Demons in the Spring

Demons in the Spring
Author: Joe Meno
Publisher: Akashic Books
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2010-08-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 193607009X

A collection of 20 short stories, with illustrations by 20 artists from the fine art, graphic art and comic book worlds - including Charles Burns, Paul Hornschemeier and Caroline Hwang. The hardback edition was a finalist in the Granta's 2009 Story Prize, alongside the works of Jumpa Lahiri and Tobias Wolff. In these stories, oddly modern moments occur in the most familiar of public places.

Kelsey Brookes

Kelsey Brookes
Author: Hamilton Morris
Publisher: Gingko Press Editions
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2015
Genre: Painting, Abstract
ISBN: 9781584235989

The first published monograph of psychedelic artist Kelsey Brooks, featuring varied papers, printing techniques, and even a booklet bound within. This visual journey through Brooks' work serves as an homage to non-traditional artistic journeys: he originally trained as a biochemist.

Tender As Hellfire

Tender As Hellfire
Author: Joe Meno
Publisher: Akashic Books
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2007-08-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1617750085

From the award-winning author of The Boy Detective Fails: A novel of two brothers growing up on the other side of the tracks. “A trailer park in the Plains town of Tenderloin is the setting of this crusty coming-of-age debut, which features some of the liveliest characters just this side of believable that one is apt to meet in a contemporary novel. The first-person narrator is a moral but susceptible eleven-year-old called Dough, who lusts after his fifth-grade teacher and idolizes his trouble-making older brother, Pill-Bug. The boys, who are new to the town and shamed by the stigma of living in a trailer, were named by a father who wanted them to remain tough and who ended up dying while smuggling cigarettes along a Texas highway. Their mother and her new boyfriend, French, are low-life swingers, allowing the siblings to spend nights with Val, who entertains a slew of men but whom Dough worships as a virginal Madonna. Dough’s own adoring friend is Lottie, a slightly deranged girl who offers Dough a gift of one of her taxidermist father’s specimens; meanwhile, Pill-Bug earns a special affection from Lunna, a high school floozy. Each character is vividly described . . . Meno’s passionate new voice makes him a writer to watch.” —Publishers Weekly

The Boy Detective Fails

The Boy Detective Fails
Author: Joe Meno
Publisher: Akashic Books
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2006-09-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1936070499

In this “charming” and melancholic novel, a former child sleuth “investigates the hard-to-crack case of Lost Innocence” (Entertainment Weekly). A Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist Book of the Year In the twilight of a mysterious childhood full of wonder, Billy Argo, boy detective, is brokenhearted to find that his younger sister and crime-solving partner, Caroline, has committed suicide. Ten years later, Billy, age thirty, returns from an extended stay at St. Vitus’ Hospital for the Mentally Ill to discover the world full of unimaginable strangeness: office buildings vanish without reason, small animals turn up without their heads, and cruel villains ride city buses to complete their evil schemes. Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy befriends two lonely, extraordinary children—one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, he experiences the unendurable boredom of a telemarketing job; encounters a beautiful, desperate pickpocket; and confronts the nearly impossible solution to his sister’s case. Along a path laden with hidden clues and codes, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown. “Haunted by the mystery of his sister’s death and feeling that a lapse in his sleuthing may be to blame, Billy is determined to find out the reason for her suicide and to punish those responsible . . . The story of Billy’s search for truth, love and redemption is surprising and absorbing. Swaddled in melancholy and gentle humor, it builds in power as the clues pile up.” —Publishers Weekly “The author gives Billy a gallery of rogues to combat and even sends him to investigate the Convocation of Evil at a local hotel (‘Featured Panel: To Wear a Mask?’). Meno sets himself a complicated task, marooning his straight-arrow, pulp-fiction protagonist in a world uglier than the Bobbsey Twins ever faced but refusing to go for satire. Instead, the author takes his compulsive investigator at face value.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Comedic, imaginative, empathic . . . investigates the precincts of grief [and] our longing to combat chaos with reason.” —Booklist

How the Hula Girl Sings

How the Hula Girl Sings
Author: Joe Meno
Publisher: Akashic Books
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2013-12-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1617752312

