVE OF
ARTHUR GORDON PYM
OF NANTUCKET
978-1-61219-222-2
THE DEATH OF IVAN
ILYCH
978-1-933633-54-1
ADOLPHE
978-1-935554-09-7
HOW THE TWO IVANS
QUARRELLED
978-1-933633-14-5
BENITO CERENO
978-1-933633-05-3
ELIOT
BARTLEBY
THE
SCRIVENER
HERMAN
MELVILLE
THE
COUNTRY
THE
OFLIFTED
THEDUEL
POINTED
FIRS
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VEIL
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SARAH
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GEORGE
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DOGS
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THE
ART
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ART
NOVELL
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LIFTED
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ATHE
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ALIENIST
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DIALOGUE
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OF
GUSTAVE
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DOGS
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ASSIS
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CERVANTES
THEART
ARTOFOFTHE
THENOVELL
NOVELL
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AA
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DIALOGUE
OF
THE DOGS
MIGUEL DE
CERVANTES
THEART
ARTOFOFTHE
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AA
FLAUBERT
THE
THE
MYGIRL
LIFE
WITH
THE
LEMOINE
ANTON
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AFFAIR
CHEKHOV
EYES
MARCEL
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PROUST
DE BALZAC
THE
HORLA
THE
LIFTED
GUY
DE
VEIL
MAUPASSANT
MY LIFE
ANTON
CHEKHOV
THE DEVIL
978-0-9746078-3-2
THE MAN THAT
CORRUPTED
HADLEYBURG
978-0-9761407-9-5
THE GIRL WITH THE
GOLDEN EYES
978-0-9766583-1-3
MICHAEL KOHLHAAS
978-0-9761407-2-6
THE MAN WHO WOULD
BE KING
978-0-9761407-0-2
LADY SUSAN
978-1-935554-35-6
THE POOR CLARE
978-1-61219-218-5
THE DEAD
978-0-9749609-0-6
JACOB’S ROOM
978-1-935554-36-3
48
A SIMPLE
HEART
GUSTAVE
FLAUBERT
THE
LEMOINE
AFFAIR
MARCEL
PROUST
FIRST
THE LOVE
LEMOINE
IVAN
AFFAIR
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HEART
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CHARLES
BAUDELAIRE
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OLD MAN
AND THE
PRETTY
GIRL
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ROMANCE
Too short to be
short
story,
the
novella
is
generally
unrecognized
by
academics
and
publishers.
HUSBAND
GUSTAVE
ABYSSINIA
KUPRIN
CHRISTOPHER
FUND
MAUPASSANT THE
ALEXANDER
ISLESDOGS
KATE
CHEKHOV
FITZGERALD
CATHER
WHARTON
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GEORGE
ROBERT
MORLEY
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FLAUBERT
MARCEL
PUSHKIN
FYODOR
SHOLEM
CHOPIN
HERMAN
SAMUEL
HENRY
JOSEPH
ELIOT
Nonetheless, it is a form beloved
by literature’s
greatest writers.
of the Novella
Series celebrates
GIRLand practiced
LOUIS this
LESKOV
PROUST
MIGUEL
ALEICHEM
DOSTOEVSKY
HENRY
MELVILLE
JOHNSON
JAMES The Art
CONRADDE
STEVENSON
CERVANTES
JAMES
ITALO
renegade art form and its practitioners
with
titles
that
are,
in
many
instances,
presented
in
book
form
for
the
first time.
SVEVO
THE
NICE
PARNASSUS
FANFARLO
ON WHEELS
OLD
MAN
AND
THEbe a
aCHARLES
novel,
too
long
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ART
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NOVELL
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BENJAMIN
WANDERER
ROMANCE
CHRISTOPHER
CONSTANT
MORLEY
NIKOLAI
SHOLEM
LESKOV
ALEICHEM
THE
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NOVELL
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THE
RITZ
WILLIAM
F. SCOTT
DEAN
HOWELLS
FITZGERAL
THE HOUND
OF THE
BASKERVILL
ARTHUR
CONAN
DOYLE
49
LETTERS OF JAMES AGEE
TO FATHER FLYE
Introduction by Robert Phelps
First published in 1962, Letters of James Agee to Father Flye followed the
rediscovery of Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and the posthumous
publication of A Death in the Family, which won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize
and became a hit Broadway play and film. The collection sold prolifically
throughout the 1960s and ’70s in mass-market editions as a new generation
of readers discovered the deep talents of the writer Dwight Macdonald called
“the most broadly gifted writer of our American generation.”
