- Table View
- List View
Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures
by Mark FisherThis collection of writings by Mark Fisher, author of the acclaimed Capitalist Realism, argues that we are haunted by futures that failed to happen. Fisher searches for the traces of these lost futures in the work of David Peace, John Le Carre, Christopher Nolan, Joy Division, Burial and many others.
Sixteen Small Deaths: A Collection of Stories
by Christopher J. DwyerSixteen Small Deaths is a collection of short fiction culled from nearly a decade of work from Boston-based author, Christopher J. Dwyer. The stories in the collection skirt the edges of noir, horror and science-fiction, sometimes bringing the hazy boundaries of all three genres together within a single piece. Sixteen Small Deaths will take the reader on a journey of heartbreak and terror while diving into the dark recesses of the mind.
Invisible Wounds
by Dustin BeutinIn May, 2010, Special Agent Morgan Huntley learns that a close colleague has been abducted while investigating the shocking murders of two soldiers within a NATO command facility in Kabul, Afghanistan. Within days, it becomes clear that his friend's investigation had uncovered a disturbing rumor: a group of retired U.S. Army personnel may have returned to Afghanistan to build a drug cartel, posing as defense contractors and utilizing the Army's own logistics network. With the clock ticking on both the case and his friend&’s life, Morgan accepts an offer to volunteer for an undercover mission to Afghanistan, posing as a civilian contractor. Upon arrival, however, Morgan learns that the kidnapping is but one small piece of a wider and more dangerous puzzle. Worse, Morgan's civilian cover story is immediately endangered when a close friend of his ex-wife becomes a key asset in his investigation. Invisible Wounds is a riveting thriller that navigates a world of hidden agendas, brazen deceit, and costly choices. Simultaneously gripping and fast-paced it is also a meaningful consideration of the generational costs of a decade of global conflict.
This Is All He Asks of You
by Anne EgsethSpanning Norway, Washington DC and Greece, This Is All He Asks of You is a visionary story about letters never sent, life once flowing and now frozen, swim-flying in golden light and the beauty of human connection. Above all, it is a story about how sad it would be if everything became like everything else.
Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism
by Benjamin NoysWe are told our lives are too fast, subject to the accelerating demand that we innovate more, work more, enjoy more, produce more, and consume more. That&’s one familiar story. Another, stranger, story is told here: of those who think we haven&’t gone fast enough. Instead of rejecting the increasing tempo of capitalist production they argue that we should embrace and accelerate it. Rejecting this conclusion, /Malign Velocities/ tracks this 'accelerationism' as the symptom of the misery and pain of labour under capitalism. Retracing a series of historical moments of accelerationism - the Italian Futurism; communist accelerationism after the Russian Revolution; the 'cyberpunk phuturism' of the &’90s and &’00s; the unconscious fantasies of our integration with machines; the apocalyptic accelerationism of the post-2008 moment of crisis; and the terminal moment of negative accelerationism - suggests the pleasures and pains of speed signal the need to disengage, negate, and develop a new politics that truly challenges the supposed pleasures of speed.
Militant Modernism
by Owen HatherleyMilitant Modernism is a defence against Modernism's many detractors. It looks at design, film and architecture - especially architecture — and pursues the notion of an evolved modernism that simply refuses to stop being necessary. Owen Hatherley gives us new ways to look at what we thought was familiar — Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier, even Vladimir Mayakovsky. Through Hatherley's eyes we see all of the quotidian modernists of the 20th century - lesser lights, too — perhaps understanding them for the first time. Whether we are looking at Britain's brutalist aesthetics, Russian Constructivism, or the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich, the message is clear. There is no alternative to Modernism.
Hidden Crown: Northland - 1166
by David HaworthWhat would have happened if William of Normandy had lost the Battle of Hastings? What kind of nation would have been born if King Harald of Norway had conquered England instead? How different our history could have been if the wind had blown in the other direction for just one day in the summer of 1066. The Hidden Crown is an alternate-history adventure that takes place a hundred years after such events. The country that would have become Norman England has split in two: the Anglo-Norse kingdom of Northland and the Saxon realm of England. The two nations have been at peace for nearly a century, that is until the dying king of England unexpectedly names his nine-year-old granddaughter, Adelise, as his heir. During her journey home to England through the wilds of Northland, the child-queen is rescued from a bloody assassination attempt by the young Northlandic soldier, Thurstan Elfsson. Now the two sole survivors of the attack must find safety and allies in a desperate flight across the two kingdoms, never knowing whether they are about to encounter friend or foe.
