Soft Skull Media

Soft Skull Media Message

2009-12-28T16:19:33Z

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Dear Soft Skull Media subscribers,

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season! Our Soft Skull Press author Michael Muhammad Knight—the renowned leading voice of American Muslim punk—coined the term “taqwacore” for his novel about a Muslim punk house in Buffalo, New York. Originally published by the author on photocopiers and spiral-bound by hand, The Taqwacores, has since inspired and provided the name for a real-life Muslim punk subculture and was released by Soft Skull Press in 2009.

The Taqwacores has been adapted into a feature film that will world premiere at Sundance 2010: http://bit.ly/7BkjKA. Knight is both the screenwriter and co-producer for the film and will attend the screenings at Sundance (Jan 21-31).

For those in New York City, Soft Skull Press is planning the big launch party for his latest book, Journey to the End of Islam (Dec 09), on January 6th, featuring a very special performance by The Kominas (http://www.myspace.com/thekominas), a major taqwacore punk band from Boston.

Muslim Punk Night at the Bowery
JOURNEY TO THE END OF ISLAM launch / The Kominas
Wednesday, January 6th from 10pm to close
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery
(Between Houston and Bleecker)
F train to 2nd Ave, 6 to Bleecker
212-614-0505
http://www.bowerypoetry.com/
Admission - $8

Please let me know if you’re interested in planning coverage on Knight and I can gladly send more information and mail you review copies. I will include more information on all of his 2009 books and Journey to the End Islam after this email. Please email me at carrie.dieringer@counterpointpress.com or call (510) 704-0230 ext 214. I look forward to hearing from you!

All my best,
Carrie Dieringer

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Soft Skull Press has published five books by Knight in 2009. As described above, his first novel, The Taqwacores (January), told the story of a fictitious scene of Islamic punk- rockers and inspired the real-life Muslim punk movement which now shares its name, and Osama Van Halen (July) is its fantastical and satirical follow-up. With his deeply personal memoir Impossible Man (April), chronicling his bizarre and traumatic boyhood and conversion to Islam, and Blue Eyed Devil (May), his American road odyssey, Knight explores through his own private experience the unique realities of being an American Muslim. We finish the year with Journey to the End of Islam (December) where Knight goes international.

In Journey to the End of Islam, where Knight goes international and visits holy sites in Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia. His travels culminate at the holy city of Mecca, where he performs the hajj. This is the newest addition to Knight’s journey—whose work has led to him being hailed as both the Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson of American Islam. This engaging travelogue documents his visits to holy sites in Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia, and explores both the puritanical Islam promoted by Saudi globalization and the heretical strands of popular folk Islam: shrines, magic, music, and drugs. His travels culminate at Islam’s spiritual center, the holy city of Mecca, where he performs the hajj required of every Muslim.

Knight was the subject of the lead story in the National section of the New York Times on December 22, 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/us/23muslim.html) and featured on NPR’s Tell Me More on Dec 23, 09 (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121805397)

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Stonewall Riots, Fortieth Anniversary!

2009-06-10T14:33:23Z

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June 28 will mark the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots—the 1969 series of demonstrations in New York City credited, by some, as the precipitating event of the contemporary L.G.B.T. rights movement---and we at Soft Skull want to take this opportunity to remind our readers of Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s timely and apt volume, That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, the new revised and expanded edition.

http://softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-932360-56-5

Mattilda’s breakthrough book reinvigorates the spirit of radical, anti-assimilationist queer politics that sparked the riots forty years ago and that, increasingly, is subsumed by a univocal gay mainstream. As part of this radical tradition, it stands out for including contributors who were in fact around for Stonewall and who can rescue the legacy of the riots from the fate of an idealized and irrelevant myth—contributors who highlight the important ways in which this radical queer strain informs the current political landscape. The activists, scholars, writers, and artists of That’s Revolting speak with refreshing candor and without apology. They speak from the spirit of protest that emerged at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, insisting always that queers be accepted on their own terms. What is unique, beautiful, valuable—and endangered—in queer culture is, in this volume, brought back to its rightful place on the front lines of the struggle for equality (which does not mean same
ness).

We would be happy to put interested parties in touch with Mattilda, to discuss possible interviews, events, etc. Just shoot an e-mail to publicity@softskull.com.

A full press release, including editor bio, can be found below.

For related titles from other houses, also check out Martin Duberman’s new memoir, Waiting to Land, from our colleagues at New Press; and Smash the Church, Smash the State!: The Early Years of Gay Liberation, a new title from City Lights.