T HE
NEVERSINK
L I BRARY
ON SALE:
APRIL 29
978-1-61219-361-8
$16.00 U.S./CAN.
PAPERBACK
240 PAGES, 5" × 8"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-362-5
WORLD
National print and online media
campaign for reviews and features
Features on author’s tumultuous life
bloggers
Pitch to religion writers and outlets
Neversink brochure available
Featured at Public Library Association
Conference
Email blast to English departments
50
James Agee’s father died when he was just six years old, a loss immortalized in his
Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, A Death in the Family. Three years later, Agee’s mother
moved the mourning family from Knoxville, Tennessee, to the campus of St. Andrew’s,
an Episcopal boarding school near Sewanee.
There, Agee met Father James Harold Flye, who would become his history teacher.
Though Agee was just ten, the two struck up an unlikely and enduring friendship,
traveling Europe by bicycle and exchanging letters for thirty years, from Agee’s
admission to Exeter Academy to his death at forty-five. The intimate letters, collected
by Father Flye after Agee’s death, form the most intimate portrait of Agee available,
a starkly revealing account of the internal and external life of a tortured twentiethcentury genius. Agee candidly shares his struggles with depression, professional
failure, and a tumultuous personal life that included three wives and four children.
+ Let Us Now Praise Famous Men has been cited as one the greatest literary works of
the 20th century by the New York University School of Journalism and the New
York Public Library
+ Tremendous review attention for Cotton Tenants
+ Strong sales track for Cotton Tenants
Praise for Letters of James Agee to Father Flye:
• “Comparable in importance to Fitzgerald’s The Crack-Up and Thomas Wolfe’s
letters as a self portrait of the artist in the modern scene.”
• “A human document of searing honesty and naked beauty.”
—Atlanta Constitution
• “The stuff of life . . . Extraordinary letters which in their revelation of the hidden
springs of genius constitute a major work of art.” —Pittsburg Press
About the author
JA M ES AG EE (1909–55) was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and was hired as a staff
writer at Fortune in 1932. Two years later, his collection of poetry, Permit Me Voyage,
won the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. His book about Alabama tenant
farmers during the Great Depression, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, appeared in
1941. Agee was later renowned for his film criticism, which appeared regularly in The
Nation and Time, and for co-writing the screenplays for The African Queen and The
Night of the Hunter. He died two years before his major work of fiction, A Death in the
Family, was published and won the Pulitzer Prize.
INSEL
MINA LOY
Edited with an afterword by Elizabeth Arnold; Introduction by Sarah Hayden
Insel, the only novel by the surrealist master Mina Loy, is a book like no
other—about an impossible friendship amid the glamorous artistic bohemia
of 1930s Paris
T HE
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ON SALE:
MAY 13
978-1-61219-353-3
$15.00 U.S./CAN.
FICTION
PAPERBACK
224 PAGES, 5" × 8"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-354-0
WORLD
Confirmed review in the Wall Street
Journal
National print campaign for review
and features about Loy’s tumultuous
life
Mailings to radical and feminist
accounts
Featured at the Modern Language
The painter Insel is a perpetual sponger and outsider who’s prone to writing elegant
notes with messages like “Am starving to death except for a miracle—three o’clock
Tuesday afternoon will be the end” . . . but somehow writer and art dealer Mrs. Jones
likes him.
Together, they sit in cafés, hatch grand plans, and share their artistic aspirations
and disappointments. And they become friends. But as they grow ever closer, Mrs.
Jones begins to realize just how powerful Insel’s hold over her is.
Unpublished during Loy’s lifetime, Insel—which is loosely based on her friendship
with the painter Richard Oelze—is a supremely surrealist, deliberately excessive
creation: baroque in style, yet full of deft comedy and sympathy. Now, with an alternate
ending only recently unearthed in the Loy archives, Insel is finally back in print, and
Loy’s extraordinary achievement can be appreciated by a new generation of readers.
