Double Downloads: Going Postal, We Are Iran
As forewarned, we're also going to be using this blog to let you know about forthcoming books for which, in many cases, we're also making sample chapter downloads available. Herewith some of our forthcoming political non-fiction (and both authors, Mark Ames and Nasrin Alavi, will guest blog here, Mark at the beginning and Nasrin towards the end of November).
Going Postal examines the phenomenon of rage murder that took America by storm in the early 1980's and has since grown yearly in body counts and symbolic value. By looking at massacres in schools and offices as post-industrial rebellions, Mark Ames is able to juxtapose the historical place of rage in America with the social climate after Reaganomics began to effect worker's paychecks. But why high schools? Why post offices? Mark Ames examines the most fascinating and unexpected cases, crafting a convincing argument for workplace massacres as modern day slave rebellions. Like slave rebellions, rage massacres are doomed, gory, sometimes inadvertently comic, and grossly misunderstood. Part social critique and part true crime page-turner, Going Postal seeks to contextualize this violence in a world where working isn't--and doesn't pay--what it used to.
You can download a sample chapter and check out Mark's recent interview on Alternet.org
Plus it's available now online and in most fine bookstores (sadly not every bookstore in the US always carries all our books...)
A book that's not quite yet available (officially publishes at the beginning of December, though it should be available by early November online) is Nasrin Alavi's We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs. This has been mentioned by Laila over at MoorishGirl and is the subject of a great piece by Newsweek's Middle Eastern correspondent entitled "Writing Lolita in Tehran."
Download here.