Bøger udgivet af Counterpoint

The panoramic story of how the horror genre transformed into one of the most incisive critiques of unchecked American imperial powerThe American empire emerged from the shadows of World War II. As the nation’s influence swept the globe with near impunity, a host of evil forces followed—from racism, exploitation, and military invasion to killer clowns, flying saucers, and monsters borne of a fear of the other. By viewing American imperial history through the prism of the horror genre, Dark Carnivals lays bare how the genre shaped us, distracted us, and gave form to a violence as American as apple pie.A carnival ride that connects the mushroom clouds of 1945 to the beaches of Amity Island, Charles Manson to the massacre at My Lai, and John Wayne to John Wayne Gacy, the new book by acclaimed historian W. Scott Poole reveals how horror films and fictions have followed the course of America’s military and cultural empire and explores how the shadow of our national sins can take on the form of mass entertainment.

"Ursa possesses a very special gift. She can travel through memory and revisit her past. After she flees her hometown for the counterculture glory of 1950s California, the intoxicating potential of her unique ability eventually draws a group of women into her orbit and into a ramshackle Victorian mansion in the woods outside Santa Cruz. But Ursa's powers come with a cost"--

Spanning the underworld haunts of Montreal to Havana and Miami in the early days of the Cold War, Satellite Boy reveals the unlikely connection between an audacious bank heist and the “other Space Race” that gave birth to the modern communication ageOn April 6, 1965, Georges Lemay was relaxing on his yacht in a south Florida marina following one of the largest and most daring bank heists in Canadian history. For four years, the roguishly handsome criminal mastermind hid in plain sight, eluding capture and the combined efforts of the FBI, Interpol, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His future appeared secure.What Lemay didn’t know was that less than two hundred miles away at Cape Canaveral, a brilliant engineer named Harold Rosen was about to usher in the age of global live television with the launch of the world’s first twenty-four-hour commercial communications satellite. Rosen’s extraordinary accomplishment would not only derail Lemay’s cushy life but change the world forever.Brimming with criminal panache and technological intrigue, and set against a turbulent and iconic period that includes the moon landing and the civil rights movement, Satellite Boy tells the largely forgotten, high-stakes story of the two equally driven men who inadvertently launched the modern era.

In an elegant but contemporary voice, award-winning author Susan Griffin breaks down the creative process step-by-step, guiding the reader through a practical course in how to begin and end a work of literature, whether fiction or nonfiction, poetry, or proseThe distinguished author of more than twenty-two books, many award-winning, Susan Griffin distills daily wisdom garnered from more than five decades teaching creative writing and editing manuscripts, as well as from her own writing. This collection of brief but ultimately pithy chapters designed to help beginning writers get started also guides experienced writers through blocks and difficulties of all kinds.Organized according to a practical timeline, Out of Silence, Sound. Out of Nothing, Something. elucidates the process of writing from beginning to end, presenting an approach that is similar to the practice of meditation as it encourages and enlarges the mind’s intrinsic capacity for creativity. An autobiographical account, a sometimes humorous, at times moving essay called “How I Learned to Write” is threaded throughout the book.

When Sarajevo-born siblings Antonia and Paul join a wealthy Midwestern family in the 1990s, a series of events with deadly consequences is set in motion. Now, with her career on the line and her brother missing, Antonia must race against the clock to confront long-buried family secretsAntonia King has a complicated relationship with the past. She and her brother were found amid the rubble of a bombed-out apartment in Sarajevo and taken in by a family of contractors in Thebes, Minnesota. Eager to escape the constraints of her adopted town, Antonia embarks on a high-powered legal career. But it isn’t long before her brother’s mysterious disappearance pulls her back home. There, over the course of a single day, Antonia unearths decades of secrets and lies, leading to shocking revelations about her adoptive family—and the sinister truth behind her biological mother’s death—that will alter the course of her life and change her definition of family forever.Informed by timely issues of immigration, capitalism, and justice, yet timeless in its themes of love, identity, and competing loyalties, The Dig, inspired by the Greek tragedy Antigone, portrays a woman at odds with her history, forced to choose between her own ambitions and her loyalty to her beloved, idealistic brother.