+ Strong academic interest in Mina Loy in departments studying the history of
modernism, feminism, the avant-garde, and visual arts in the 20th century
+ Loosely based on Loy’s real friendship with the German painter Richard Oelze
+ Insel is an unforgettable character: the ultimate charming freeloader who sweeps
into the narrator’s life and overturns everything
+ An important surrealist novel that deserves wider recognition
About the authors
M I N A LOY (1882–1966) was born in London to a Hungarian father and an English
mother. Originally trained as a painter, she was at the center of all the great artistic
movements of the first half of the twentieth century: she wrote Futurist manifestos in
Italy; her poem “Brancusi’s Golden Bird” appeared alongside T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste
Land” in The Dial; she starred in plays in Greenwich Village in the 1920s with William
Carlos Williams; she was friends with Duchamp and Man Ray; she ran a lampshade
business with Peggy Guggenheim; and in the 1940s, she lived on the Bowery, where
she collected trash for found-art collages, as in the style of her friend Joseph Cornell,
whose work she championed. During one of her earlier stints in New York, she met
the love of her life, Arthur Cravan, the Dadaist poet and boxer who disappeared in
mysterious circumstances shortly after their marriage. Only two collections of her
work were published in her lifetime, Lunar Baedecker (1923) and Lunar Baedecker and
the Time Tables (1958). She died in Aspen, Colorado, in 1966.
E L I ZA B ETH AR N O LD , a scholar and poet, is the author of Effacement and two
E-mail blast to Gender Studies
professors
other collections.
National magazine / women’s
magazine features
SA RA H H AYD EN is Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of
Online review and features to
capitalize on interest in Loy’s life
and work
English, University College Cork. Her monograph, Curious Disciplines: Mina Loy and
Avant-Garde Artisthood, is forthcoming in the Recencies series at University of New
Mexico Press.
51
LEAVETAKING
A NOVEL
PETER WEISS
Translated by Christopher Levenson; Introduction by Sven Birkerts
A brilliant, brutally honest autobiographical novel, long out of print, from one
of the great artistic polymaths of the 20th century
JULY 8
This is a Sebaldian account of the narrator’s attempt to break free of a repressive
upper-middle-class upbringing and make his way as an artist and individual, written
in a single incantatory paragraph.
Leavetaking is the story of an upper-middle-class childhood and adolescence in
Berlin between the wars. In the course of the book, Weiss plumbs the depths of family
life: there is the early death of his beloved sister Margit, the difficult relationship with
his parents, the fantasies of adolescence and youth, all set in the midst of an increasing
anti-Semitism, which forces the Weiss family to move again and again, a peripatetic
existence that only intensifies the narrator’s growing restlessness.
The young narrator is largely oblivious to world events and focused instead on
becoming an artist, an ambition frustrated generally by his milieu and specifically
by his mother, who, herself a former actress, destroys his paintings during one of the
family’s moves. In the end, he turns to an older mentor, Harry Haller, a fictionalized
portrait of Hermann Hesse, who encouraged and supported Weiss, and with Haller’s
example before him, the narrator takes his first steps towards a truly independent life.
Intensely lyrical, written with great imaginative power, Leavetaking is a vivid evocation
of a world that has disappeared and of the narrator’s developing consciousness.
978-1-61219-331-1
$16.00 U.S./CAN.
Key points
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ON SALE:
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EBOOK: 978-1-61219-332-8
WORLD
ARCs available
Mailing to critics, newspapers, and
bloggers
Feature in Melville House Neversink
Series dedicated newsletter
Feature at the German Studies
Conference, the Modern Language
Association, Association of Writers &
Writing Programs, National Council
of Teachers of English, and American
Library Association Conferences
Pitch to libraries at Book Buzz events
+ Part of a generation of significant postwar German authors, among them Heinrich
Boll and Christa Wolf, currently being rediscovered by American audiences
+ Author of groundbreaking plays, including Marat/Sade and The Investigation
+ Will be compared to Sebald—like his work, Leavetaking is loosely
autobiographical, and especially concerned with the experience of exile
P E T E R W E I SS was a German writer, painter, graphic artist, and experimental
filmmaker. He is best known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation, as well
as the monumental three-volume historical novel The Aesthetics of Resistance. Born
in Germany in 1916 to a Christian mother and a Jewish father, he began his career as
visual artist, studying at the Prague Art Academy in the late ’30s. After the German
occupation of the Sudetenland, his family moved to Sweden, where Weiss would
spend the rest of his life, eventually becoming a Swedish citizen. His work won many
major German literary awards, including the Buchner and Mann Prizes, and Peter
Brook’s production of Marat/Sade received the Tony Award for Best Play. Weiss died
in 1982.
