Morocco Bound

Until attention shifted to the Middle East in the early 1970s, Americans turned most often toward the Maghreb—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and the Sahara—for their understanding of “the Arab.” In Morocco Bound, Brian T. Edwards examines American representations of the Maghreb during three pivotal decades—from 1942, when the United States entered the North African campaign of World War II, through 1973. He reveals how American film and literary, historical, journalistic, and anthropological accounts of the region imagined the role of the United States in a world it seemed to dominate at the same time that they displaced domestic social concerns—particularly about race relations—onto an “exotic” North Africa. Edwards reads a broad range of texts to recuperate the disorienting possibilities for rethinking American empire. Examining work by William Burroughs, Jane Bowles, Ernie Pyle, A. J. Liebling, Jane Kramer, Alfred Hitchcock, Clifford Geertz, James Michener, Ornette Coleman, General George S. Patton, and others, he puts American texts in conversation with an archive of Maghrebi responses. Whether considering Warner Brothers’ marketing of the movie Casablanca in 1942, journalistic representations of Tangier as a city of excess and queerness, Paul Bowles’s collaboration with the Moroccan artist Mohammed Mrabet, the hippie communities in and around Marrakech in the 1960s and early 1970s, or the writings of young American anthropologists working nearby at the same time, Edwards illuminates the circulation of American texts, their relationship to Maghrebi history, and the ways they might be read so as to reimagine the role of American culture in the world.

After eleven years, Richard finally felt he possessed the necessary skills to put his first, and most adventurous trip yet, down on paper. This is his story. This is a book about a rather ordinary man who had an extraordinary adventure. At thirty-seven, Richard wanted excitement so embarked on a month-long, solo motorbike ride from England to Morocco and back. What he didn't realise was that he was about to get a little more excitement than he bargained for. He was shot at somewhere around the Morocco/Algeria border, he rode through a minefield, completely lost his way in the blistering fifty-degree heat of the desert, got blind drunk in Alicante and cartwheeled his bike down the road in Ibiza. He also experienced many wonderful characters, moments of pure joy, intense emotion and enlightenment that changed him as a human. This book is not only about his adventure, but also about Richard's progress as a person and his battles with his past.

Pineapples in the Pool is a collection of poems about falling in love and having your heart broken; they’re about moving around and feeling a little bit lost; growing older and having no idea what life is about but having a go anyway. They’re also about how handsome Dev Patel is and how great it is to eat crisps in your underwear and old lady vaginas. So a mixed bag really. If you like your poetry lighthearted and hopeful with a splattering of celebrity adoration then Pineapples in the Pool is for you. The author’s own mother once described the poems as “actually quite good”, and with praise as good as that, how can you resist?

With the discovery of a fossil on Mars and the threat of an asteroid heading for Earth, a frustrated American President is forced to reconsider his legacy. He decides to do something big for humanity, and orders the first manned mission to Mars. Surmounting seemingly impossible hurdles, the maverick scientist Ford Harris discovers how to make it happen. There is one crucial problem: the weight of any ordinary crew would be too great for the rocket to return home. And so Ford proposes a bold new idea – replacing the adult crew with a group of gifted children. An exciting and fascinating story, featuring beautiful illustrations and informative scientific notes, The Other Things explores our sense of wonder. Are we alone in the universe? How do we make our existence count? And what could still be possible for humankind?