Ханиф Абдурракиб0.0 A stirring meditation on Black performance in America from the New York Times bestselling author of Go Ahead in the Rain
At the March on Washington in 1963, Josephine Baker was fifty-seven years old, well beyond her most prolific days. But in her speech she was in a mood to consider her life, her legacy, her departure from the country she was now triumphantly returning to. “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too,” she told the crowd. Inspired by these few words, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines—whether it’s the twenty-seven seconds in “Gimme Shelter” in which Merry Clayton wails the words “rape, murder,” a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt—has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance.
Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain, infused with the lyricism and rhythm of the musicians he loves. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space—from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio.
Сэм Байерс0.0 Maya is homeless and living on an illegal encampment in London. The site is razed and Maya is detained, but then she learns that she has been chosen for a shot at redemption. She is offered a chance to be rehabilitated into society; to be given a job, a flat and an allowance - and to be become a polished, successful member of society. But she must document her progress on Instagram so that the tech company that is sponsoring her can gain corporate philanthropy points.
Trapped in a cycle for numbing work and mindless self-improvement, Maya begins to understand why alienation from society results from a culture of being 'perfect'. Feeling feverishly ill after a weekend detox retreat, she begins to realist that sickness is an escape from unattainable ideals. With Zelma, an unemployed woman who she meets at the doctor's, Maya begins to resist; first by defacing adverts that promote impossible wellness, and then subverting her Instagram account into one of images of her own filth and defecation.
Once again excluded from productive society, Maya finds liberation in an alternative community of women who celebrate a lifestyle of debauchery, unchecked consumption, ugliness, illness and decay. But conflict within the group builds, and controversy grows outside, and Maya is caught by the forces she has unleashed: liberation and madness, protest and anarchy, rebellion and chaos. Come Join Our Disease is a book about freedom, and how much of it any of us can truly withstand.
Дориэнн Ни Гриофа4.0 A true original. In this stunningly unusual prose debut, Doireann Ni Ghriofa sculpts essay and autofiction to explore inner life and the deep connection felt between two writers centuries apart. In the 1700s, an Irish noblewoman, on discovering her husband has been murdered, drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary poem. In the present day, a young mother narrowly avoids tragedy. On encountering the poem, she becomes obsessed with its parallels with her own life, and sets out to track down the rest of the story. A devastating and timeless tale about one woman freeing her voice by reaching into the past and finding another's.
Дженни Фаган0.0 The hugely-anticipated third novel - ambitious, ferocious and gripping - from the prize-winning author of The Panopticon.
Featured in Damian Barr's picks for 2021
'If this addictive slice of Edinburgh Gothic isn't on all prize lists, there is no justice.' iNews
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Салена Годден3.8 Mrs Death tells her intoxicating story in this life-affirming fire-starter of a novel
Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted from spending eternity doing her job and now she seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer, is well acquainted with death, but until now hadn't met Death in person - a black, working-class woman who shape-shifts and does her work unseen.
Табита Лесли0.0 A candid examination of the life of North Sea oil riggers, and an explosive portrayal of masculinity, loneliness and female desire.
In her mid-30s and sprung out of a terrible relationship, Tabitha quit her job at a women's magazine, left London and put her savings into a six-month lease on a flat in a dodgy neighbourhood in Aberdeen - she was going to make good on a long-deferred idea for a book about oil rigs and
