7 results for "Literature"

The Free People’s Village

Kern, Sim
USA TODAY BESTSELLER ― NOW IN PAPERBACK! From environmental journalist and founder of the #TransRightsReadathon Sim Kern, comes the eat-the-rich climate fiction you won't want to put down: In an alternate 2020 timeline, Al Gore won the 2000 election and declared a War on Climate Change rather than a War on Terror. For twenty years, Democrats have controlled all three branches of government, enacting carbon-cutting schemes that never made it to a vote in our world. Green infrastructure projects have transformed U.S. cities into lush paradises (for the wealthy, white neighborhoods, at least), and the Bureau of Carbon Regulation levies carbon taxes on every financial transaction. English teacher by day, Maddie Ryan spends her nights and weekends as the rhythm guitarist of Bunny Bloodlust, a queer punk band living in a warehouse-turned-venue called “The Lab” in Houston’s Eighth Ward. When Maddie learns that the Eighth Ward is to be sacrificed for a new electromagnetic hyperway out to the wealthy, white suburbs, she joins “Save the Eighth,” a Black-led organizing movement fighting for the neighborhood. At first, she’s only focused on keeping her band together and getting closer to Red, their reckless and enigmatic lead guitarist. But working with Save the Eighth forces Maddie to reckon with the harm she has already done to the neighborhood―both as a resident of the gentrifying Lab and as a white teacher in a predominantly Black school. When police respond to Save the Eighth protests with violence, the Lab becomes the epicenter of “The Free People’s Village”―an occupation that promises to be the birthplace of an anti-capitalist revolution. As the movement spreads across the U.S., Maddie dreams of a queer, liberated future with Red. But the Village is beset on all sides―by infighting, police brutality, corporate-owned media, and rising ecofascism. Maddie’s found family is increasingly at risk from state violence, and she must decide if she’s willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of justice. P R A I S E "Incisive and insightful." ―Texas Monthly “Sim Kern’s masterpiece burns with righteous fury. This book doesn’t pull punches ― instead of hopelessness, it sliced straight through frustration, fatalism, and ennui and made me want to fight back.” ―Shana Hausman, All She Wrote Books “Achingly real, bitterly funny, and deeply moving, The Free People’s Village is a commentary, both compassionate and cutting, on the woke white activist’s journey and, above all, a full-throated ode to resistance and the found family that fuels it.” ―Megan Bell, Southern Bookseller Review “The Free People’s Village tackles many social and environmental issues at once without feeling heavy or prescriptive, focusing on personal stories amid the larger ones it tells about capitalism, climate, and activism. Its commentary never comes off as rote or tedious, bolstered by humor and humanity.” ― Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya for Autostraddle "Full of furious kindness, radical community, passionate politics, and authentic friendships, The Free People's Village is a sharply-written paean to hope, set in a vivid, brilliantly imagined future that alternately filled me with loathing and yearning. From the carefully crafted timelines to the intensely real characters, this was a story that yanked me into its world and didn't let me surface for hours. You live because you still can, and you organize because you still can, and you fight because you still can." ―Premee Mohamed, Nebula Award-winning author of And What Can We Offer You Tonight “A thought-provoking, exciting ride. The Free People's Village is a mesmerizing portrait of revolutions ― the internal ones that call us to find and fight for the best versions of ourselves; the external that consume, invigorate, and demand as they explore paths to justice. Grounded in an imaginative landscape and rounded out by an inclusive, complex cast, this novel masterfully explores identity, morality, and the choices we make as vehicles that hold radical power in the quest for liberation. More than a love letter to Houston, its bayous, and people forgotten and remembered, Sim Kern's world sings with possibility, hope, and joy that will leave you laughing--and crying ― long after the last bomb has dropped." ―Ehigbor Okosun, author of Forged by Blood "Beautiful, brilliant, and unflinching, The Free People's Village will both inspire you and devour you...in the best possible way." ―Nicky Drayden, author of Escaping Exodus and The Prey of Gods
Lantern Paperbacks 2024-09-24 416 pages