That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation
New and expanded edition; edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Now available, Trade Paperback Original, $19.95
1-59376-195-3
Counterpoint / Soft Skull / www.softskull.com
Distributed by Publishers Group West

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Anne Horowitz
anne@softskull.com

The 2005 edition was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist; Revised Edition Issued in Summer 2008!

“That’s Revolting! Is a pre-emptive line in the sand, a radical embrace of the political creativity of the ‘outsider’ . . . does more than map out the nether regions of queer identity politics . . . full of the collective wisdom of generations of activists determined to take the social space needed to live their lives.” —Left Turn
As an assimilationist gay mainstream wields increasing power, the focus of gay struggle has become limited to marriage, military service, and adoption. The gay mainstream presents a sanitized, straight-friendly version of gay identity which makes it safe for Richard Chamberlain or Rosie O'Donnell to come out and still rake in the bucks. By the twisted priorities of this gay mainstream, it’s okay to oppose a queer youth shelter because it might interfere with property values, or to fight against the inclusion of transgendered people under hate crimes legislation because this might not appeal to straight voters.

As the gay mainstream prioritizes the attainment of straight privilege over all else, it drains queer identity of any meaning, relevance, or cultural value—and calls this progress. That's Revolting! (New revised and expanded edition, Soft Skull Press / Counterpoint; Trade Paper Original; June 2008; $19.95; 978-1-59376-195-0) shows us what the new queer resistance looks like, using queer identity and struggle as a starting point from which to reframe, reclaim, and re-shape the world. Edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, That's Revolting! brings the post-identity politics of a new generation of renegade queers to light, as well as selections that cover everything from rabble-rousing with the Gay Liberation Front in the 1960s to blowing up buildings with the George Jackson Brigade in the 1970s, current-day rural queer youth organizing in Massachusetts to the infamous Drop the Debt / Stop AIDS action in New York. The collection is both a blueprint and a call to action.

Praise for That’s Revolting!
“Mattilda has performed the Herculean task of gathering all my favorite smart, irreverent, talented, fierce, funny and fabulous people together in one place. I can’t wait to see what happens in the world once That's Revolting! has been out there for a while.” —Kate Bornstein

“Startlingly bold and provocative.” —Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

“That’s Revolting! is a passionate cacophony denouncing the gentrification of gay culture, authored by the genderqueers, perverts, and other assorted visionaries excluded by the new Will & Grace banality.” —San Francisco Bay Guardian

“This lively collection of new queer resistance challenges the commodified view of gay/queer identity by exploring struggles to transform gender, revolutionize sexuality, and build community/family beyond traditional models.” —Library Journal

“That's Revolting! reads like a patchwork alternative history of the gay ’90s and 2000s: the part queers played in the anti-globalization movement, their responses to racist 'quality-of-life' policing, how they coped with welfare reform and the withering of social services and their valiant efforts to banish tacky corporate sponsorship from gay pride parades.” —In These Times

About the Author:
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the editor of four anthologies, including, most recently, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (Seal Press 2007). She is the author of So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights) and Pulling Taffy (Suspect Thoughts), and her writing appears in a wide range of publications, including Bitch, Utne Reader, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Maximumrocknroll, and make/shift. Mattilda’s activism has included ACT UP in the early ’90s, Fed Up Queers in the late ’90s, and Gay Shame on both coasts.

PLEASE SEND TWO TEARSHEETS OF ANY REVIEW OR MENTION

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And the Award Goes to...Pasha Malla, author of "The Withdrawal Method"

2009-06-05T16:24:44Z

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We are proud to let you know that Pasha Malla, author of The Withdrawal Method, has been receiving acclaim left and right.

He is the recipient of this year's Danuta Gleed Literary Award.
He is a finalist for the Trillium Award.
He is a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
He's been longlisted for the Giller Prize.
He won the Ellis Award for the Best Short Story for his contribution to the Toronto Noir.

It's an exciting time! If you want to review his wonderful collection or get in touch with Pasha Mills, let us know. We can make it happen!

About The Withdrawal Method:

In their humor, careful warmth, and straight honesty, his stories capture clearly something odd and beautiful: the unmistakable feeling of empathy. From young couples fighting through the emotional trauma of the modern world to children navigating wayward, forbidden paths of fantasized adulthood, Malla presents characters with feet rooted deep in the familiar and hearts that slowly open to reveal the pain and unexpected love a life accumulates.
Malla’s assured voice and smooth, mature style is punctuated by bursts of wild humor and enlivened by endlessly inventive storytelling. As individual narratives, these stories speak to each side of the protean human psyche, but when taken in together they address with full understanding the fragility of our lives.

