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Editorial Content for Supergods

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Nathan Wilson

Back in August 2010, I had the fortune of interviewing Grant Morrison about his career and writing process. During that phone conversation, we discussed SUPERGODS quite briefly, and he described the book as "part history. It's mostly like being stuck with me on a very long transatlantic flight (laughs), so it is kind of anecdotes and meditations." SUPERGODS is a difficult book to define and categorize. Is it history? A cultural study? As such, Morrison's words are an appropriate and apt attempt to classify it. Read More

Promo

For Grant Morrison, superheroes are powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence. Through them we tell the story of ourselves.

About the Book

From one of the most acclaimed and profound writers in the world of comics comes a thrilling and provocative exploration of humankind’s great modern myth: the superhero.
 
The first superhero comic ever published, Action Comics no. 1 in 1938, introduced the world to something both unprecedented and timeless: Superman, a caped god for the modern age. In a matter of years, the skies of the imaginary world were filled with strange mutants, aliens, and vigilantes: Batman, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and the X-Men --- the list of names as familiar as our own. In less than a century, they’ve gone from not existing at all to being everywhere we look: on our movie and television screens, in our videogames and dreams. But what are they trying to tell us?

For Grant Morrison, arguably the greatest of contemporary chroniclers of the “superworld,” these heroes are powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence: Through them we tell the story of ourselves, our troubled history, and our starry aspirations. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero --- why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are...and what we may yet become.

by Grant Morrison - Graphic Novel, Sociology

For Grant Morrison, superheroes are powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence. Through them we tell the story of ourselves.

Content for The Talk-Funny Girl

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Bronwyn Miller


In the backwoods of rural New Hampshire, 17-year-old Marjorie Richards, raised in isolation by her abusive parents, struggles to break free of her troubled past. She finds work with a local stonemason intent on building his own cathedral. Read More

Promo

In one of the poorest parts of rural New Hampshire, teenage girls have been disappearing, snatched from back country roads. For Marjorie Richards, the fear raised by these abductions is the backdrop to what she lives with in her own home. Marjorie is also tormented by classmates, who call her "The Talk-funny girl." But as the nearby factory town sinks deeper into economic ruin and as her parents fall under the influence of a sadistic cult leader, her options for escape dwindle.

About the Book

In one of the poorest parts of rural New Hampshire, teenage girls have been disappearing, snatched from back country roads, never to be seen alive again.  For seventeen-year-old Marjorie Richards, the fear raised by these abductions is the backdrop to what she lives with her own home, every day.  Marjorie has been raised by parents so intentionally isolated from normal society that they have developed their own dialect, a kind of mountain hybrid of English that displays both their ignorance of and disdain for the wider world.  Marjorie is tormented by her classmates, who call her “The Talk-funny girl,” but as the nearby factory town sinks deeper into economic ruin and as her parents fall more completely under the influence of a sadistic cult leader, her options for escape dwindle.  But then, thanks to a loving aunt, Marjorie is hired by a man, himself a victim of abuse, who is building what he calls “a cathedral,” right in the center of town. 
 
Day by day, Marjorie’s skills as a stoneworker increase, and so too does her intolerance for the bitter rules of her family life.  Gradually, through exposure to the world beyond her parents’ wood cabin thanks to the kindness of her aunt and her boss, and an almost superhuman determination, she discovers what is loveable within herself.  This newfound confidence and self-esteem ultimately allows her to break free from the bleak life she has known, to find love, to start a family, and to try to heal her old, deep wounds without passing that pain on to her husband and children.
 
By turns darkly menacing and bright with love and resilience, The Talk-Funny Girl is the story of one young woman’s remarkable courage, a kind of road map for the healing of early abuse, and a testament to the power of kindness and love. 

Editorial content for Flashback

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

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Teaser

 

It’s the not-too-distant future and the United States is near total collapse. But 87 percent of the population don’t care: they’re addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the past. Ex-detective Nick Bottom knows about flashback addiction firsthand. But can he resist temptation long enough to solve an old murder without losing his soul in the process? Reviewed by Ray Palen.

Promo

It’s the not-too-distant future and the United States is near total collapse. But 87 percent of the population don’t care: they’re addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the past. Ex-detective Nick Bottom knows about flashback addiction firsthand. But can he resist temptation long enough to solve an old murder without losing his soul in the process? Reviewed by Ray Palen.

About the Book

The United States is near total collapse. But 87% of the population doesn't care: they're addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the best moments of their lives. After ex-detective Nick Bottom's wife died in a car accident, he went under the flash to be with her; he's lost his job, his teenage son, and his livelihood as a result.

Nick may be a lost soul but he's still a good cop, so he is hired to investigate the murder of a top governmental advisor's son. This flashback-addict becomes the one man who may be able to change the course of an entire nation turning away from the future to live in the past.

A provocative novel set in a future that seems scarily possible, FLASHBACK proves why Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers.

Week of August 1, 2011

In A ZERO HISTORY by William Gibson, a former rock singer turned journalist has reluctantly agreed to work for secretive Belgian finance genius Hubertus Bigend again --- only to find herself entangled in a threatening mesh of postmodern marketing, corrupt American military contractors, and belated romance.

