Hell of a Book


Book Description

***2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER*** ***THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER*** Winner of the 2021 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize Finalist, 2022 Chautauqua Prize Finalist, Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing Shortlist, 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Shortlist, 2022 Maya Angelou Book Award Shortlist, 2022 Carnegie Medal Longlist A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! An Ebony Magazine Publishing Book Club Pick! One of Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Fiction | One of Philadelphia Inquirer's Best Books of 2021 | One of Shelf Awareness's Top Ten Fiction Titles of the Year | One of TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books | One of NPR.org's "Books We Love" | EW’s "Guide to the Biggest and Buzziest Books of 2021" | One of the New York Public Library's Best Books for Adults | San Diego Union Tribune—My Favorite Things from 2021 | Writer's Bone's Best Books of 2021 | Atlanta Journal Constitution—Top 10 Southern Books of the Year | One of the Guardian's (UK) Best Ten 21st Century Comic Novels | One of Entertainment Weekly's 15 Books You Need to Read This June | On Entertainment Weekly's "Must List" | One of the New York Post's Best Summer Reading books | One of GMA's 27 Books for June | One of USA Today's 5 Books Not to Miss | One of Fortune's 21 Most Anticipated Books Coming Out in the Second Half of 2021 | One of The Root's PageTurners: It’s Getting Hot in Here | One of Real Simple's Best New Books to Read in 2021 An astounding work of fiction from New York Times bestselling author Jason Mott, always deeply honest, at times electrically funny, that goes to the heart of racism, police violence, and the hidden costs exacted upon Black Americans and America as a whole In Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book, a Black author sets out on a cross-country publicity tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives Hell of a Book and is the scaffolding of something much larger and more urgent: Mott’s novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour. As these characters’ stories build and converge, they astonish. For while this heartbreaking and magical book entertains and is at once about family, love of parents and children, art and money, it’s also about the nation’s reckoning with a tragic police shooting playing over and over again on the news. And with what it can mean to be Black in America. Who has been killed? Who is The Kid? Will the author finish his book tour, and what kind of world will he leave behind? Unforgettably told, with characters who burn into your mind and an electrifying plot ideal for book club discussion, Hell of a Book is the novel Mott has been writing in his head for the last ten years. And in its final twists, it truly becomes its title.




For the Hell of it


Book Description

Uses interviews with friends and family members, as well as court documents and FBI files, to depict the life of the sixties radical and the character of his times




Revolution for the Hell of It


Book Description

While the supremely popular Steal This Book is a guide to living outside the establishment, Revolution for the Hell of It is a chronicle of Abbie Hoffman's radical escapades that doubles as a guidebook for today's social and political activist. Hoffman pioneered the use of humor, theater, and shock value to drive home his points, and in Revolution for the Hell of It he gives firsthand accounts of his legendary adventures, from the activism that led to the founding of the Youth International Party—or "Yippies!—to the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests ("a Perfect Mess") that resulted in his conviction as part of the Chicago Seven. Also chronicled are the mass demonstrations he led in which over fifty thousand people attempted to levitate the Pentagon using psychic energy, and the time he threw fistfuls of dollar bills onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and watched the traders scramble. With antiwar sentiment once again in a furor and an incendiary political climate not seen since the book's original printing, Abbie Hoffman's voice is more essential than ever.




What the Hell Did I Just Read


Book Description

John Dies at the End's "smart take on fear manages to tap into readers' existential dread on one page, then have them laughing the next" (Publishers Weekly) and This Book is Full of Spiders was "unlike any other book of the genre" (Washington Post). Now, New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin is back with What the Hell Did I Just Read, the third installment of this black-humored thriller series. It's the story "They" don't want you to read. Though, to be fair, "They" are probably right about this one. To quote the Bible, "Learning the truth can be like loosening a necktie, only to realize it was the only thing keeping your head attached." No, don't put the book back on the shelf -- it is now your duty to purchase it to prevent others from reading it. Yes, it works with e-books, too, I don't have time to explain how. While investigating a fairly straightforward case of a shape-shifting interdimensional child predator, Dave, John, and Amy realized there might actually be something weird going on. Together, they navigate a diabolically convoluted maze of illusions, lies, and their own incompetence in an attempt to uncover a terrible truth they -- like you -- would be better off not knowing. Your first impulse will be to think that a story this gruesome -- and, to be frank, stupid -- cannot possibly be true. That is precisely the reaction "They" are hoping for.




The Penguin Book of Hell


Book Description

"From the Bible through Dante and up to Treblinka and Guantánamo Bay, here is a rich source for nightmares." --The New York Times Book Review Three thousand years of visions of Hell, from the ancient Near East to modern America A Penguin Classic From the Hebrew Bible's shadowy realm of Sheol to twenty-first-century visions of Hell on earth, The Penguin Book of Hell takes us through three thousand years of eternal damnation. Along the way, you'll take a ferry ride with Aeneas to Hades, across the river Acheron; meet the Devil as imagined by a twelfth-century Irish monk--a monster with a thousand giant hands; wander the nine circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno, in which gluttons, liars, heretics, murderers, and hypocrites are made to endure crime-appropriate torture; and witness the debates that raged in Victorian England when new scientific advances cast doubt on the idea of an eternal hereafter. Drawing upon religious poetry, epics, theological treatises, stories of miracles, and accounts of saints' lives, this fascinating volume of hellscapes illuminates how Hell has long haunted us, in both life and death. For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.




What the Hell Do You Have to Lose?