Forever in My Veins: How Film Led Me to the Mysterious World of the African Shaman
by Lionel FriedbergEmmy Award-winning producer and New York Times bestselling author Lionel Friedberg has spent 50 years making films as diverse as full-length theatrical features and television documentaries. After growing up in South Africa during the troubled era of apartheid he began his career during the dying days of colonialism in Central Africa. He eventually settled in Los Angeles where his work took him to the sound stages of Hollywood and to the most remote regions of the Earth. His career exposed him to the extraordinary wonders of our planet and brought him into close contact with many unforgettable personalities from maverick scientists to politicians, entertainers and people who survived near-death experiences. His observations have taught him that life is far more complex and infinitely stranger than we can imagine. When he was struck by an unexpected life-threatening illness his efforts to find a way to save his life took him back to Africa where he encountered the age-old rituals and powerful healing methods of African shamans. Their mysterious ways have much to teach us and are as relevant today as they were in ancient times.
The Coming Revolution: Capitalism in the 21st Century
by Ben ReynoldsA technological revolution is driving capitalism toward crisis and collapse. Can our society evolve in time to rescue the future? Radical advances in automation, robotics, and computer technology have thrown millions out of work and will only continue to do so in the years to come. At the same time, cheap, individually-accessible machines will wrestle for primacy with both gleaming highly-automated factories and sweatshops alike, ultimately eroding the dominance of industrial production. Economic growth is slowing down, and it is not going to speed up again. The pressures fueling today's global unrest will not go away and are only going to get worse as wages stagnate in many countries, solid employment becomes harder to find, and cuts to social benefits continue. Competing radical and reactionary ideologies will clash as political consensus crumbles and the world's peoples search for answers to these challenges. In its opening decades, the 21st will be a century of war and revolution. By the end of the 21st century, capitalism will be consigned to the history books. Despite the seeming darkness of our era, our future is filled with incredible possibility. If working people join together, we can create a world of freedom, beauty, and abundance, where poverty and tyranny are merely distant memories for our grandchildren. This is the story of The Coming Revolution.
Depth Charging Ice Planet Goth
by Andrez BergenShe's a disturbed, quiet girl, but Mina wants to do some good out there. It's just that the world gets in the way. This is Australia in the 1980s, a haven for goths and loners, where a coming-of-age story can only veer into a murder mystery.
Some Books Aren't for Reading
by Howard Marc ChesleyMitchell Fourchette is on a mission to retrieve his priceless, first-edition copy of The Old Man and the Sea, inscribed on the flyleaf by Papa Hemingway himself. He unearthed it at the bottom of a bin of castoffs at a thrift store in Anaheim, and then Helmet-Head, Mitchell&’s moped-driving book-scout competitor and nemesis, filched it. How, after an auspicious start at Hotchkiss and Yale, then a great job in advertising and a loving young family did Mitchell manage to lose it all and fall so far from grace? That is something that he can&’t help but contemplate while crusading through the dark recesses of Los Angeles as he struggles to retrieve his treasured book from a dishevelled, moped-driving Moriarty. 'Storytelling like T.C. Boyle, characters worthy of Robert Stone. Howard Marc Chesley creates compelling drama from everyday events, turning the life of an internet bookseller into a thriller. I couldn't stop reading.' David Webb Peoples, Writer of Blade Runner and Unforgiven
The Circle of the Snake: Nostalgia and Utopia in the Age of Big Tech
by Grafton TannerShocked by 9/11, the Great Recession, digital anxiety, and ecological collapse, the West suffers from nostalgia. People everywhere yearn for a utopian version of the past that never existed. Desperate for relief, many long to escape from the present. Some will stop at nothing to achieve it. In his essential new book, Grafton Tanner, author of Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts, argues that our nostalgia today is partly a consequence of the attention economy. At a time when historical literacy is crucial, and old prejudices are percolating into the present, Big Tech&’s predictive algorithms are locking us into nostalgic feedback loops. The result is a precarious society with its gaze fixed on the good old days. Spanning from the ancient Sophists to Black Mirror, The Circle of the Snake is at once a reckoning with the myth of digital utopia and an incisive analysis of nostalgia as a weapon to spread fascism.
