Welcome to the inaugural monthly librarian e-mail from Soft Skull Press! (And immediately I remind you, there's an unsubscribe link at the bottom of this e-mail!)
We'll keep these nice and short for you: reviews and ARC offers.
To begin with the reviews:
MAMAPHONIC: Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts. Soft Skull. Nov.
2004. c.284p. ed. by Bee Lavender & Maia Rossini. illus. ISBN 1-932360-64-6.
pap. $14.95. SOC SCI
For all our supposed advancement since previous generations, the societal
duress implicit in our concept of the "good mother" seems to linger. In
perhaps no other career choice is the tension between the self-sacrifice of
motherhood and the need for self-actualization felt more strongly than in
artistic and literary pursuits. This theme-along with that of the practical
obstacles and unexpected inspirations of creating while tending to one child
or more-is repeatedly but not repetitiously examined in this collection of
essays, practical guides, poetry, and illustrations edited by writer-mamas
Lavender and Rossini. The pieces are as varied as the nature of the art
created by their authors, including dancers, artists, photographers,
writers, singers, and 'zine creators. Still, a sense of honesty, passion
and, yes, intense motherly love is apparent throughout. Highly recommended
for both family/relationship and arts and literature collections. (LJ, Nov 1st)
Plus, we have some ARC's! E-mail publicity@softskull.com with your mailing address.
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GAMERS: Writers, Artists, and Programmers on the Pleasures of Pixels. Soft
Skull. Nov. 2004. c.260p. ed. by Shanna Compton. illus. index. ISBN
1-932360-57-3. pap. $14.95. COMPUTERS
"In this anthology of original essays, contributors commissioned from a field
of writers, artists, poets, programmers, and scholars discuss the growing
impact of video games on our culture and what gaming means to them. Some wax
nostalgic about their first experiences with games, while others write about
the present and future aspects of a burgeoning gaming culture. The essays
themselves range from intriguing to entertaining...." But we'll be honets: the punchline of this is "Recommended only for libraries serving avid gamers"...but our thinking is that that is a pretty big group. It's also gotten a nice mention in this month's WIRED, and will be a PC GAMER Holiday Gift recommendation. We think this one will make literate video-game players realize they've got many many friends.
Plus, we have some ARC's of this one too, so you can decide for yourself! E-mail publicity@softskull.com with your mailing address.
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KINGS AND QUEENS: Queers at the Prom. Soft Skull. 2004. 160p. ed. by David
Boyer. photogs. ISBN 1-932360-24-7. pap. $24.95. SOC SCI
Any teen will say that the weeks leading up to the senior prom are filled
with anxiety, but being gay makes other worries seem lame in comparison.
Freelance writer Boyer has collected almost two dozen stories from gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered youth stretching back over more than 70
years, from the Bronx High School class of 1935 to the graduating class of
2003 at the mostly gay Harvey Milk High. Along the way, we meet such
memorable prom attendees as out lesbian Krystal Bennet, proudly voted prom
king of her Washington high school in 2001 amid local controversy; Lois and
Patrick, the "perfect couple" from the 1980 class of an Albuquerque high
school who, years later, came out to each other; and David and Bob, 1970s
high school sweethearts who are still together. A "mini mag" insert of prom
styles, factoids, and statistics reads like a page-filling afterthought.
Although this book is not an essential purchase, readers, both gay and
straight, will empathize with the individuals here and may even enjoy
reliving that night when their dates stood, corsages in hand, waiting to
usher them into adulthood. Recommended for larger public libraries.-Jeff
Ingram, Newport P.L., OR
Also, the author of KINGS AND QUEENS has a great slide-show presentation. Let us know if your library or school group or any group you know would be intersted in hosting him.
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Skels. Soft Skull. 2004. 236p. by Maggie Dubris ISBN 1-932360-24-7. pap. $14.95. Fiction/Mystery
“Best for last! Dubris' New York has everything and nothing to do with the real world, which is a reminder of something very simple: books don't need to get all pompous about our social disasters in order to make the grandest possible statements about them…. On a hot Manhattan night, with hydrants pumping in the streets and the sirens Dopplering off, Orlie's in the same ambulance with the rest of us, unconcerned with being a subject, an object, a woman, a character.”-The New York Times Book Review
“Provocative…. Durbis, who spend 20 years as a 911 medic, serves up a heap of those proverbial eight million stories with a smoky nostalgia for pre-sanitized Manhattan.”-Kirkus Reviews
"Maggie Dubris has saved a thousand lives, not only in the streets of Hell's Kitchen where we worked as paramedics, but in the breathtaking lines of this book. Her compassion is unmatched, tested on the hardest cases. Her poetry shines in the darkest places. My patron saint of suicide notes and crime scene confessions, of anguished letters written in the backs of ambulances." -Joe Connelly, author of Bringing Out the Dead
“Go ahead - consult the best-seller lists. You might even stumble across something worthwhile, though the odds aren't promising. So once again we're offering an alternative summertime-reading roundup…. Take a ride on the seamy side: Skels, by former paramedic Maggie Dubris, is set in the garish, nightmarish world of ambulance drivers and attendants, and imagines that patients carry the consciousness of dead writers.”-San Diego Union Tribune
“A vivid and poetic novel that tells the story of a young EMT plunged into the jungle that is New York City in the steamy summer of 1979. With every call to save a life, Maggie Dubris - who worked as a 911 paramedic in Harlem and Hell's Kitchen throughout the '80s and '90s - enters a different and strange world…. A vivid rendering of the lives of New York's poorest and most invisible.”-The NY Post
“Dubris depicts dark scapes of 1979 New York City littered with lurid lullabies, sounded in symphonies of sirens…. New York City tenement graffiti becomes primordial-a rosetta stone with which to unlock the city's secrets…. Dubris is a modern day cave painter-her words resonate timelessly and should be translated rigorously like the most bewildering of hieroglyphs.”-Small Spiral Notebook
“Highly charged… [Dubris] subtle and exquisite handling of the incarnations of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman creates and balances their anachronisms and her adaptations of their biographies quite aptly, allowing them to settle in the modern era, successfully weaving their presence into her story. She engages them not only as writers but as living beings whose lives are so deeply ingrained in the American psyche… Skels succeeds in not only speaking through literature, but about literature in a unique and vibrant manner.”-PopMatters
Reading guides for SKELS may be downloaded from
http://www.softskull.com/files/skels_readersguide.pdf
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And here's your monthly ARC offer!
Deliver Me from Nowhere by Tennessee Jones (March 2005)
In 1982, Bruce Springsteen departed from an upbeat rock and roll sound to release Nebraska--a spare, haunting piece of storytelling populated by deadbeats, desperadoes, and the poor souls unfortunate enough to fall in love with them. In Deliver Me from Nowhere, the shadowy folk fables of Springsteen's masterwork are reimagined in starkly beautiful short stories that trace a proud but perilous journey into the racial and sexual badlands of Middle America. An unnamed girl takes a dangerous older lover and is whisked into an interstate killing spree. A transgendered man attempts to go home after years of absence and wonders what his family will think of him. As these restless characters traverse arbitrary borders both internal and external, they question the possibility and even desirability of redemption.
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So that's it from Soft Skull this month. Hope this was useful, and all the best!
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