A haunted ex-con returns to his hometown: “Fans of hard-boiled pulp fiction will particularly enjoy this novel” (Booklist). Luce Lemay is out on parole three years after an awful tragedy sent him to prison. In his small Illinois town, he does his best to find hope: in a new job at the local Gas-N-Go; in his companion and fellow ex-con, Junior Breen, who spells out puzzling messages to the unquiet ghosts of his past; and finally, in the arms of the lovely but reckless Charlene. But sorrow and violence lie in his path, in this suspenseful exploration of a country bright with the far-off stars of forgiveness and dark with the still-looming shadow of the death penalty. “A wonderful accomplishment . . . The power is in the writing. Mr. Meno is a superb craftsman.” —Hubert Selby Jr., bestselling author of Last Exit to Brooklyn “The author moves the story along at a surprisingly fast and easy pace.” —Kirkus Reviews “Moving . . . Meno has a poet’s feel for small-town details, life in the joint and the trials an ex-con faces, and he’s a natural storyteller with a talent for characterization.” —Publishers Weekly

Never Mind the Bosses

Never Mind the Bosses
Author: Robin Ryde
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2012-09-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118474473

Over the last few decades, power, information and resources have moved from being concentrated in the hands of a few, to being disbursed across many. We need look no further than events on the world stage to see the heat signature of this – from the arrival of Wikileaks, the Arab Spring of 2011 and the Occupy movements, to the social media revolution and flashpoints such as the British Members of Parliament expenses scandal. All are examples of deep change occurring. This book is about what this means for the workplace and for management. The proposition offered here is that our organisations need to catch up, and that the “death of deference” that we are seeing elsewhere in society needs to be accelerated in the workplace. Systems of deference slow down organisational performance. Deference prevents organisations from learning. It stops them from being agile, innovative and ethical. Deference is the enemy of organisational success and it needs to be dismantled so that in its place we can build modern organisations with a new breed of managers and leaders. This book offers a solution to a problem that belongs in the last century, and a game plan for nothing short of a workplace revolution. "If deference is dead, this book is about the resurrection of the effective manager in a world where nothing is quite the way it used to be. Powerful and thought-provoking from start to finish." - Jeremy Vine, BBC Presenter and Author “Never Mind the Bosses is a refreshing type of management book, it advocates that deference to authority figures needs to go if we are to have engaged workforces.” - Cary L. Cooper, CBE, Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School "An engaging and entertaining romp through the post punk world. By going beyond the boundaries of most business books, Ryde gives us all food for thought about how organisations are, or are not, dealing with a rapidly changing society and workforce." - Jo Owen, bestselling author of ‘How to Manage’ and 'How to Lead' “If you are looking for a book that will shake up your thinking about how to improve your organization’s performance – or worried that your competitors will find it first! – try this one.” - Professor Dutch Leonard, Harvard Business School & Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government

Demons in the Spring

Demons in the Spring
Author: Joe Meno
Publisher: Akashic Books
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2008-09-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1936070871

From the author of Between Everything and Nothing, “an inspired collection of twenty stories, brilliant in its command of tone and narrative perspective” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Demons in the Spring is a collection of twenty short stories by Joe Meno, author of the smash hits The Boy Detective Fails and Hairstyles of the Damned, with illustrations by twenty artists from the fine art, graphic art, and comic book worlds—Todd Baxter, Kelsey Brookes, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Nick Butcher, Steph Davidson, Evan Hecox, Kim Hiorthoy, Paul Hornschemeier, Cody Hudson, Caroline Hwang, kozyndan, Geoff McFetridge, Anders Nilsen, Laura Owens, Archer Prewitt, Jon Resh, Jay Ryan, Souther Salazar, Rachell Sumpter, and Chris Uphues. In these stories, oddly modern moments occur in the most familiar of public places—from offices to airports to schools to zoos to emergency rooms. A young girl refuses to go anywhere unless she’s dressed as a ghost. A bank robbery in Stockholm goes terribly wrong. A teacher becomes enamored with the students in his school’s Model United Nations club. A couple is affected by a strange malady. A miniature city begins to develop in a young woman’s chest. These inventive stories are hilarious, heartbreaking, and unusual. A portion of the author’s proceeds from the book will go directly to benefit 826 CHICAGO, a nonprofit tutoring center, part of the national organization of tutoring centers with branches in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle. Finalist for the 2008 Story Prize Time Out Chicago Best Books of 2008 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2008 “This short story collection succeeds word to word, sentence to sentence, and cover to cover.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)