Civilianized

Civilianized
Author: Michael Anthony
Publisher: Pulp
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2016-12-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1936976889

After twelve months of military service in Iraq, Michael Anthony stepped off a plane, seemingly happy to be home - or at least back on US soil. He was twenty-one years old, a bit of a nerd, and carrying a pack of cigarettes that he thought would be his last. Two months later, Michael was stoned on Vicodin, drinking way too much, and picking a fight with a very large Hell's Angel. At his wit's end, he came to an agreement with himself: If things didn't improve in three months, he was going to kill himself. Civilianized is a memoir chronicling Michael's search for meaning in a suddenly destabilized world.

Just Another Meat-Eating Dirtbag

Just Another Meat-Eating Dirtbag
Author: Michael Anthony
Publisher:
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2022-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781951491192

A rough-and-tumble Iraq War veteran is young and in love, and the last thing on his mind is food and the ethics of eating meat. But when his girlfriend becomes a vegetarian and animal rights activist, suddenly food is all he thinks about. A true story of how love and vegetarianism can triumph over all else. Love, heartache, and the rest of the ingredients that make a reader laugh, smile, stop-and-think, are all found in this enthralling graphic memoir. Amidst the stories of love and frustration, there are treatises on food, vegetarianism, and the ethics of the animal rights movement (some of it juxtaposed against Michael's graphic wartime experiences). Told with Michael's sardonic perspective and the delightful artwork of debut graphic novelist Chai Simone, this is a journey of true love gone temporarily astray.

Mass Casualties

Mass Casualties
Author: Michael Anthony
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2009-09-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1440504385

From the Introduction:"Look around," the drill sergeant said. "In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can't stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there." It was Week 7 of Basic Training . . . 18 years old and I was preparing myself to die. They say the Army makes a man out of you - but for 18-year-old SPC Michael Anthony, that fabled rite of passage proved a very dark journey. After soliciting his parents’ approval to enlist at only 17, Anthony began his journey with an unshakeable faith in the military born of his family's long tradition of service. But when thrust into a medical unit of misfits as lost as he was, SPC Anthony not only witnessed the unspeakable horror of war—but the undeniable misconduct of the military—firsthand. Everything he ever believed in dissolved, forcing Anthony to rethink his loyalties, and ultimately risk his career—and his freedom—to challenge the military he had so firmly believed in. This searing memoir chronicles the iconic experiences that changed one young soldier forever. A seasoned veteran before the age of twenty-one, he faced the truth about the war - and himself - in this shocking and unprecedented eyewitness account.

Writing for Animals

Writing for Animals
Author: John Yunker
Publisher: Ashland Creek Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2018-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781618220639

A unique anthology of articles and essays to inspire animal-themed creative writing.

Dirtbag

Dirtbag
Author: Amber A'Lee Frost
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2023-12-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1250269636

The victories and failures of millennial socialism, as told by the writer who lived it. Amber A'Lee Frost came to New York City from her home state of Indiana as a working class activist (and member of then-unknown Cold War hold-out, Democratic Socialists of America), just before the first major movement for economic justice of the millennium, Occupy Wall Street. Of course, Occupy went bust, then Bernie Sanders went boom, and she threw herself into the campaign with everything she had. Frost has been one of the foremost evangelists of labor and socialist politics ever since, as a writer, activist, former staff and lifetime member of DSA, and cohost of the wildly popular Chapo Trap House podcast. Dirtbag is the much-anticipated debut from one of the most engaging and insightful writers of her generation. This book is more than a political memoir; it is a chapter in the story of the only movement that has a chance to reshape our world into something better. It captures an electric time of thrilling triumphs, stupid decisions, friendships and rivalries new and old, struggle, joy, setbacks, and heartbreak, all with magnetic prose, remarkable candor, and unflappable humor. Throughout it all, Frost burned the candle at both ends, relentlessly campaigning for socialism and the labor movement, from the American Midwest to the British rust belt, and rallying the troops with her brothers-in-arms as a self-described propagandist for the glorious cause of the workers movement (and somehow, always finding moments for plenty of reckless adventuring). The time was a brutal calamity of work and play, with all of the late nights, hard fights, and joyous camaraderie powered by the hope and the faith that maybe, somehow, this time, socialism could actually win.

Go Ask Alice

Go Ask Alice
Author: Anonymous
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1999-07-13
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0689832494

A teen plunges into a downward spiral of addiction in this classic cautionary tale. January 24th After you’ve had it, there isn't even life without drugs… It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth—and ultimately her life. Read her diary. Enter her world. You will never forget her. For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl’s harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful—and as timely—today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction.