Praise for The Withdrawal Method:

“These stories are original, smart, special, and often surprising in the way they manage complex feeling and dark areas of experience.”—Colm Toibin

“Splendidly creative . . . an absolute gem . . . Life is anything but ordinary in the hands of this gifted writer.” —Vancouver Sun  

“Ranges from the wistfulness of childhood to the horrors of cancer and is populated by horny chimps, chess-playing machines and Pablo Picasso.” —National Post

“Astonishing... filled with a great deal of compassion.” —Globe and Mail

“A polished, confident storyteller. . . . Malla steamrollers through uncomfortable situations and everyday horrors with the sang-froid of a crime reporter.” —Toronto Star

“Pasha Malla's remarkable debut collection The Withdrawal Method is a sign (or warning) of things to come.” —The Coast

“[F]or my money one of the best young writers in Canada [is] Pasha Malla.” —Torontoist.com

“Malla's style is sharp and funny... the collection is amusing and affecting, an accomplished first book by a writer to watch.” —NOW Magazine

“An astonishing and bizarre mix...Pasha Malla is an impressive young voice that gives one hope for a future of new Canadian writing talent.” —Montreal Gazette
“What is most alluring about Malla's writing is his unfailing ability to grasp the fallibility of his characters as they try to do the right thing, fail, and then go on.”—Quill & Quire

For more information:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/afterword/archive/2009/05/25/danuta-gleed-winner-announced.aspx
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2009/05/27/trillium-awards.html?ref=rss
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2009/02/19/commonwealth-prize.html
http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=792466
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/afterword/archive/2009/06/05/winners-of-the-26th-annual-arthur-ellis-awards-announced.aspx

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Soft Skull Press author and activist Kevin Powell to appear on Oprah: Thursday 3/19

2009-03-18T17:38:00Z

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press
Contact: Abbye Simkowitz
510.704.0230 x202
abbye.simkowitz@counterpointpress.com

Thursday March 19, 2009
Kevin Powell
Writer, Activist, Author of the forthcoming OPEN LETTERS TO AMERICA (September 15, 2009 – Soft Skull Press)
and author of Someday We’ll All Be Free and No Sleep Till Brooklyn

will be a featured guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show

Topic: How Men Can Stop Violence Against Women. Check Your Local listings for times.

This is Kevin Powell’s Oprah debut—a momentous career achievement for him and a testament to his dedication to serving America.

On Thursday, March 19th, 2009, Kevin Powell will be stepping onto the most globally influential platform as a guest on the Oprah Show. Beginning his career almost two decades ago as a pop culture icon and influencer, Powell, now an accomplished writer, activist, public speaker, and music aficionado, will have the honor to speak with Oprah Winfrey about one of his hardest-fought causes: ending violence against women and girls. On the heels of one of the most-watched episodes this year, dedicated to Chris Brown, Rihanna, and young adults in abusive relationships, Kevin Powell leads this follow-up episode, sharing his insight into this gravely serious problem, which hurts people worldwide.

Powell has been working relentlessly to help mentor and enlighten others about this issue through his writings such as his essay “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls.” His forthcoming essay collection Open Letters to America (September 15 2009 / Soft Skull Press / Trade paper / $13.95 / 978-1-59376-214-8) is a trilogy of letters to Americans of all backgrounds, written in the spirit of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. In Open Letters, Powell proposes that after eight years of George Bush’s America, we are at a critical juncture in our nation’s history, when we can, as in the 1960s, put forth a new and bolder kind of democracy. The book is his celebration of the sudden, mass political engagement of America’s youth, and Americans in general; his thoughts in the aftermath of Obama’s magical and historic presidential campaign; and his open acknowledgment that if twenty-first century America is going to be the great world democracy it promises to be, it will be Generations
X and Y that make it so. Read more about the book, which is available for pre-order on amazon.com, here:

http://softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-59376-214-3

Powell has authored two previous Soft Skull Press books. No Sleep Till Brooklyn (summer 2008, $15.95, 978-0-9796636-9-7) is a searingly honest poetry collection, powerful and disturbing, confronting such issues as racism, black self-hatred, gender violence, and his own anguished revelations about sex, love, and misogyny. Someday We’ll All Be Free (2006, $13.95, 978-1-933368-57-3) is his incisive and passionate jeremiad about freedom and democracy in America today. He skillfully dissects the dreams of American freedom and democracy in the early days of the 21st century, addressing the reelection of George W. Bush, the colossal tragedy of September 11th, and the historic destruction of the city of New Orleans before our very eyes. Read more about the books here:

http://www.amazon.com/No-Sleep-Till-Brooklyn-Selected/dp/0979663695/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237409654&sr=8-1

and here:

http://softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-57-8

Powell has been invited across the country to speak about domestic violence, and has just recently appeared on CNN, FOX 5 NY, NBC CH.4 NY, Hot 97 radio, and BET’s 106 & Park. In addition, look for the May issue of Ebony magazine which will be featuring Kevin’s new short essay, “Men Can Stop Domestic Violence.”

About Kevin Powell
Kevin Powell is a Writer, Activist, Public Speaker, and Author of the forthcoming essay collection Open Letters To America (Soft Skull Press). Born and raised in Jersey City, NJ, Powell is the product of a single mother led household, extreme poverty, and violence. But he survived those difficult conditions to author or edit nine books and has been, among other things, an acclaimed national speaker and activist, a founding staff member at Vibe magazine, a cast member on the very first season of MTV’s “The Real World,” and, in 2008, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Brooklyn, New York, where he has been a long-time resident. Besides his work around redefining manhood away from sexism and violence, Powell is also deeply committed to fighting poverty, environmental injustices, and educational inequities. For more information on Kevin Powell, visit www.KevinPowell.net

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Famous spiked Bill Hicks routine to finally air on Letterman, 15 years on...

2009-01-28T23:28:06Z

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I thought our subscribed media members would be pleased to hear that one of the most famous instances of network TV censorship is being remediated this coming Friday when Letterman finally airs the spiked Bill Hicks routine that was supposed to air five months before Hicks died. (For the "Who's Bill Hicks?" folks amongst you, click on his name for the Wikipedia entry...)

Letterman's also bringing Bill's mom, Mary, on the show, which is pretty amazing cause she's an intense lady...

Should any of you fine folk not yet have a copy of the revised and updated edition of our collection of Bill Hicks routines, letters, and miscellany, Love All the People, and our Bill Hicks tribute What Would Bill Hicks Say? please email us for a copy...

In the time since we first did the book, enormous amounts of his material is now on YouTube, do check it out, if you've not yet...

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CHINA UNDERGROUND a Summer 2009 B&N Discover Great New Writers Pick

2009-01-22T22:11:46Z

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China, its economy booming, is changing at a breakneck pace, and 1.2 billion people are trying to carve a place out for themselves. A young American writer dives into the thick of it, uncovering stories from Chinese youth grappling with the reality of their ever-changing world.

Westerners having been hearing a lot about China in the past few years--but mostly about the country’s astonishing economic growth, its draconian Communist government, or its rampant pollution. While we hear plenty about how China is poised to become the next "global superpower," we hear less about the young people who make up China’s varied and fascinating subcultures.

American writer Zachary Mexico spent several years living in China, absorbing information about these subcultures, and after a period of reflection, he returned to conduct intensive research into the lifestyles of his Chinese peers. CHINA UNDERGROUND is the result of that research.

In CHINA UNDERGROUND, "an invaluable auxiliary to more rosy official guides in navigating a perplexing culture...[a] hardy, useful work of journalism," (Kirkus Reviews) and one of the 20 titles selected by Barnes & Noble to feature for Summer 2009, Mexico introduces young Western readers to their Chinese counterparts, highlighting an unfamiliar side of China--its blossoming underground cultures--fascinating yet under-exposed. Readers are introduced to a wannabe rock star from the desert of Xinjiang trying to make it big in Shanghai; a disillusioned journalist; a budding screenwriter; a vagabond ladies’ man; a straight-A student at China’s top university; a Chinese mafia kingpin, a punk band trying their best to stay relevant and many others. Mexico will change everything you thought you knew about modern China's diverse cultures, and what they have (and don't) in common with our own.

