A vivid new cast of characters collide in gritty 1990s Brooklyn, in this latest from acclaimed neo-noir author William Boyle. In City of Margins, the lives of several lost souls intersect in Southern Brooklyn in the early 1990s. There’s Donnie Parascandolo, a disgraced ex-cop with blood on his hands; Ava Bifulco, a widow whose daily work grind is her whole life; Nick, Ava’s son, a grubby high school teacher who dreams of a shortcut to success; Mikey Baldini, a college dropout who’s returned to the old neighborhood, purposeless and drifting; Donna Rotante, Donnie’s ex-wife, still reeling from the suicide of their teenage son; Mikey’s mother, Rosemarie, also a widow, who hopes Mikey won’t fall into the trap of strong arm work; and Antonina Divino, a high school girl with designs on breaking free from Brooklyn. Uniting them are the dead: Mikey’s old man, killed over a gambling debt, and Donnie and Donna’s poor son, Gabe. These characters cross paths in unexpected ways, guided by coincidence and the pull of blood. There are new things to be found in the rubble of their lives, too. The promise of something different beyond the barriers that have been set out for them. This is a story of revenge and retribution, of facing down the ghosts of the past, of untold desires, of yearning and forgiveness and synchronicity, of the great distance of lives lived in dangerous proximity to each other. City of Margins is a Technicolor noir melodrama pieced together in broken glass.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was hailed as the beginning of a new era of peace and co-operation between East and West. But in the years since, Russia has made incursions into Georgia, Ukraine and Syria, leaving the Western powers at a loss. What went wrong? Drawing on exclusive interviews with key players, Peter Conradi examines the pivotal moments of the past quarter of a century and outlines how we might get relations back on track before it’s too late. Who Lost Russia? provides the essential background to understanding the bizarre and shifting relationship between Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia. This updated edition includes a new chapter on the year following the 2016 US presidential election.
If you can tell the difference between the Petes in Pete & Pete, know every step to the Macarena by heart, and remember when The Real World was about more than just drunken hookups, The Totally Sweet ’90s will be a welcome trip down memory lane. With this hella cool guide, you’ll reminisce about that glorious decade when Beanie Babies seemed like a smart economic investment and Kris Kross had you wearing your pants backward. Whether you contracted dysentery on the Oregon Trail or longed to attend Janet Reno’s Dance Party, you’ll get a kick out of seeing which toys, treats, and trends stayed around, and which flopped. So throw your ponytail into a scrunchie, take a swig from your can of Surge, and join us on this ride through the unforgettable (and sometimes unforgivable) trends of the ’90s.
“A delightfully weird and very queer reimagining of 90s YA nostalgia.” —Autostraddle "Queer dynamite." —Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things Finalist for the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Fiction Meet Margaret. At age twelve, she was head detective of the mystery club Girls Can Solve Anything. Margaret and her three best friends led exciting lives solving crimes, having adventures, and laughing a lot. But now that she's entered high school, the club has disbanded, and Margaret is unmoored—she doesn't want to grow up, and she wishes her friends wouldn't either. Instead, she opts out, developing an eating disorder that quickly takes over her life. When she lands in a treatment center, Margaret finds her path to recovery twisting sideways as she pursues a string of new mysteries involving a ghost, a hidden passage, disturbing desires, and her own vexed relationship with herself. Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body reimagines nineties adolescence—mashing up girl group series, choose-your-own-adventures, and chronicles of anorexia—in a queer and trans coming-of-age tale like no other. An interrogation of girlhood and nostalgia, dysmorphia and dysphoria, this debut novel puzzles through the weird, ever-evasive questions of growing up.
Part of the classic Fudge series from Judy Blume, bestselling author of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing! Peter Hatcher can’t catch a break. His little brother, Fudge—the five-year-old human hurricane—has big plans to marry Peter’s sworn enemy, Sheila Tubman. That alone would be enough to ruin Peter’s summer, but now his parents have decided to rent a summer home next door to Sheila the Cootie Queen’s house. Peter will be trapped with Fudge and Sheila for three whole weeks! “As a kid, Judy Blume was my favorite author, and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing was my favorite book.”—Jeff Kinney, author of the bestselling Wimpy Kid series Love Fudge, Peter, and Sheila? Read all the books featuring your favorite characters: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great Superfudge Double Fudge
An instant New York Times bestseller! From the bestselling author of But What if We’re Wrong, a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history. It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn’t know who it was. By the end, exposing someone’s address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn’t know who it was. The 90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we’re still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job. Beyond epiphenomena like "Cop Killer" and Titanic and Zima, there were wholesale shifts in how society was perceived: the rise of the internet, pre-9/11 politics, and the paradoxical belief that nothing was more humiliating than trying too hard. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a 90’s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. But nobody thought that was important; if you missed it, you simply missed it. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture, whether you found a home in it or defined yourself against it. In The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of it: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. In perhaps no other book ever written would a sentence like, “The video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was not more consequential than the reunification of Germany” make complete sense. Chuck Klosterman has written a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.
On the eve of their thirtieth birthday, twin brothers Jake and Zack Hind--bankrupt from the recession and obsessed with the lost golden era of the 1990s--drunkenly create a Kickstarter crowdfunding page for ’90s ISLAND, a tropical commune dedicated to recreating that beloved, carefree decade. When they wake up, Generation Y has collectively pledged millions of dollars. At first it’s a thrilling return to the twentieth century: ’90s fashions, ’90s music, ’90s slang, ’90s video games, even ’90s junk food…but the fun turns to horror when Zack seizes dictatorial power, banning everything from modern books to medicine. Jake must stop his brother--but first he must conquer his own nostalgia. From Marty Beckerman, author of #1 Amazon.com best-selling parody The Heming Way (“laugh-out-loud”--USA Today), comes a hilarious, poignant literary treatment of the 1990s revival that asks the ultimate millennial question: “What’s My Age Again?”
The Dean of American Rock Critics tackles the decade when music exploded. The '90s saw more albums produced and distributed than any other decade. It was a fertile era for new genres, from alt-rock to Afropop, hip hop to techno. Rock critic Robert Christgau's obsessive ear and authoritative pen have covered it all-over 3,800 albums graded and classified, from A+s to his celebrated turkeys and duds. A rich appendix section ensures that nothing's been left out-from "subjects for further research" to "everything rocks but nothing ever dies." Christgau's Consumer Guide is essential reading and reference for any dedicated listener.
Bastard Prince Eugene has decided on a whim that he will be a HERO . . . much to the dismay of the adventuring party of Michel, Hocus and Ani. But the decision is out of their hands, and they're forced to take him along on their travels. Life on the road is different than Eugene expected, but there's no time to wallow in pouty disappointment; townsfolk are going missing. It's the perfect opportunity for the prince to save the day, and even make his companions some coin! But unfortunately, his royal highness is about to learn the system that kept him safe in his silk-sheeted bed isn't particularly concerned with the well-being of anyone who isn't him. A funny, moving, tongue-in-cheek fantasy adventure!