"The discovery that the universe has been expanding from its fiery beginning fourteen billion years ago and has developed into stars, galaxies, life, and human consciousness is one of the most significant of human history. It is taught throughout the world and has become our common creation story for every culture with modern educational processes. It holds the promise of a new human unity. In terms of this story of the universe's development, we humans are not primarily French or Chinese, Democrat or Republican. We are primarily cosmological beings. Though An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe narrates the same cosmological events as thousands of other books, it has one unique feature. It tells the story of the universe while simultaneously telling the story of the storyteller. If indeed cosmogenesis is one of the greatest discoveries of human history, it will necessarily have an immense impact on humanity, at least as profound as the Copernican revolution. And yet, to my knowledge, none of the science books published in English explores the effects cosmogenesis has on human consciousness. An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe tells the story of how my mind was deconstructed by the impact of this new story and then reassembled. In shorthand: I began with the mind of a cartesian scientist and ended with a mind aligned with the creativity of the universe"--

Thirteen new stories of the Port William membership spanning the decades from World War II to the present momentFor those readers of his poetry and inspired by his increasingly vital work as advocate for rational land use and the right-size life, these stories of Wendell Berry's offer entry into the fictional place of value and beauty that is Port William, Kentucky. Berry has said it's taken a lifetime for him to learn to write like an old man, and that's what we have here, stories told with grace and ease and majesty. Wendell Berry is one of our greatest living American authors, writing with the wisdom of maturity and the incandescence that comes of love.These thirteen new works explore the memory and imagination of Andy Catlett, one of the well-loved central characters of the Port William saga. From 1932 to 2021, these stories span the length of Andy’s life, from before the outbreak of the Second World War to the threatened end of rural life in America.

Today, Kate Chopin is widely considered a pioneering and influential feminist voice in American letters. Her fiction, though not embraced in her day, has endured into our own, and grapples with fundamental questions of marriage, sexuality, race, and the role of women in a modern society. The nine stories collected here elaborate on Chopin''s timeless themes while evoking the rich Louisiana setting so often featured in her work.

The panoramic story of how the horror genre transformed into one of the most incisive critiques of unchecked American imperial power The American empire emerged from the shadows of World War II. As the nation’s influence swept the globe with near impunity, a host of evil forces followed—from racism, exploitation, and military invasion to killer clowns, flying saucers, and monsters borne of a fear of the other. By viewing American imperial history through the prism of the horror genre, Dark Carnivals lays bare how the genre shaped us, distracted us, and gave form to a violence as American as apple pie. A carnival ride that connects the mushroom clouds of 1945 to the beaches of Amity Island, Charles Manson to the massacre at My Lai, and John Wayne to John Wayne Gacy, the new book by acclaimed historian W. Scott Poole reveals how horror films and fictions have followed the course of America’s military and cultural empire and explores how the shadow of our national sins can take on the form of mass entertainment.

A description of the largest, most violent gang in the world: Mara Salvatrucha 13, more commonly known as MS-13. This short, intense book is the the first to reveal its inner workings, written by an anthropologist who was there.

The inside story of how, using deliberate and strategic social engineering, The 700 Club moved Christians steadily into the Republican Party-and moved the party itself to the right.How did Evangelical Christians become the American right wing¿s attack troops? Televangelist Pat Robertson was one of the first to realize the political potential of millions of Evangelicals, and decided to determine how battlelines were drawn. Robertson, now a leading and unflinching Trump supporter, rose to national prominence in the 1960s with his Christian Broadcasting Network and his hit show The 700 Club. Terry Heaton was instrumental in Robertson's rise to power and now deeply regrets his role at The 700 Club, where he was executive producer. He now provides the inside story of how evangelical Christianity forced itself on a needy Republican Party in order to gain political influence on a global level. Using deliberate and strategic social engineering, The 700 Club moved Christians steadily into the Republican Party¿and moved the party itself to the right.With a gospel message that appealed to self-interest, The 700 Club violated numerous laws in an attempt to create a Shadow Government of Evangelicals, all in the name of doing God¿s work on earth. The results of this long-term campaign were fully on display in the 2016 electoral season.