About the Author:
Zachary Mexico was born in 1979. He started studying Chinese at age fifteen, and traveled to China for the first time at age sixteen, where he lived with a Chinese family as an exchange student at the Harbin Institute of Technology. He went on to get his BA at Columbia University with additional coursework at Qinghua University in Beijing. After in 2002, he relocated to Kunming, in Yunnan Province, where he opened and operated a restaurant/nightclub. During this time, he also traveled throughout the cities and rural areas of the mainland, making friends and seeking out interesting stories. In 2006, Zachary spent several months traveling around China, collecting the series stories that make up China Underground. In 2008, he hosted a television show set at the Beijing Olympics which aired on Current TV, the new US-based television station from former Vice President Al Gore. Zachary lives in New York City's Chinatown, where he owns a bar and plays in the rock group The Octagon
(www.theoctagonrock.com) and the electronic duo Gates of Heaven (www.gatesofheaven.net).

Review copies are now available, please reply to request a copy. Interviews may also be arranged with the author who is based in New York, but will be traveling to Asia, Europe and the West Coast of the US in April and May.

Pub: April 2009
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-59376-223-0
Format: Trade Paper Original

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Bishop Gene Robinson, subject of "GOING TO HEAVEN," to give invocation to kick off Obama inauguration festivities

2009-01-16T14:14:35Z

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Bishop Gene Robinson, first openly gay Bishop in Christendom, subject of the authorized biography GOING TO HEAVEN by Elizabeth Adams, will say a prayer at the Lincoln Memorial for one of President-elect Barack Obama's first inauguration events.

Wrote the Associated Press http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090113/ap_on_re_us/gay_bishop_obama: "New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson will deliver the invocation at an event on Sunday to kick off inauguration festivities. His selection follows weeks of criticism from gay-rights groups over Obama's decision to have the Rev. Rick Warren give the invocation at his Jan. 20 inauguration. Warren had backed a recent ballot measure banning same-sex marriage in his home state of California.

Robinson has said he was stung by Warren's selection, but still believes Obama will be the most supportive president ever for gay-rights causes.

'There's no question in my mind that he is the president who understands our issues and comes out of a background knowing what it's like to be discriminated against because of who you are,' Robinson said Monday. 'I think for the first time in a very long time we'll have a friend in the White House.'

Robinson was an early Obama supporter, offering advice as well as his endorsement before the New Hampshire primary..."

Going to Heaven is his authorized biography. His life may be a uniquely American success story: not long ago, who would have thought that the son of tobacco sharecroppers in Kentucky could become an Episcopal bishop? No one could have predicted that this boy, born poor, ill, and given little chance of survival, would in fact be elected and ordained 56 years later as the first openly gay bishop in Christendom, finding himself at the center of unprecedented positive and negative reaction in the religious world and beyond.

Gene Robinson's life is a compelling story of challenges overcome by hard work, intelligence, humor, love, and deep faith. It is also a story of one man's journey into his own "otherness"; of courage found and integrity retained; and the emergence of a ministry that speaks to countless people who believe in a Gospel of love and inclusion, and want the church to reflect that vision.

Through a lively text based on extensive interviews with Bishop Robinson, his closest associates, family, colleagues, and observers, and illustrated with photographs from all phases of his life, this book paints a portrait of Bishop Robinson not as a symbol but a human being who is, as he puts it, "neither the angel nor the devil some would make me out to be." It illuminates his life; his struggle with--and eventual acceptance of--his sexual orientation; his calling to become a priest and later a bishop.

It tells the story of the critical, central events of his election and consecration amid intense opposition, huge security concerns, and media attention. The book follows him through the next two years as he juggles dual roles-Bishop of New Hampshire, and symbol of gay achievement and the progressive church--while the opposition stirred by his election creates increasing pressure for schism in the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Communion worldwide.

The book concludes with a discussion of the deep theological and historical significance of Gene Robinson's election and personal vision for the future, and what this means both for individuals and for a Church seeking to be relevant in a today's world.

Elizabeth Adams has been granted unique, extraordinary access to Bishop Robinson and the events and people surrounding him. She also has significant knowledge about the Episcopal Church gained through lifelong membership and active participation, and has been an observer, writer, and speaker for many years about the interface between religion and contemporary life and politics.

1-933368-22-5
Trade Paper 6 x 9
Biography 308 pp. US$14.95

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A Comprehensive Expos� of the Global Network of Mercenary Military Firms

2009-01-09T12:03:16Z

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Dear All,

Servants of War, Soft Skull’s disturbing new exposé of the prevalence and danger of private military corporations worldwide, was released in the original German edition to great acclaim.

The Frankfurter Rundschau called it “vivid...fully researched.”