A Serf's Journal: The Story of the United States' Longest Wildcat Strike
by Terry Tapp"...A Serf&’s Journal is a powerful and much-needed overdue call for solidarity today." Alfie Bown, Hong Kong Review of BooksRecalling the JeffBoat incident of 2001,A Serf's Journal is Terry Tapp's formidable first-hand account of American workers as they fight a multinational company and their corrupt union to stage the longest wildcat strike in US history.
Palmistry: From Apprentice To Pro In 24
by Johnny FinchamEver wanted to learn palmistry but been confused by the mumbo-jumbo? This no-nonsense book is for everyone and the most innovative approach to the subject in the last two hundred years. It draws on ground-breaking scientific research into individual fingerprint patterns, and is illustrated with images of actual hands, including those of Einstein, ex-UK prime minister Tony Blair and the hands of various celebrities. After only 24 hours of study, this book will enable you to see into the deepest realms of the human condition.
Telling Life's Tales: A Guide to Writing Life Stories for Print and Publication
by Sarah-Beth WatkinsTelling Life's Tales is a comprehensive guide to writing life stories. It helps writers and non-writers to decide what they want to tell of their lives and how they want to tell it. Giving practical advice and information, the reader will learn story structure, key elements of writing, how to plot and plan and how to check all their facts. Everyone has a tale to tell and this book will help those tales come alive. Whether you are 22 or 82, Telling Life's Tales will help the reader to put into words their most memorable recollections.
The Silence Diaries: A Novel
by Jennifer KavanaghSuzie and Orbs are in their thirties and have been together for a couple of years. Orbs reluctantly makes a living in the City and Suzie is a respected financial journalist, but each has another life hidden from the outside world... Their secret existence is threatened first when Suzie is offered a highly visible job, and then by an accident that turns their lives upside down. This is their struggle to survive as partners.
Pagan Portals - The First Sisters: Lilith and Eve
by Lady Haight-AshtonIt was said in the beginning, in a garden called Eden, that woman was created at the same time as man, and not from his rib. Lilith, the first female, created equal to stand as a partner. But she proved to be a person so troublesome that she vanishes from her rightful place in civilization&’s mythological legends in place of Eve, the first wife. With her younger sister Eve&’s story heralding the future of all womankind, Lilith and her story stands alone as a testament to the Sacred Feminine and man&’s fear of the mysteries that lie within her. The First Sisters: Lilith and Eve is a gateway to a provocative awakening.
The Corona Generation: Coming Of Age In A Crisis
by Jennie Bristow Emma Gilland'One of the UK's leading sociologists of generation uses both her scholarship and her ability to write beautifully to give meaning to the experience of Spring and Summer 2020.' Professor Ellie Lee, Director of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, University of KentIt is already clear that the COVID-19 crisis will have huge social and economic implications. The Corona Generation considers its effect on the generation currently coming of age: the demographic currently known as &‘Generation Z&’. A generation that was already considered to be teetering on the brink of an uncertain political, economic, and environmental future now finds itself entering an adulthood in which nothing can be taken for granted; where continuous crisis management is already presented as the &‘new normal&’.
Made in Brooklyn: Artists, Hipsters, Makers, and Gentrification
by Amanda WasielewskiMade in Brooklyn provides a belated critique of the Maker Movement: from its origins in the nineteenth century to its impact on labor and its entanglement in the neoliberal economic model of the tech industry. This critique is rooted in a case study of one neighborhood in Brooklyn, where artists occupy former factory buildings as makers. Although the Maker Movement promises to revitalize the city and its dying industrial infrastructure by remaking these areas as centers of small-scale production, it often falls short of its utopian ideals. Through her analysis of the Maker Movement, the author addresses broader questions around the nature of artistic work after the internet, as well as what the term &‘hipster&’ means in the context of youth culture, gentrification, labor, and the influence of the internet. Part history, part ethnography, this book is an attempt to provide a unified analysis of how the tech industry has infiltrated artistic practice and urban space.
