Fal l 2 0 14 C atalo g
Fall 2014 Catalo g
McSweeney’s is a publishing company based in San Francisco. As well as operating a daily humor website, we also publish Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, the Believer, and an ever-growing selection of books under various imprints.
I N CAS E O F E M E RG ENCY Courtney M oreno
What do you do when you can’t function? After rookie EMT Piper Gallagher responds to a call outside a Los Angeles shopping mall for a man who can only tell her, “I can’t function,” the question begins to haunt her. How will Piper continue to function despite the horror she sees working in South Central, and despite her own fractured
What do you do when you can’t function? After rookie EMT Piper Gallagher responds to a call outside a Los Angeles shopping mall for a man who can only tell her, “I can’t function,” the question begins to haunt her. How will Piper continue to function despite the horror she sees working in South Central, and despite her own fractured past? And how will the woman Piper loves continue to function as she experiences the aftershocks of her time spent serving in Iraq? Piper’s experiences as a rookie break her down and open her up as her genuine urge to help patients confronts the daily realities of life in the back of an ambulance and a hospital’s hallways. This vivid and visceral debut is a rich study in trauma—in its causes and effects, in its methods and disguises, in its power and its pull.
past? And how will the woman Piper loves continue to function as she experiences the aftershocks of her time spent serving in Iraq? Piper’s experiences as a rookie break her down and open her up as her genuine urge to help patients confronts the daily realities of life in the back of an ambulance and a hospital’s hallways. This vivid and visceral debut is a rich study in trauma—in its causes and effects, in its methods and disguises, in its power and its pull.
isbn: 978-1-940450-26-1 • 5.5" × 8" • xxx pages • hardcover • $24 media contact: Gabrielle Gantz; gabrielle@mcsweeneys.net
bookseller / librarian contact: Sam Riley; sam@mcsweeneys.net AdvAnCE unCoRRECTEd PRoof
PLEASE ConSuLT fInISHEd book bEfoRE quoTInG foR REvIEW
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Fiction p u b l i c at i o n d at e
September 2014 price
$24 pa g e s
p raise for in cas e of eme r g e n cy :
330 isbn
“Riveting... inspiring.” —K.M. Soehnlein, author of Robin and Ruby
978-1-940450-26-1 trim size
“Moreno writes about physical and emotional damage with such precision that the reader feels supine, strapped into her own ambulance, careening from page to page. It’s a story about the greatest emergency of all: the plight of being a human with a fragile heart, beating amidst all these dangers.” —Joshua Mohr, author of Some Things That Meant the World to Me
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World
a l l my p u ny sorrows M iriam Toews
Elf and Yoli are sisters. While on the surface Elfrieda’s life is enviable (she’s a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, and happily married) and Yolandi’s a mess (she’s divorced and broke, with two teenagers growing up too quickly), they are fiercely close—raised in a Mennonite household and sharing the hardship of Elf’s desire to end her life. After Elf’s latest attempt, Yoli must quickly determine how to keep her family from falling apart, how to keep her own heart from breaking, and what it means to love someone who wants to die. All My Puny Sorrows is the latest novel from Miriam Toews, one of Canada’s most beloved authors—not only because her work is rich with deep human feeling and compassion but because her observations are knife-sharp and her books wickedly funny. And this is Toews at her finest: a story that is as much a comedy as it is a tragedy, a goodbye grin from the friend who taught you how to live.
MIRIAM TOEWS
genre
Fiction p u b l i c at i o n d at e
November 2014 price
$24 pa g e s
330 isbn
978-1-940450-27-8 p raise for toews:
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6" × 8.5"
“Toews is an extraordinarily gifted writer.” —The Globe and Mail “Witty and wise... with great style and a pitch-perfect ear.” —The Los Angeles Times
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STOR IE S UPO N STORIES Edited by
Alessandro Baricco
Stories Upon Stories is an epic re-imagining of ten classic tales: Dave Eggers rewrites Jules Verne’s rollicking “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” Ali Smith reconceives Sophocles’ tragedy “Antigone,” Umberto Eco reimagines the mind-bending Italian classic “The Betrothed,” along with seven more equally inspired pairings of timeless masterpieces with contemporary literary masters. Featuring breathtakingly original illustrations on every page, and bound as lavishly as a textbook worthy of Hogwarts, this book will spark the imaginations of children and adults alike.