C H R I STO P H E R L E V E N S O N is a prominent Canadian poet. He was the co-
founder of Arc Magazine and of the Harbinger Poets imprint of Carleton University
Press.
SV E N B I R K E RTS is a literary critic and essayist. His many books include The
Gutenberg Elegies and The Other Walk.
52
SPECIMEN DAYS
AND COLLECT
WALT WHITMAN
Whitman’s uniquely revealing impressions of the people, places, and events
of his time
T HE
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EBOOK: 978-1-61219-387-8
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and media
E-mail blast to American literature
and American studies professors
conferences: NAIBA, NEIBA, Heartland
Fall Forum
Neversink brochure available at ALA
Midwinter, PLA, and AWP
One of the most creative and individual poets America has produced, Walt Whitman
was also a prolific diarist, note-taker, and essayist whose intimate observations
and reflections have profoundly deepened understanding of nineteenth-century
American life. Specimen Days and Collect, first published in 1882, is a choice collection
of Whitman’s uniquely revealing impressions of the people, places, and events of his
time, principally the era of the Civil War and its aftermath.
One page after page, a vast panorama of American life unfolds, and with it rare
glimpse of Whitman as poet, empathetic observer, and romantic wanderer. From his
years as a wartime nurse in Washington, D.C., come touching glimpses of the dead
and dying in military hospitals, memories of Abraham Lincoln, and vivid impressions
of the nation’s capital in a time of great crisis.
Whitman’s travel yields memorable recollections of Boston, the Hudson Valley, a
walk through Central Park, Niagara Falls, the City of Denver, and more. Along with
the famed essay “Democratic Vistas,” there are scenes from the poet’s childhood,
touching tributes to songbirds, wildflowers, friendship and freedom; impressions of
the music of Beethoven, reflections on a last visit to Emerson, the deaths of Lincoln
and Longfellow and the painful process of aging.
Deeply felt and vividly expressed, Specimen Days and Collect is a richly rewarding
experience, a rare excursion into the mind and heard of one of America’s greatest
poets—and the America his poetry so richly commemorated.
Key points
+ The only major prose work published during Whitman’s lifetime
About the author
WA LT W H I T M A N (1819–1892), perhaps the most influential poet in American
history, was born on Long Island but raised in Brooklyn, New York. Serving at various
times as a printer’s devil, journeyman compositor, itinerant schoolteacher, newspaper
editor, and unofficial nurse to Northern and Southern soldiers during the Civil
War, he acquired a broad view of American life, central to his identity as a poet. His
“American epic” Leaves of Grass—though initially controversial for its frank depiction
of sexuality—earned him the title of the father of free verse. He continued to edit and
reprint Leaves of Grass up until his death, in addition to writing new works of poetry
and Democratic Vistas, a work of comparative politics.
53
TIRRA LIRRA BY THE RIVER
A NOVEL
JESSICA ANDERSON
Introduction by Anna Funder
One of Australia’s most celebrated novels: one woman’s journey from
Australia to London
T HE
NEVERSINK
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ON SALE:
DECEMBER 2
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$15.95 U.S./CAN.
Nora Porteous, a witty, ambitious woman from Brisbane, returns to her childhood
home at age seventy. Her life has taken her from a failed marriage in Sydney to
freedom in London; she forged a modest career as a seamstress and lived with two
dear friends through the happiest years of her adult life.
At home, the neighborhood children she remembers have grown into
compassionate adults. They help to nurse her back from pneumonia, and slowly let
her in on the dark secrets of the neighborhood in the years that have lapsed.
With grace and humor, Nora recounts her desire to escape, the way her marriage
went wrong, the vanity that drove her to get a facelift, and one romantic sea voyage
that has kept her afloat during her dark years. Her memory is imperfect, but the
strength and resilience she shows over the years is nothing short of extraordinary. A
book about the sweetness of escape, and the mix of pain and acceptance that comes
with returning home.