When white nationalists and their supporters clashed with counter-demonstrators in the college town of Charlottesville over the removal of a Confederate statue, resulting in the death of one anti-racist activist and the wounding of thirty-five more, a signal moment in American history was reached.Suddenly, U.S. citizens who had previously thought of themselves as moderate began to wonder whether violence in defending their values against fellow citizens was not only an option, but a necessity-whether the way American history has been commonly presented is not only unfair but inaccurate; whether the current President is to blame for the sudden visibility of white supremacist groups; and finally, whether a surge in racism and ultra-nationalism is irrevocably re-shaping the country.Charlottesville: Before & Beyond untangles the meaning of the events that unfolded last August. Part One of the book documents and comments upon the immediate aftermath of the violence. Part Two addresses the context, both before and after, for interpreting the violence: essays reflect on the social and cultural landscape of the nation, the role of the media, and the logic of "punching Nazis in the face."Including writing by Eric Anthamatten, Nicholas Baer, Wes Bellamy, Keval Bhatt, Vaughn A. Booker, Andrew Boyer, Maria Bucur, Jordan Dunn, Mindy Fullilove, Laura Goldblatt, Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, Maggie Hennefeld, Christopher Howard-Woods, Jeffrey Isaac, Michael Sasha King, Mitchell Kosters, Jared Loggins, Gordon Mantler, Marcus McCullough, Rachel McKinney, Julia Ott, Claire Potter, Isaac Ariail Reed, Neil Roberts, Melvin Rogers, Sanford Schram, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Michael Weinman, Leonard A. Williams, and Deva Woodly.

Brutality, infrastructure collapse, daily threats of war: 45 writers of speculative fiction share their visions of what's to come. Fighting in the streets, corruption at the highest levels, thuggish police, a daily threat of nuclear war: few of us thought we'd find ourselves here, so far into the 21st century. What's next? Are we really going to be "great again," however that's meant? In this diverse and vigorous mix of original stories by newcomers and luminaries, writers offer their takes on what life might hold for us in the next few years. The resulting visions of oppression, and daily struggle are sometimes humorous, sometimes terrifying, but always thought-provoking.Including stories by K. G. Anderson, Richard Bowes, Elizabeth Bourne, Scott Bradfield, J.S. Breukelaar, Jennifer Marie Brissett, Becca Caccavo, Don D'Ammassa, Stephanie Feldman, Eric James Fullilove, Ron Goulart, Eileen Gunn, Leslie Howle, Matthew Hughes, Janis Ian, Michael Kandel, Thomas Kaufsek, Paul La Farge, Yoon Ha Lee, Michael Libling, Heather Lindsley, Lisa Mason, Barry N. Malzberg, David Marusek, Mary Anne Mohanraj, James Morrow, Ruth Nestvold, Deji Bryce Olukotun, Marguerite Reed, Robert Reed, Madeleine E. Robins, Jay Russell, Geoff Ryman, James Sallis, J. M. Sidorova, Brian Francis Slattery, Harry Turtledove, Deepak Unnikrishnan, TS Vale, Leo Vladimirsky, Ray Vukcevich, Ted White, Paul Witcover, N. Lee Wood, and Jane Yolen.

A collection of previously uncollected and unpublished works by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Beat poet Gary Snyder, written during his most productive and important yearsFar from being a simple miscellany of poems, Uncollected Poems, Drafts, Fragments, and Translations contains some of Gary Snyder's best work, written during his most productive and important years. Many of these have been published in magazines or as broadsides, including Spel Against Demons, Dear Mr. President, Hymn to the Goddess San Francisco, Smokey the Bear Sutra, A Curse on the Men in Washington, Pentagon. The collection also includes a great number of translations from Chinese and Japanese poets. Much of this work has been gleaned from journals, manuscripts and correspondence, and never before published in any form.

A master of the short form, Gina Berriault stands somewhere between Chekhov and Isaac Babel in style and psychological acuity. "Berriault writes real fiction . . . She deepens reality, complements it and affords us the bliss of knowing, for a moment, what we cannot know." —The Nation “A wonderful storyteller and a beautiful writer.” —Grace PaleyThe seven stories—“Infinite Passion of Expectation,” “Tea Ceremony,” “The Mistress,” “The Overcoat,” “Stolen Pleasures,” “Works of the Imagination,” and “Women in Their Beds”—offer a glimpse into the oeuvre of one of the most celebrated voices in American letters.   

An urgent look at the U.S. Border Patrol from its xenophobic founding to its assault on the Fourth Amendment in its quest to become a national police force Late one July night in 2020, armed men, identified only by the word POLICE written across their uniforms, began snatching supporters of Black Lives Matter off the street in Portland, Oregon, and placing them in unmarked vans. These mysterious actions were not carried out by local law enforcement or even right-wing terrorists, but by the U.S. Border Patrol. Why was the Border Patrol operating so far from the boundaries of the United States? What were they doing at a protest that had nothing to do with immigration or the border?  Nobody Is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States is the untold story of how, through a series of landmark but largely unknown decisions, the Supreme Court has dramatically curtailed the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution in service of policing borders. The Border Patrol exercises exceptional powers to conduct warrantless stops and interrogations within one hundred miles of land borders or coastlines, an area that includes nine of the ten largest cities and two thirds of the American population. Mapping the Border Patrol’s history from its bigoted and violent Wild West beginnings through the legal precedents that have unleashed today’s militarized force, Guggenheim Fellow Reece Jones reveals the shocking true stories and characters behind its most dangerous policies. With the Border Patrol intent on exploiting current laws to transform itself into a national police force, the truth behind their influence and history has never been more important.