genre
Fiction p u b l i c at i o n d at e
Gilgamesh by Yiyun Li T went y Thou sand Leag u es Under t h e Sea
by Dave Eggers Gul l iv er ’s Travels by Jonathan Coe Cyrano d e Bergerac by Stefano Benni T he Nose by Andrea Camilleri Don Juan by Alessandro Baricco T he Betrothed by Umberto Eco A ntigone by Ali Smith K ing Lear by Melania Mazzucco C rime an d Punishmen t by Abraham B. Yehoshua
October 2014 price
$40 pa g e s
600 isbn
978-1-940450-01-8 trim size
7.75" × 10" rights
North America
I N FO R M AT I O N D O ESN’ T WANT TO B E F RE E t h e d e f i n i tiv e stat ement o n art and copyri ght i n t h e i n t e rnet a g e, fr o m o n e of the web’s m os t c e l e b rat e d t hin k er s
Cory Doctorow
In sharply argued, fast-moving chapters, Cory Doctorow’s Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free takes on the state of copyright and creative success in the digital age. Can small artists still thrive in the internet era? Can giant record labels avoid alienating their audiences? This is a book about the pitfalls, and the opportunities, creative industries (and individuals) are confronting today—about how the old models have failed or found new footing, and about what might soon replace them. An essential read for anyone with a stake in the future of the arts, Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free offers a vivid guide to the ways creativity and the internet interact today, and to what might be coming next.
genre
Nonfiction p u b l i c at i o n d at e
November 2014 price
$25 pa g e s
164 isbn
978-1-940450-28-5 trim size
TK p raise for cory d octorow ’s p re viou s work: rights
“Doctorow throws off cool ideas the way champagne generates bubbles... [he] definitely has the goods.” —San Francisco Chronicle
World
READ H A RD E R edited by
Heidi J ul avit s and E d Park
This volume collects the finest essays from the second half of the Believer’s decade-long (and counting) run. The Believer, the McSweeney’s-published five-time nominee for the National Magazine Award, is beloved for tackling everything from pop culture to ancient literature with the same sagacity and wit, and this collection cements that reputation with pieces as wildly diverse as the magazine itself. Featured articles include Nick Hornby on his first job, Leslie Jamison on the world of ultramarathons, Francisco Goldman on the failings of memoir in dealing with personal tragedy, Megan Abbott and Sara Gran on V.C. Andrews and the secret life of girls, and Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah on Dave Chappelle. Read Harder collects some of the finest nonfiction writing published in America today, from the profound to the absurd, the crushing to the uplifting. As the Believer enters its second decade, Read Harder serves as both an essential primer for one of the finest, strangest magazines in the country, and an indispensable stand-alone volume.
genre
Nonfiction p u b l i c at i o n d at e
September 2014 price
$18 pa g e s
336 isbn
978-1-940450-18-6 trim size
5.5" Ă— 8.5" rights
World
Pal est ine S p eaks vo i c e s f r o m t he west b a n k and gaza edited by
Cate M alek & Mat eo Hoke
Voice of Witness
For more than six decades, Israel and Palestine have been the global focal point of intractable conflict, one that has led to one of the world’s most widely reported yet least understood human rights crises. In their own words, men and women from West Bank and Gaza describe how their lives have been shaped by the conflict. Here are stories that humanize the oft-ignored violations of human rights that occur daily in the occupied Palestinian territories.
genre
Nonfiction Praise for Voice of Wi t ness :
p u b l i c at i o n d at e
November 2014
“[Voice of Witness] books are amazing… beautifully produced, with incredible editing and literary sensibility. Voice of Witness has done a better job than I’ve seen anybody do with having people tell their stories in a way that really engages you.” —Rachel Maddow, MSNBC
price
$16 pa g e s
320 isbn
978-1-940450-24-7 trim size
5.5" × 8.25" rights
World
A LOAD O F H O O E Y B ob O denkirk the f i rs t b o o k i n t h e O d e n k irk Me morial Library s eries
Bob Odenkirk is a legend in the comedy-writing world, winning Emmys and acclaim for his work on Saturday Night Live, Mr. Show with Bob and David, and many other seminal TV shows. This book, his first, is a spleen-bruisingly funny omnibus that ranges from absurdist monologues (“Martin Luther King, Jr’s Worst Speech Ever”) to intentionally bad theater (“Hitler Dinner Party: A Play”); from avant-garde fiction (“Obituary for the Creator of Madlibs”) to free-verse poetry that’s funnier and more powerful than the work of Calvin Trillin, Jewel, and Robert Louis Stevenson combined. Odenkirk’s debut resembles nothing so much as a hilarious new sketch comedy show that’s exclusively available as a streaming video for your mind. As Odenkirk himself writes in “The Second Coming of Jesus and Lazarus,” it is a book “to be read aloud to yourself in the voice of Bob Newhart.”