Hessischer Rundfunk pronounced it “A wonderful, well written, well grounded, enthralling book that illuminates a dark spot of our democracy and poses the question of whether or not today’s wars are conducted only for profit.” (Please excuse our slippery grasp on German; here is the original text for your translation pleasure: “Ein ausgezeichnetes gut recherchiertes, fundiertes, spannend geshriebenes Taschenbuch, das einen Dunkelbereich der Demokratie aufhellt und kuenftige die Standardfrage stellen laesst: Ob kriege neuerdings nur noch aus Gewinninteresen heraus gefuehrt warden.”)

“This book is a must for anyone interested in the chasms of 21st century democracy,” stated Oliver Kroening from Radio Lotte in Weimar (“Das Buch ist ein klares Muss fuer Jeden, der sich fuer die Abgruende der real eistierenden Demokratie im 21. Jahrhundert interessiert”).

And Stefan Berkholz of Deutsche Welle wrote that “Rolf Uessler has published a small but important book that is sure to elicit friendly political discussion” (“Rolf Uessler hat ein wichtiges kleines Buch vorgelegt, das hoffentlich politsche Diskussionen ausloesen wird”).

When human blood is worth less than blood money, the cost can be incomprehensible. Rolf Uesseler exposes the depth of corruption and destruction that can occur when private military corporations become involved in national conflicts, hired either by private interests or governments, to settle wars, quash rebellions, infiltrate the illegal drug trade, or provide intelligence services. Servants of War: Private Military Corporations and the Profit of Conflict is a chilling reminder of what can happen when security and military operations are shielded from democratic processes and tied to profit, and the concern for justice and security is overshadowed by the desire for financial gain.

The book is out now, and we’d be pleased to send you a review copy. Let us know if you’d like to receive one.

More information below.

All the best in 2009,
Soft Skull Press

Private military firms operate on all continents with crises—commissioned by governments, intelligence agencies, private industries, warlords, drug cartels, and rebel groups. Operating in a legal twilight zone, the private nature of contracts shields them from the scrutiny of third parties.

Meanwhile, all western militaries are under pressure to reduce their budgets, either from anti-war groups or, as in the case of the US and UK, because they’re fighting a massively expensive war while at the same time engaging in an ever-increasing number of military interventions worldwide. Private military firms profit at this juncture, exacerbating the problem by deploying complex weapons systems that military leaders cannot operate without the expertise of private personnel.

Americans who are alienated and disturbed by the opacity of their government’s many military operations abroad have been fascinated by the shadowy culture of for-profit military companies since the beginning of the Iraq occupation.

In this far-reaching study, Servants of War: Private Military Corporations and the Profit of Conflict (Soft Skull Press / Counterpoint; Trade Paper Original; Jan 2009; $15.95; 978-1-59376-202-5), Rolf Uessler exposes the ways in which the employment of for-profit military organizations compromises justice, jeopardizes international peace and stability, and escapes public scrutiny. Servants of War reveals what happens when security and military operations are shielded from democratic processes and tied to profit, and the concern for justice and security is overshadowed by the desire for financial gain.

Rolf Uessler was born in 1943 in Dortmund and studied economy, psychology, and journalism. He has lived in Rome as a freelance writer and researcher since 1979. His work focuses on illegal activity in the world economy, organized crime, and shadow economies; privatization and de-democratization; and mafia and government in Italy. The author was active for more than a decade in the Italian anti-mafia movement and has developed tools for the analysis of money laundering and of illegal financial transactions.

He has written numerous essays on this topic in German and Italian journals. His published books include: Mafia, Myth, Power, Mora (Bonn 1987), Challenge Mafia, Strategies against organized Crime (Bonn 1993) (both books published in German).

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Mike Knight's Islamic punk novel in NY Times today - The Catcher in the Rye for Young Muslims

2008-12-23T15:25:09Z

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Michael Muhammad Knight, author of five, yes, FIVE forthcoming Soft Skull books is the subject of today lead story in the National section of the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/us/23muslim.html (p. A16 for those following along in print...)

The focus is on his first book, "The Taqwacores," which we are reissuing next month (moved up from February), "a Catcher in the Rye for young Muslims," as the article describes it. The book has been adapted as an indie feature film to be released in the middle of next year. [More info on this title here: http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-59376-229-1 ]

We ourselves believe Knight's work is for an audience much broader than just his own subculture (though we think it pretty meaningful that a single book could spawn and name an entire subculture, the death of reading notwithstanding). We believe that this book and the four to follow (details below) represent a third way between a complete inward-looking rejection of society, and an unquestioning assimilation into society that are the typical absolutes for Muslims in the West--"taqwacore" represents a liberated, rebellious, critical engagement with both Islam and the West. As such, too, it points to how any outsider (on a personal level) or minority group (on a social level) might grapple with/against the dominant culture.