Book Description

The bestselling author, political analyst, and civil rights expert delivers a forceful critique of the Trump administration's ignorant and unprecedented rollback of the civil rights movement. In this powerful and timely book, civil rights historian and political analyst Juan Williams denounces Donald Trump for intentionally twisting history to fuel racial tensions for his political advantage. In Williams's lifetime, crusaders for civil rights have braved hatred, violence, and imprisonment, and in so doing made life immeasurably better for African Americans and other marginalized groups. Remarkably, all this progress suddenly seems to have been forgotten -- or worse, undone. The stirring history of hard-fought and heroic battles for voting rights, integrated schools, and more is under direct threat from an administration dedicated to restricting these basic freedoms. Williams pulls the fire alarm on the Trump administration's policies, which pose a threat to civil rights without precedent in modern America. What the Hell Do You Have to Lose? makes a searing case for the enduring value of our historic accomplishments and what happens if they are lost.




A Book about Myself Called Hell


Book Description

In the middle of the journey of our life Dante finds himself lost in a dark wood but then he founds a whole lot of literary movements and arguably modernity itself with his Divine Comedy that, nonetheless, inexplicably, didn't make God laugh. This serious absence caused God's non-divine counterparts, humans, to wonder: "Why are we in hell?" "Why is it so funny?" "And why can't I laugh?"




The Hell of Good Intentions


Book Description

A provocative analysis of recent American foreign policy and why it has been plagued by disasters like the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of a long hoped-for era of peace and prosperity, relations with Russia and China have soured, the European Union is wobbling, nationalism and populism are on the rise, and the United States is stuck in costly and pointless wars that have squandered trillions of dollars and undermined its influence around the world. The root of this dismal record, Walt argues, is the American foreign policy establishment’s stubborn commitment to a strategy of “liberal hegemony.” Since the end of the Cold War, Republicans and Democrats alike have tried to use US power to spread democracy, open markets, and other liberal values into every nook and cranny of the planet. This strategy was doomed to fail, but its proponents in the foreign policy elite were never held accountable and kept repeating the same mistakes. Donald Trump’s erratic and impulsive style of governing, combined with a deeply flawed understanding of world politics, made a bad situation worse. The best alternative, Walt argues, is a return to the realist strategy of “offshore balancing,” which eschews regime change, nation-building, and other forms of global social engineering. The American people would surely welcome a more restrained foreign policy, one that allowed greater attention to problems here at home. Clear-eyed, candid, and elegantly written, Stephen M. Walt’s The Hell of Good Intentions offers both a compelling diagnosis of America’s recent foreign policy follies and a proven formula for renewed success. “Thought-provoking . . . This excellent analysis is cogent, accessible, and well-argued.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)




The Hell Candidate


Book Description

I opened my eyes. I wasn't dreaming. I was awake. And right beside me, Jennifer was panting and moaning and bouncing up and down on the bed. I stared harder into the darkness, chilled with fright, and against the dim gray light that filtered in through the closely-drawn drapes, I saw an outline on top of Jennifer that made me cram my hand into my mouth to stop myself from screaming. It was a huge, bulky outline, as dark as sin. But its eyes glowed slanted and orange, like the eyes of a wolf, and on its head were two curved horns. It stank of stale incense and animal sweat, and it was grunting with grotesque delight. When businessman Hunter Peal decided to run for President of the USA, they said he didn't have a chance in Hell ... but they were wrong. Initially he seemed pleasant and moderate ... but then everything started to change. As his popularity grew, so did his ability to influence people, sending them weeping to their knees, and seeing sights which no cameras could capture. And what of his opponents and the strange 'accidents' which befel them? Indeed, Hunter Peal was not the man he once was ... one of the denizens of Hell has made a pact with him, and on his inauguration, all Hell will be let loose. Literally. Telos Publishing is proud to present a superb new edition of this long out-of-print 1981 novel. A horrific tale of lust and greed and power from one of the genre's greatest writers, Graham Masterton. 'If you like horror novels, the kind that make you catch your breath at certain parts, can change your perception of the temperature in the room and leave you with impressions that can't be unseen for days - if ever - then this is your book. It really is an absolute masterpiece and in my opinion one of the weirdest, most twisted horror tales ever told, where the message, "Be careful who you vote for" really makes a hell of a lot of sense.' Cat DeSpira, Retrobitch




Oh the Hell of It All


Book Description

Thrust into the media spotlight with her son Sean Wilsey's searing portrayal of her in his New York Times bestseller Oh the Glory of It All, the former queen of San Francisco society shares her own candid take on the fascinating events of her life. Once dubbed San Francisco's "Golden Girl," Montandon socialized with the cream of San Francisco society, including Danielle Steel, Alex Haley, and the Gettys. Immortalized as a character in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, she lived a seemingly perfect life in a penthouse above the San Francisco Bay, complete with her marriage to multimillionaire Al Wilsey and the birth of her son, Sean. From her lavish parties to her legendary Roundtable lunches, Montandon was always the talk of the town. Then, less than a decade later, Wilsey announced he was divorcing her, and Sean abandoned her as well—both for the affections of her once-close friend, Dede Traina. Left penniless and virtually suicidal, Montandon once again had to reinvent herself, this time as a humanitarian for peace. From Berlin to Beslan, she made it her life's mission to give a voice to the world's children and spread a message of hope in times of crisis. Oh the Hell of It All is a rich feast of a story: that of a poor girl turned rich turned poor again, in and out of love and betrayed by those closest to her, who has achieved peace in her life through devotion to something outside herself.