Secondhand Time - Svetlana Alexievich

Staff Pick
Like Bob Dylan, Alexievich won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for a body of work that is not usually thought of as literature. Her oeuvre consists of oral histories, and this is her magnum opus. In Secondhand Time she weaves together narratives collected over 30 years to tell the epic and tragic story of the collapse of the USSR and the rise of predatory, “free market” capitalism in the former Soviet states. Her ability as an interviewer to elicit stunningly beautiful and novelistic personal accounts of love and hardship, and her skill as a narrator in stitching these stories together to form a cohesive whole, make her well-deserving of the Nobel, and surely one of our most important living writers, in any language.
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets By Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich (Translator) Cover Image
$30.00
ISBN: 9780399588808
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: Random House - May 24th, 2016

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets By Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich (Translated by) Cover Image
By Svetlana Alexievich, Bela Shayevich (Translated by)
$20.00
ISBN: 9780399588822
Availability: In Stock—Click for Locations
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks - March 21st, 2017

Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work

Staff Pick
Pettibon first rose to prominence designing the logos and album art for seminal ‘80s punk bands like Black Flag while self-distributing a groundbreaking series of graphic zines. The works in this monograph, spanning nearly 4 decades and a variety of mediums, speak to Pettibon’s genius in melding high and low culture into artworks that often include textual components, with quotes from philosophers, novelists, and politicians interspersed among his images. Pettibon’s treatment of subjects like baseball, surfing, George W. Bush, and the Vietnam War make him one of the finest contemporary visual artists illuminating the colorful, wacky, and destructive underpinnings of American culture.
Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work By Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari Cover Image
$89.95
ISBN: 9780714873695
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: Phaidon Press - March 20th, 2017

Europe Central - William Vollmann

Staff Pick
This National Book Award-winner focuses on life in the USSR and Nazi Germany in the buildup to and during World War II. Vollman’s depiction of the war is unflinchingly honest: it’s a clash of totalitarian regimes where, in one of the grand metaphors of the book, whether in Germany or Russia, people are slaves to the same telephone lines that snake across the continent and bark out sinister orders. The book’s paired chapters, split between the German and Soviet sides, depict the efforts of the protagonists (usually real-life historical figures) to grapple with the absurd moral choices they face. Like Dmitry Shostakovich’s Opus 110, this book is a majestic, sanguinary, elaborately constructed homage to those who perished or struggled to survive in the lands of Central and Eastern Europe where World War II was fought.
Europe Central: National Book Award Winner By William T. Vollmann Cover Image
$25.00
ISBN: 9780143036593
Availability: Not On Our Shelves—Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Penguin Books - November 14th, 2005

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