Back to basics. We have review copies of "The Taqwacores" available immediately; galleys of "Impossible Man: A Memoir" will become available around Jan 5th, but a PDF is presently available; a PDF of "Blue-Eyed Devil is currently available; the manuscript of the new novel "Osama Van Halen" will be available Jan 20; and the manuscript of "Journey to the End of Islam" will be available in April.

Michael is also available for interview--you might enjoy this clip from a recent Al Jazeera story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbFyBedolM

If it is urgent, you might do best to email or call Richard Nash personally: that's richard@softskull.com and 917-804-0716. Be nice with that info :-)

Info on each of the books:

THE TAQWACORES (January 2009) A Muslim punk house in Buffalo, New York, inhabited by burqa-wearing riot girls, mohawked Sufis, straightedge Sunnis, Shi'a skinheads, Indonesian skaters, Sudanese rude boys, gay Muslims, drunk Muslims, and feminists. Their living room hosts parties and prayers, with a hole smashed in the wall to indicate the direction of Mecca. Their life together mixes sex, dope, and religion in roughly equal amounts, expressed in devotion to an Islamo-punk subculture, “taqwacore,” named for taqwa, an Arabic term for consciousness of the divine.

IMPOSSIBLE MAN When Michael Muhammad Knight, the author of The Taqwacores, founder of American Muslim punk, and leading nontraditional scholar of Islam was six years old, he asked his single mother about his absent father. His mother answered that his father “got sick and ran away.” Several years later, he learned the true story: how his father, a paranoid schizophrenic and white supremacist, alternately convinced that Michael’s mother was in league with the devil and that she would give birth to a line of superhuman rulers. Impossible Man (April 2009; $14.95; 978-1-59376-226-1) is the story of a teenager’s troubled pathway toward maturity and the influences that steady him on his way to adulthood. Knight’s encounter with Public Enemy and The Autobiography of Malcolm X leads him to embrace Islam with all the unbalanced overzealousness and naiveté of a disturbed adolescent in search of salvation. His affinity for Islam deepens and at age 17 he travels to Faisal Mosque in Isla
mabad to study his adopted religion, putting him on track similar to that of Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber. For all its extremes, Impossible Man describes a universal journey: a wounded boy in search of a working model of manhood, going to outrageous lengths to find it.

BLUE-EYED DEVIL (May 2009) Knight embarks on a quest for an indigenous American Islam and for the true story of Nation of Islam mystery-man, W.D. Fard, in a series of interstate odysseys. Traveling 20,000 miles by Greyhound in sixty days, he squats in run-down mosques, pursues Muslim romance, is detained at the U.S.-Canadian border with a trunkload of Shia literature, crashes Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) conventions, stink-palms Cat Stevens, and limps across Chicago to find the grave of Noble Drew Ali, filling dozens of notebooks along the way. The result is this semi-autobiographical book, with multiple histories of Fard and the landscape of American Islam woven into Knight's own story. In the course of his adventures Knight sorts out his own relationship to Islam as he journeys from punk provocateur to a recognized voice in the community, and watches first-hand the collapse of a liberal Islamic dream. The book’s extensive cast of characters includes anarcho-Sufi
heretics, vegan kung-fu punks, tattoo-sleeved converts in hardcore bands, spiritual drug dealers, Islamic feminists, slick media entrepreneurs, sages of the street, the grandsons of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, and a group called Muslims for Bush.

OSAMA VAN HALEN (July 2009) Amazing Ayyub, an Iranian Shi'ite skinhead, and burqa-wearing punk Rabeya have kidnapped Matt Damon, and are holding him hostage. They demand that Hollywood depict Muslims in a positive light—“just one movie where we’re not these two-dimensional al Qaeda stereotypes.” But Damon’s concerned they’re playing into that same terrorist paradigm and furthering a neo-conservative perception of Islam.
Meanwhile, Ayyub embarks on a mission to rid the taqwacore scene of a Muslim pop-punk band called Shah 79. Along the way, he makes himself invisible, escapes punk-eating zombies in a mosque off the desert highway, and runs into some psychobilly jinns. Things turn existential when Ayyub finds himself face to face with his creator—no, not Allah, but the author. This riotous journey of enlightenment reads like a religious service for teenagers on Halloween. But it isn’t all raucous fun; written into his own novel, the author finds he is at the mercy of his creation