101 Places to Get F*cked Up Before You Die

101 Places to Get F*cked Up Before You Die
Author: Matador Network
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2014-01-07
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1250035597

What Are You Waiting For? Looking for a guidebook that isn't full of tired, lame, or even BS travel information? 101 Places to Get Fucked Up Before You Die brings together the most irreverent and legit accounts of drinking, nightlife and travel culture around the world. Part guide, part social commentary, part party invitation, 101 Places gives you all the info and inspiration you'll need to: * Blowout one (or several) of the year's biggest festivals * MacGyver your way into underground clubs and backcountry raves * Throw down with people from the Himalayas to the salt flats to Antarctica * Travel in every conceivable style—from baller to dirtbag—to some of the most epic spots on earth Do you really know where to go out in San Francisco or Tel Aviv? How about preparing for Burning Man or Oktoberfest? The award-winning journalists and photographers at Matador Network let you know what's up at each spot, whether it's drug policies, how to keep safe, special options for LGBT travelers, or simply where to find the kind of music you like to dance to. No matter if you want to rage at Ibiza or just chill on some dunes smoking shisha, 101 Places has something for you. So, hop a flight, raise a glass, and join us as we breach security, ride ill-recommended ferries, and hike miles into the wilderness all in search of the parties and places going off right now.

Nevada

Nevada
Author: Imogen Binnie
Publisher: MCD x FSG Originals
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2022-06-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0374606625

One of Vogue's Best Books of 2022 So Far, Buzzfeed's Summer Books You Won’t Be Able To Put Down, Book Riot's Best Summer Reads for 2022, and Dazed's Queer Books to Read in 2022 "[Nevada] is defiant, terse, not quite cynical, sometimes flip, addressed to people who think they know. It is, if you like, punk rock." —The New Yorker "Nevada is a book that changed my life: it shaped both my worldview and personhood, making me the writer I am. And it did so by the oldest of methods, by telling a wise, hilarious, and gripping story." —Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby A beloved and blistering cult classic and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction finally back in print, Nevada follows a disaffected trans woman as she embarks on a cross-country road trip. Maria Griffiths is almost thirty and works at a used bookstore in New York City while trying to stay true to her punk values. She’s in love with her bike but not with her girlfriend, Steph. She takes random pills and drinks more than is good for her, but doesn’t inject anything except, when she remembers, estrogen, because she’s trans. Everything is mostly fine until Maria and Steph break up, sending Maria into a tailspin, and then onto a cross-country trek in the car she steals from Steph. She ends up in the backwater town of Star City, Nevada, where she meets James, who is probably but not certainly trans, and who reminds Maria of her younger self. As Maria finds herself in the awkward position of trans role model, she realizes that she could become James’s savior—or his downfall. One of the most beloved cult novels of our time and a landmark of trans literature, Imogen Binnie’s Nevada is a blistering, heartfelt, and evergreen coming-of-age story, and a punk-smeared excavation of marginalized life under capitalism. Guided by an instantly memorable, terminally self-aware protagonist—and back in print featuring a new afterword by the author—Nevada is the great American road novel flipped on its head for a new generation.

Willodeen

Willodeen
Author: Katherine Applegate
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1250147417

From #1 New York Times bestseller Katherine Applegate, a singular middle-grade novel about a girl who risks everything to help a handmade creature who comes to life. The earth is old and we are not, and that is all you must remember . . . Eleven-year-old Willodeen adores creatures of all kinds, but her favorites are the most unlovable beasts in the land: strange beasts known as “screechers.” The villagers of Perchance call them pests, even monsters, but Willodeen believes the animals serve a vital role in the complicated web of nature. Lately, though, nature has seemed angry indeed. Perchance has been cursed with fires and mudslides, droughts and fevers, and even the annual migration of hummingbears, a source of local pride and income, has dwindled. For as long as anyone can remember, the tiny animals have overwintered in shimmering bubble nests perched atop blue willow trees, drawing tourists from far and wide. This year, however, not a single hummingbear has returned to Perchance, and no one knows why. When a handmade birthday gift brings unexpected magic to Willodeen and her new friend, Connor, she’s determined to speak up for the animals she loves, and perhaps even uncover the answer to the mystery of the missing hummingbears. A timely and timeless tale about our fragile earth, and one girl’s fierce determination to make a difference.

Easy Crafts for the Insane

Easy Crafts for the Insane
Author: Kelly Williams Brown
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2021-07-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0593187792

From the New York Times bestselling author of Adulting comes a story about how to make something when you’re capable of nothing. Kelly Williams Brown had 700 Bad Days. Her marriage collapsed, she broke three limbs in separate and unrelated incidents, her father was diagnosed with cancer, and she fell into a deep depression that ended in what could delicately be referred to as a “rest cure” at an inpatient facility. Before that, she had several very good years: she wrote a bestselling book, spoke at NASA, had a beautiful wedding, and inspired hundreds of thousands of readers to live as grown-ups in an often-screwed-up world, though these accomplishments mostly just made her feel fraudulent. One of the few things that kept her moving forward was, improbably, crafting. Not Martha Stewart–perfect crafting, either—what could be called “simple,” “accessible” or, perhaps, “rustic” creations were the joy and accomplishments she found in her worst days. To craft is to set things right in the littlest of ways; no matter how disconnected you feel, you can still fold a tiny paper star, and that’s not nothing. In Easy Crafts for the Insane, crafting tutorials serve as the backdrop of a life dissolved, then glued back together. Surprising, humane, and utterly unforgettable, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the unexpected, messy coping mechanisms we use to find ourselves again.