Content for The Nightmare Thief

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

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Teaser

 

Autumn Reiniger expects something special for her 21st birthday. Her father signs up her and five friends for an “ultimate urban reality” game: a simulated drug deal, manhunt and jailbreak. It’s a high-priced version of cops and robbers, which is convenient for the gang of real kidnappers zeroing in on their target and a mammoth payday.

Promo

Autumn Reiniger expects something special for her 21st birthday. Her father signs up her and five friends for an “ultimate urban reality” game: a simulated drug deal, manhunt and jailbreak. It’s a high-priced version of cops and robbers, which is convenient for the gang of real kidnappers zeroing in on their target and a mammoth payday.

About the Book

Forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett returns in a fourth taut, groundbreaking thriller from Edgar Award winner Meg Gardiner. 

Autumn Reiniger expects something special for her 21st birthday. Daddy's already bought her the sports car, the apartment, and admission to the private college where she parties away her weekends. Now she wants excitement, and she's going to get it. 

Her father signs up Autumn and five friends for an "ultimate urban reality" game: a simulated drug deal, manhunt, and jailbreak. It's a high-priced version of cops and robbers, played with fake guns and fast cars on the streets of San Francisco. Edge Adventures alerts the SFPD ahead of time that a "crime situation" is underway, so the authorities can ignore the squealing tires and desperate cries for help. 

Which is convenient for the gang of real kidnappers zeroing in on their target and a mammoth payday. Because what Daddy doesn't know is that someone has spotted his hedge fund's bulging profits, and the path to those riches runs right through Daddy's Little Girl. 

Working on a case nearby is forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett and her partner Gabe Quintana. When the pair encounters a suspicious group of men carting six sullen college kids to the woods for a supposed wilderness adventure, alarm bells ring. Jo takes a closer look, and winds up with an invite to Autumn Reiniger's twenty-first birthday party-a party they may never leave.

Content for Full Black

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

If I had to name one element of Brad Thor's novels that I find so appealing, it would be this: Scot Horvath, Thor's protagonist, has his head screwed on right. Nothing more, nothing less. I have always been aware of this fact, but it really hit home for me while reading FULL BLACK, the latest of the Horvath books.

"There is enough adrenaline-charged adventure to fill several books of its length --- with explosions, mayhem and karate." 

Teaser

There are some missions so deadly, so sensitive, that they simply don’t exist. When one such mission goes horribly wrong, a wave of dramatic terrorist attacks is set in motion. Their goal: the complete and total collapse of the United States. Scot Harvath launches an audacious plan to infiltrate the terrorists’ network and prevent one of the biggest threats the United States has ever faced.

Promo

There are some missions so deadly, so sensitive, that they simply don’t exist. When one such mission goes horribly wrong, a wave of dramatic terrorist attacks is set in motion. Their goal: the complete and total collapse of the United States. Scot Harvath launches an audacious plan to infiltrate the terrorists’ network and prevent one of the biggest threats the United States has ever faced.

About the Book

#1 New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor brings readers his darkest and most intriguing thriller yet—a terrifying story of espionage and betrayal—brilliantly paced with superb nonstop action.

Born in the shadows and kept from heads of state, there are some missions so deadly, so sensitive, that they simply don’t exist.

When one such mission goes horribly wrong, a wave of dramatic terrorist attacks is set in motion. Their goal: the complete and total collapse of the United States.

With the CIA’s intelligence abilities hobbled, former Navy SEAL Team 6 member turned covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath launches an audacious plan to infiltrate the terrorists’ network and prevent one of the biggest threats the United States has ever faced.

Simultaneously, a foreign wet work team has been sent to California. Their target: one of Hollywood’s most famous filmmakers.

While working on a secret documentary project, movie producer Larry Salomon has unknowingly exposed one of the world’s wealthiest and most politically connected powerbrokers—a man with a radical anti-American agenda poised to plunge the nation into deadly, irreversible chaos.

As the plots rocket to their pulse-pounding conclusion and the identities of the perpetrators are laid stunningly bare, Harvath will be left with only one means to save America. Unable to trust anyone, he will be forced to go Full Black.

Intense and frighteningly realistic, FULL BLACK is, hands down, Brad Thor’s most riveting thriller to date.

August 2011

One of the most highly anticipated films of the summer, The Help, graces the big screen on August 10th. Based on the widely-read and deeply moving novel by Kathryn Stockett, the story is set at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement, as three Mississippi women are about to take one extraordinary step that will put them all at risk. 

August 1, 2011

The following are lists of books releasing the weeks of August 1st and August 8th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers.

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The Magicians by Lev Grossman

August 2011

In THE MAGICIANS, a cadre of young wizards --- and the fantasy genre itself --- learn to live in the real world. This fabulously rendered novel manages to completely ensnare readers by their escapist tendencies, then show how our dreams of happiness and magic never quite live up to the real thing. Reviewed by Max Falkowitz.