My friends Adam Parfrey and Jodi Wille are the proprietors of Feral House and Process Media, the world's most interesting book publishers. I had dinner at their house last night and they gave me a stack of fascinating books. I can't wait to read them!
Dark Mission:
The Secret History of NASA,
By Richard C. Hoagland and Mike BaraFor most Americans, the word “NASA” suggests a squeaky-clean image of technological infallibility. Yet the truth is that NASA was born in a lie, and has concealed the truths about its occult origins. Dark Mission documents this seemingly wild assertion.
Moondog
The Viking of Sixth Avenue, The Authorized Biography by Robert Scotto, Preface by Philip GlassHere is one of the most improbable lives of the 20th century: a blind and homeless man who became a famous eccentric in New York, and who rose to prominence as an internationally respected music presence. Moondog’s compositional style inspired the work of his former roommate, Philip Glass, who provides the preface. BONUS CD includes compilation of Moondog records spanning five decades, containing a dozen previously unreleased Moondog recordings, including performances with Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Stefan Lakatos and Paul Jordan.
The Secret Source: The Law of Attraction is One of Seven Hermetic Laws: Here Are the Other Six, Edited by Maja D’Aoust and Adam Parfrey
The Secret Source reveals the occult doctrines and the modern equivalents that gave birth to “The Law of Attraction” and inspired the media phenomenon known as The Secret.
If you recognized the power behind “The Law of Attraction” but felt ambivalent about The Secret’s materially-driven, hard-sell approach, you will appreciate this deeper understanding and examination of the Law’s true nature and the wisdom required to use it effectively.
Tales of Times Square (Expanded Edition),
By Josh Alan FriedmanThis classic account of the ultra-sleazy, pre-Disneyfied era of Times Square is now the subject of a documentary film of the same name to be theatrically released this year. With this edition Tales returns to print with seven new chapters.
Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica
, By Nicholas JohnsonIs it the pristine but harsh frontier where noble scientific missions are accomplished? Or an insane corporate bureaucracy where hundreds of workers are cooped together in hi-tech communes with all the soul of a suburban office park?
Welcome to Big Dead Place, a grunt's eye view of America's Antarctic Program that shatters the well-worn clichés of polar literature. Here the heroic camaraderie and romantic desolation give way to sterile buildings populated by characters like a crazed manager who fills his boots with antifreeze, the greasepaint obsessed worker Boozy the Clown, ghosts that haunt the food freezer, and horny employees who grab rare private moments coupling on the altar in the Chapel of the Snows.
The Foreword is by Eirik Sønneland, who claims the longest unsupported ski trek in the continent's history. Also included is a glossary of Antarctic slang and bureaucratese, and 16 pages of color photographs.
Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the SixtiesSin-A-Rama celebrates the forgotten world of erotic paperbacks from the 1960s, when sex acts were described with code words, writers used pseudonyms, and publishers hid behind mail drop addresses.
Sleaze paperbacks sold by the million throughout the decade. Their unorthodox content and inroads into the marketplace provoked new laws, FBI investigations, high-pitched court battles, and prison sentences for the crime of obscenity. Earl Kemp, the notorious Greenleaf Books editor, provides an insider’s perspective, profiling famous and little-known co-workers. In “My Life as a Pornographer,” science fiction legend Robert Silverberg divulges how he and other famous authors learned their craft and earned their keep pounding out softcore sin.
The bizarre glories of cover artists Robert Bonfils, Gene Bilbrew, Eric Stanton, Paul Rader, Ed Smith, Bill Ward, and Doug Weaver are seen throughout in lurid color.
Sin-A-Rama is the first book-length exploration into a shadowy but revolutionary industry. A useful appendix reveals the actual names behind the pseudonyms, and catalogues both established and fly-by-night sleaze operators.
Struwwelpeter: Fearful Stories & Vile Pictures To Instruct Good Little Folks, By Heinrich Hoffmann, Introduction by Jack ZipesSince 1845, millions of parents have purchased Struwwelpeter, a book that threatens their children with the consequences that befall the disordered and disorderly. Thumbs are sheared off, eyes fall out of sockets, faces are pecked to death and bodies waste to nothing.
Though castigated in recent years for its sadistic approach to child-rearing, Struwwelpeter remains a cultural phenomenon … translated into many languages, the subject of a popular German museum, and the unmistakable influence of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which also disposes of wretched kids in rhyme.
The Feral House edition includes Sarita Vendetta’s macabre illustrations to Heinrich Hoffmann’s verse, the entire original edition in color, Struwwelpeter-inspired wartime propaganda titled Struwwelhitler, and a revealing introduction by Jack Zipes, an authority on folklore and children’s literature, whose journal, The Lion and the Unicorn, devoted an entire issue to Heinrich Hoffman and Struwwelpeter.