Thera and the Exodus: The Exodus Explained in Terms of Natural Phenomena and the Human Response to It
by Riaan BooysenOf all the volcanic eruptions that shook the earth, two of the volcano on the Aegean island Thera, modern Santorini, are more important to the modern world than any other. Not only did they lead to the formation of the people known as the Israelites, but indirectly also gave birth to the god of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. The biblical Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is closely linked to these two eruptions, the second which occurred ca. 1450-1410 BCE during the reign of Amenhotep III, Egypt's golden pharaoh. The fallout of the eruption caused a deadly plague to break out in Egypt and to appease the perceived anger of the gods, Amenhotep ordered all firstborn in Egypt to be sacrificed in fires. His firstborn son, Crown Prince Tuthmosis, was first in line to be sacrificed, but was saved from the fire in the nick of time, an event recorded as the 'burning bush' episode in the Bible. Prince Tuthmosis became the biblical Moses and the events of that followed are now finally revealed.
Why Young People Don't Vote
by Mitchell AggWhy don't young people vote? It's a question that has been asked by pollsters for years. The 18- to 24-year-old demographic records the lowest voter turnout at elections and it doesn't look to be showing signs of stopping. Being one of this demographic, Mitchell Agg looks into this question and tries to shed light on why his peers don't enter polling stations on election day. Through four main reasons, Mitchell helps us answer this question as well as giving some solutions.
Last Observer: A Magical Battle for Reality
by G. Michael VaseyThe Last Observer is a compelling tale of magic, alternative realities, murder and conflict. An ordinary man is abruptly dragged into the middle of a violent struggle between black and white magicians who both seek to use his extraordinary powers of imagination and observation. He soon learns that reality is not at all what it seems before being called upon to play a decisive role in determining whose reality will prevail.
Coming From Nothing: A Thought Experiment Novella
by Matthew McKeeverComing From Nothing is a tragi-comic love story concerned with notions of identity, such as Judith Butler's idea that sexual identity isn't determined by the body, and John Locke's that personal identity is a question of memory. The first novella in Zero Books new series of Thought Experiment Novellas, these are books that work out philosophical arguments in their plots. Whether focusing on William James' determinism, Descartes' mind/body dualism, or Judith Butler's argument for gender performativity, these short books attempt to flesh out philosophical problems. They are stories wherein philosophical ideas have consequences, at least in the lives of the characters.
Borderlines: The Edges of US Capitalism, Immigration, And Democracy
by Daniel MeloThe current U.S. immigration nightmare is a product of capitalism. The familiar, heartbreaking stories of dangerous treks, migrant exploitation, asylum, family separation and detention all have their roots in the material conditions of the dominant economic system. Immigrants&’ place in American democracy has long been intertwined with questions of cheap labor and exploitation, sovereign power, and the preservation of class relations. Through different facets of the immigration system, Borderlines explores how power and profit are perpetuated by the divisions between migrant and citizen and the resulting dehumanization of both. It demonstrates the necessity of a radical working-class demand for economic and political justice across borders and the edges of democracy.
Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame
by David BlackerThe current neoliberal mutation of capitalism has evolved beyond the days when the wholesale exploitation of labor underwrote the world system's expansion. While "normal" business profits plummet and theft-by-finance rises, capitalism now shifts into a mode of elimination that targets most of us--along with our environment--as waste products awaiting managed disposal. The education system is caught in the throes of this eliminationism across a number of fronts: crushing student debt, impatience with student expression, the looting of vestigial public institutions and, finally, as coup de grace, an abandonment of the historic ideal of universal education. "Education reform" is powerless against eliminationism and is at best a mirage that diverts oppositional energies. The very idea of education activism becomes a comforting fiction. Educational institutions are strapped into the eliminationist project--the neoliberal endgame--in a way that admits no escape, even despite the heroic gestures of a few. The school systems that capitalism has built and directed over the last two centuries are fated to go down with the ship. It is rational therefore for educators to cultivate a certain pessimism. Should we despair? Why, yes, we should--but cheerfully, as confronting elimination, mortality, is after all our common fate. There is nothing and everything to do in order to prepare.