Fable for the end of the world

Reid, Ava
By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society. Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt, enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus's livestreamed assassination spectacle : the Lamb's Gauntlet. Melinoe is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks. When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs, the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she's had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother she might stand a chance of staying alive. For Melinoe, this is a game she can't afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption. As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything : Inesa wonders if there's more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she's capable of more than killing. And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.
Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 2025-03-04 371 pages

Between Men English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Through an examination of the English novel in the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century, this book argues that the emerging pattern of male friendship, mentorship, entitlement, rivalry and hetero- and homosexuality was in an intimate and shifting relation to class and that no element of that pattern can be understood outside of its relation to women and the gender system as a whole.
Columbia University Press 1985-03-02 244 pages

Praxis II - Praxis Makes Permanent

David Gerrold
DAVID GERROLD-Hugo & Nebula Award winner-presents: Praxis Makes Permanent , the thrilling conclusion to the extraordinary journey of Jamie and José to the colony world Praxis! "This sequel completely fulfills the promise of the first volume, creating a vision of the future that feels plausible and full of hope, despite that future's gritty, messy imperfection." -Nigel Suckling, Hugo Award-winning author Praxis Makes Permanent is the highly anticipated conclusion to Praxis ! Jamie and José have hurtled headlong into a world where nothing is what it's supposed to be. Praxis is in rebellion, but who are the players and what do they want to achieve? If everything is chaotic, where do Jamie and José fit in? And guess what? They're the biggest part of the problem! "Only David Gerrold could deliver a novella this sharp, this smart, and this deeply human. Gerrold doesn't just write science fiction-he builds futures with heart, wit, and razor-edged insight. Praxis Makes Permanent is bold, unflinching and hard to put down." -K. Pimpinella, author of the Time Ranger series
Starship Sloane Publishing Company, Incorporated 2025-09-25 202 pages

The Portrait of an Eye

Kathy Acker
"Scarified sensibility, subversive intellect, and predatory wit make her a writer like no other I know." -New York Times Book Review The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula , Kathy Acker's debut and the first in this three-novel collection, began as an episodic handmade pamphlet that Acker mailed out to influential writers and artists whose addresses she managed to get her hands on. In the novel, Acker steps into the biography of a Mississippi murderess who falls in love with a famous lawyer, and mixes in fragments from porn, historical romance, pulp fictions, and The Story of O . Collect with her second novel, the dreamy exploration of desire I Dreamt I was a Nymphomaniac , and her third, The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec , Portrait of an Eye is dive into the frenzy of sexual wanting, the search for identity, and the invention of a new literary language. Now with an introduction by Kate Zambreno contextualizing the resurrection of these three early Acker novels, this new edition of Portrait of an Eye reminds us of all there is still to learn from Kathy Acker, a writer and artist whose work "remains radical and uncanny, entirely inimitable, a smash and grab on the history of literature" ( Guardian ).
Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated 2020-07-21 334 pages

Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound A Novel

Judith Katz
25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION Nadine Pagan's dyke sister Jane wants to find her. Her lover Rose wants to marry her. And her mother Fay wants to forget her. All Nadine wants is to stop the buzzing in her head. Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound follows Nadine's (née Morningstar) adventures as she escapes from her incendiary Jewish family into the lesbian town of New Chelm--and far beyond. This is the novel Isaac Bashevis Singer might have written if he'd been a lesbian with a keen eye for contemporary middle-class assimilation. It's Jewish magical lesbian realism, a good story, and a dynamic piece of writing. Includes an all new introduction by the author Judith Katz is the author of two published novels, The Escape Artist and Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound , which won the 1992 Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction. She teaches cultural studies and literature courses for the University of Minnesota's Center for Jewish Studies.
Firebrand Books 1992 186 pages