After moving to a coastal town a gay couple is drawn to a group of outsiders living on the edge of the sea. In Spell Heaven, a linked story collection, a lesbian couple moves to a coast town and unexpectedly finds a sense of belonging with a group of outsiders. Stories include the tale of an undocumented boy's drowning when a wave pulls him out to sea, an ex-FBI agent's surveillance of a man who leaves chocolate bars at a tree in a weekly ritual, a mother on meth who teaches a lesson on mercy, and Kite Man, who flies kites from a fishing pole and sells drugs on the side. His motto: When the kites fly, you can buy. The narrator of these stories, raised in a working-class Croatian American fishing family and immigrant community, chooses an early career in labor-oriented jobs. Years later, she finds herself in an academic position in a white-collar world "where the clothes are clean but the politics are dirty." She questions her own stereotypes about her neighbors and gradually begins to question her life path. Spell Heaven celebrates those who are looking for a human connection in an increasingly isolated world.

"In this meditation on the music of the natural world, Moore celebrates the call of loons, howl of wolves, bellow of whales, laughter of children, and shriek of frogs, even as she warns of the threats against them. Each group of essays moves, as Moore herself has been moved, from celebration to lamentation to bewilderment and finally to the determination to act in defense of wild songs and the creatures who sing them. Music is the shivering urgency and exuberance of life ongoing. In a time of terrible silencing, Moore asks, who will forgive us if we do not save nature's songs?"--

Including nine new translations from the first thousand years of Zen, this collection of sacred Buddhist texts with refreshed commentary is made to be carried with you Dating from the middle of the second century B.C. to the middle of the ninth century A.D., Zen Roots includes the Heart, Diamond, and Platform sutras; selections from the Vimalakirti and Lankavatara sutras; Bodhidharma's Principles & Practice; Sengcan's Trusting the Mind; Yongjia’s Song of Enlightenment; and Huangbo's Transmission of the Mind.These translations are accompanied by introductions and enough notes to explain what needs explaining but not so many as to get in the way. Zen Roots is the perfect companion for travel, to accompany one to the higher elevations, or just to read in the backyard.

A darkly funny sports memoir about a mid-life crisis, exercise addiction, tennis, and how to grow up when you really, really don't want toAt forty-one, Scarlett Thomas was a successful novelist and a senior academic. She’d quit smoking, gotten healthier, settled down in a lovely house with a wonderful partner. She’d had all the therapy. Then her beloved dog died. Her parents started to get sick right around the time she realized she was never going to be a mother herself. For the first time in her life, maintaining her ideal weight had become nearly impossible. She was supposed to grow up, but she didn’t know how. So instead she decided to regress, to go back to the thing she’d loved best as a child but had inexplicably abandoned: tennis. Thomas knows she’s not the only person to have wondered whether throwing enough money and time and passion at something can make your dream come true. 41–Love is heartbreaking but frequently funny as Thomas finds she’ll do anything to win—almost anything.

A Black immortal in 1930's Los Angeles must recover the memory of her past in order to discover who she truly is in this extraordinarily affecting novel for readers of N. K. Jemisin and Octavia E. Butler.Lou, a young Black woman, wakes up in an alley in 1930s Los Angeles with no memory of how she got there or where she’s from. Taken in by a caring foster family, Lou dedicates herself to her education while trying to put her mysterious origins behind her. She’ll go on to become the first Black female journalist at the Los Angeles Times, but Lou’s extraordinary life is about to take an even more remarkable turn. When she befriends a firefighter at a downtown boxing gym, Lou is shocked to realize that though she has no memory of meeting him, she’s been drawing his face for years. Increasingly certain that their paths previously crossed—and beset by unexplainable flashes from different eras haunting her dreams—Lou begins to believe she may be an immortal sent here for a very important reason, one that only others like her can explain. Setting out to investigate the mystery of her existence, Lou must make sense of the jumble of lifetimes calling to her, just as new forces threaten the existence of those around her. Immersed in the rich historical tapestry of Los Angeles—Prohibition, the creation of Route 66, and the collapse of the St. Francis Dam—The Perishing is a stunning examination of love and justice through the eyes of one miraculous woman whose fate seems linked to the city she comes to call home.