genre
Humor p u b l i c at i o n d at e
October 2014 price
$20 pa g e s
112 isbn
978-1-938073-88-5 This book is one of a series of humorous books, written by diverse authors and each blessed and approved by the non-deceased American comedy person Bob Odenkirk. Volumes in the Odenkirk Memorial Library include satire, cartoons, Black Humor, Gentle Humor, Total Humor, and they cover a broad range of subject matter, united only in their tendency to provoke laughter and warm feelings of distraction. No textbooks or pornography will be included in the series.
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World
v isi tant s dav e eggers
Visitants begins at 140 kilometers per hour, with Dave Eggers being driven across the Saudi Arabian desert by a hired driver who looks at him and says “American, boom boom!” Spanning over twenty years of travel, there are long, lighthearted and caterwauling adventures in places such as New Zealand, Idaho, Cuba and Thailand as well as briefer sketches of people he meets in Croatia, Egypt and Papua New Guinea. And there are meditative pieces from South Sudan and Syria that reveal another side to his acclaimed books What Is the What and Zeitoun. Vast in scope, the collection is shot through with a sense of danger and adventure as well as constant wrestling with complex issues of equity, empathy and shared purpose.
genre
Nonfiction p u b l i c at i o n d at e
October 2014 price
$26 pa g e s
320 isbn
p raise for eggers: “Wonderful. . . . [A Hologram for the King] is Death of a Salesman set in post-industrial America.” —Michael Silverblatt, host of KCRW’s Bookworm
978-1-940450-40-7 trim size
6" × 8.5" rights
“Eggers’s first unabashedly fictional, original novel in some time nonetheless grounds itself as firmly in the real world as Zeitoun or What is the What….A spare but moving elegy for the American century.” —Publishers Weekly
USCO
WHITE GIRLS Hilton Als
TEN YEAR S IN THE TUB
THE END OF WAR J o h n Horgan
N ick Hornby War is a fact of human nature.
“I’m heartened by this thoughtful, unflappable, closely argued book. The End of War gives us As long as we exist, it new ways to understand exists. That’s how the and resist the specious argument goes. But longtime arguments of inevitabilists Scientific American writer John and professional Horgan disagrees. Applying the weaponeers.” scientific method to war leads —NICHolsoN Horgan to a radical conclusion: BAker biologically speaking, we are just as likely to be peaceful as violent. War is not preordained, and furthermore, it should be thought of as a solvable, scientific problem—like curing cancer. But war and cancer differ in at least one crucial way: whereas cancer is a stubborn aspect of nature, war is our creation. It’s our choice whether to unmake it or not. With a new introduction by anthropologist Douglas P. Fry, in this compact treatise Horgan argues for a far-reaching paradigm shift with profound implications for policy students, ethicists, military men and women, teachers, philosophers, and, really, any engaged citizen.
“A H E A R T F E LT A N D I M P O R TA N T B O O K .” — T H E C H R O N I C L E O F H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N
A former senior writer at the Scientific American blog CrossCheck, John Horgan has also written for the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, Slate, Discover, the London Times, the Times Literary Supplement, New Scientist, and other publications around the world.
JOHN HORGAN W I T H A N E W I N T R O D U C T I O N BY
D O U G L A S P. F R Y
F i n al i s t fo r t he NBCC
wi th an i ntroducti on
wi t h a ne w i nt ro d u c -
Awa r d s in Cr it ic ism
by Jes s Walter
ti on b y d o u g l as p. f ry
“Effortless, honest and fearless.” ––New York Times Book Review
“[Ten Years in the Tub] measure[s] life not just in terms of books bought or read but also in common reading experiences, often to hilarious effect.” —DailyCandy
The End of War gives us new ways to understand and resist the specious arguments of inevitabilists and professional weaponeers.” —Nicholson Baker
“The read of the year.” —Junot Díaz
HOW TO ORDER PGW/Perseus Distribution phone: (800) 788-2123 fax: (800) 351-5073 orderentry@perseusbooks.com
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