JOURNEY TO THE END OF ISLAM (November 2009) Most hajj narratives are written as glowing religious propaganda, painting a utopian and simplistic image not only of Mecca but Islam itself. Knight’s personal experience with Islam is very complicated; he has traveled the extremes of both blind faith and apostasy, and currently stand somewhere between. Embarking on the Hajj, then, touch on Knight’s confusions, wounds, conflicts with religion and with the Muslim community at large. Examining the historical background and origins of Islam, as well as the inherent challenges of organized religion, Knight asks the hard questions. What does the Qur’an mean to me? What do I know of Muhammad? And does sacred history have to be fact to be valid? He also asks, Who funds the Hajj? What role does the Saudi government play? What role does the bin Laden family play?

Says the author, before leaving for the Hajj four weeks ago: "These are the two voices that I bring with me to Mecca: Kerouac, the earnest writer-as-spiritual-seeker, and Thompson, gonzo journalist, exposer-of-hypocrisy."

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Urban Soul Warrior

2008-12-11T14:32:09Z

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Dear Reader,

We've always tried here at Soft Skull to be open to every possible genre, insisting only that they present a meaningful alternative to the existing options, and that they add something where nothing was before.

In that spirit, we present our first self-help book, Urban Soul Warrior. City life can be hectic, fast-paced, jarring to the senses. Many urban souls feel the stirrings of spirituality but don’t have the tools they need to create deeper, more meaningful connections— with themselves and with the world around them. Urban Soul Warrior is an interactive book about living an extraordinary and powerful life, becoming aware of the miraculous state of existence we live in, and using that awareness to live fully, completely, and magnificently.

Both a workbook and a space for writing, the book provides simple and effective insights, advice, and creative exercises that are designed to infuse readers’ lives with rich meaning and beauty. Urban Soul Warrior (Soft Skull Press / Counterpoint; Trade Paper; January 2009; $15.95; 978-1-59376-212-4) provides simple and effective insight, advice, and creative exercises to change readers’ everyday experiences, offering skills to transform five aspects of our lives:

• Got Soul? (connecting with your deepest self)
• Mind your Temple (nurturing and healing your precious body)
• Elevate your Mental (using your mind to consciously create your life)
• Cosmic Love (creating loving, healthy relationships/ sexuality)
• Prolific Profits (creating abundance consciousness and wealth)

Ancient and modern beliefs and practices are intertwined with Simone's funky urban style in this introduction to a new kind of spirituality. The techniques provided are designed to help readers take charge of their own lives and experience fulfillment, even in what sometimes feels like a spiritual desert. The book functions not only as a workbook, with specific Warrior Work writing exercises and meditations, but also as a sacred space for writing—readers are encouraged to write anywhere and everywhere inside it, making it their own.

Urban Soul Warrior gives a new generation of readers the tools to overcome feelings of guilt and worthlessness, to master their souls, minds, and bodies in an urban world of endless beauty, danger, and possibility.

Author Bio:
Lalania Simone is an author, artist, and spiritual seeker. She grew up in a tough inner-city neighborhood, gaining both street savvy and educational opportunities. Her early questioning of religious dogma launched her lifelong spiritual journey. She has spent the last ten years working with those who seek the tools to make a deeper connection with themselves and the universe. She has lived in and experienced both the grit and soul of cities such as San Diego, Denver, and Brooklyn. The fusion of Lalania's esoteric knowledge and her experience in urban society creates a unique Urban Soul Warrior perspective.

So let us know if you's like a review copy, or if we can answer any questions or put you in touch with Lalania.

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Soft Skull gives thanks to the cultural authorities

2008-11-26T18:32:05Z

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Tis the season when cultural authorities bestow their imprimaturs and while we can't really live for these things, lest we die from their typical absence, when they happen, we can't help but give thanks for, inter alia, the following:

New York Times Notable for Black Flies by Shannon Burke (also an Amazon Best Book of the Year)

Hudson News Top Ten of 2008 for All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison

Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year for How the Dead Dream by Lydia Millet and The Solitary Vice by Mikita Brottman

And, while it is not strictly a "Best Book" type thing, The Customer Is Always Wrong edited by Jeff Martin was this week's book pick for The Very Short List�listen out for the author detailing the travails of the retail worker on NPR's All Things Considered the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday.

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