+ Miles Franklin Award Winner and the Australian Natives’ Literature Award
+ Progressive novel about the interior lives of women, friendship, love, and loss
+ Staple of high school English classes in Australia and New Zealand
campaign
Praise for Tirra Lirra by the River:
• “Finely honed structurally and tightly textured, it’s a wry, romantic story that
should make Anderson’s American reputation and create a demand for her other
work.” —The Washington Post
• “There may be a better novel than Tirra Lirra by the River this year, but I doubt it.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
• “Subtle, rich, and seductive, this beautifully written novels casts a spell of delight
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About the author
J ESS I CA AN D ER SO N (1916–2010) was an accomplished novelist and playwright
FICTION
PAPERBACK
144 PAGES, 5" × 8"
EBOOK: 978-1-61219-389-2
WORLD EXCEPT AUSTRALIA
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from Queensland, Australia. She was a writer in residence at the University of New
England, Armidale; a Senior Commonwealth Fellow; and two-time award winner
of the Miles Franklin Award for literature (for Tirra Lirra By the River and The
Impersonators). Though she did not have the means to devote herself to writing until
she was forty, she wrote six novels, ten radio plays, and one short story collection
before her death in 2010.
A N N A FUN D ER is the author of Stasiland and All That I Am.
54
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ZULEIKA DOBSON
BY MAX BEERBOHM
978-1-61219-292-5
THE MADONNA OF
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BY MAURICE DEKOBRA
978-1-61219-058-7
YOUTH WITHOUT GOD
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978-1-61219-119-5
A COUNTRY DOCTOR’S
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978-1-61219-190-4
FUTILITY
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978-1-61219-145-4
THE RIGHT WAY
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978-1-61219-166-9
REASONS OF STATE
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978-1-61219-279-6
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978-1-61219-188-1
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978-1-61219-156-0
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978-1-61219-150-8
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978-1-61219-294-9
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978-1-935554-47-9
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55
T HE
NEVERSINK
L I BRARY
The Neversink Library champions books from around the world that have been overlooked, underappreciated,
looked at askance, or foolishly ignored. They are issued in handsome, well-designed editions at reasonable prices in
hopes of their passing from one reader to another—and further enriching our culture.
SNOWBALL’S CHANCE
BY JOHN REED
978-1-61219-125-6
THE BOOK OF KHALID
BY AMEEN RIHANI
978-1-61219-087-7
THE PRESIDENT
BY GEORGES SIMENON
978-1-935554-62-2
THE TRAIN
BY GEORGES SIMENON
978-1-935554-46-2
GILGI
BY IRMGARD KEUN
978-1-61219-277-2
THE OASIS
BY MARY M c CARTHY
978-1-61219-228-4
THE LATE LORD BYRON
BY DORIS LANGLEY MOORE
978-1-935554-48-6
FAITHFUL RUSLAN
BY GEORGI VLADIMOV
978-1-935554-67-7
MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
BY CHARLIE CHAPLIN
978-1-61219-192-8
THE DIFFICULTY
OF BEING
BY JEAN COCTEAU
978-1-61219-290-1
THE DEVIL IN
THE FLESH
BY RAYMOND RADIGUET
978-1-61219-056-3
56
COLLEGE OF ONE
BY SHEILAH GRAHAM
978-1-61219-283-3
DEFINITELY MAYBE
BY ARKADY AND BORIS
STRUGATSKY
978-1-61219-281-9
THE TRAVELS AND SURPRISING ADVENTURES OF
BARON MUNCHAUSEN
BY RUDOLF ERICH RASPE
978-1-61219-123-2
I AWAIT THE
DEVIL’S COMING
BY MARY M ac LANE
978-1-61219-194-2
BOOKSELLER FAVORITES
THE OLD WORLD KITCHEN
BY ELISABETH LUARD
978-1-61219-268-0
LUMINOUS CHAOS
BY JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VALTAT
978-1-61219-141-6
HOW TO SHARPEN PENCILS
BY DAVID REES
978-1-61219-326-7
EVERY MAN DIES ALONE
BY HANS FALLADA
978-1-935554-04-2
STUFFED AND STARVED
BY RAJ PATEL
978-1-61219-127-0
THE DUKE’S TABLE
BY ENRICO ALLIATA, THE DUKE
OF SALAPARUTA
978-1-61219-139-3
DOSSIER K.
BY IMRE KERTÉSZ
978-1-61219-202-4
THE ART OF LYING DOWN
BY BERND BRUNNER
978-1-61219-309-0
AN AFGHANISTAN PICTURE SHOW
BY WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN
978-1-61219-198-0
SCRIPT AND SCRIBBLE
BY KITTY BURNS FLOREY
978-1-61219-304-5
VIVA LA PIZZA!
BY SCOTT WIENER
978-1-61219-307-6
THE STOP
BY NICK SAUL AND ANDREA CURTIS
978-1-61219-349-6
57
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the damned utd - Melville House Books

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