The Useless Man

Sait Faik Abasiyanik was born in Adapazari in 1906 and died of cirrhosis in Istanbul in 1954. He wrote twelve books of short stories, two novels, and a book of poetry. His stories celebrate the natural world and trace the plight of iconic characters in society: ancient coffeehouse proprietors and priests, dream-addled fishermen adn poets of the Princes' Isles, lovers and wandering minstrels of another time. Many stories are loosely autobiographical and deal with Sait Faik's frustration with social convention, the relentless pace of westernization, and the slow but steady ethnic cleansing of his city. His fluid, limpid surfaces might seem to be in keeping with the restrictions that the architects of the new Republic placed on language and culture, but the truth lies in their dark, subversive undercurrents. Sait Faik donated his estate to the Daruşafaka foundation for orphans, and this foundation has since been committed to promoting his work. His former family home on Burgazada was recently restored, and now functions as a museum honoring his life and work. He is still greatly revered: Turkey's most prestigious short story award carries his name and nearly every Turk knows by heart a line or a story by Sait Faik.

Depicts the mental torments of a young Russian who is induced to spy on his friends for the Czar following the events of Bloody Sunday

Today, the “wretched of the earth” are no longer those oppressed by colonization, but rather the unemployed and the working poor, migrants and refugees, landless peasants depending on public or familial assistance to survive—in a word, the economically useless. Uselessness is the most pernicious form of inequality, because it drives these men and women into traps of poverty from which escape is all but impossible. Drawing on economic theory, political philosophy, and demographic and scientific projections on human population and natural resources throughout the twenty-first century, renowned economist and author Pierre-Noël Giraud exposes the alarming ways that the rise of uselessness defined as such—not only lack of value in a labor market, but also the inability to independently improve one’s own standing—fuels the global resurgence of populism, engendering social and political risks from demagoguery and intolerance to mass migrations and civil war. Like environmental change, economic uselessness is a reality from which nations and societies can no longer hide—and it is this urgency that may show us the way forward. The Useless Man concludes with a series of carefully reasoned recommendations concerning nature and climate, globalization, and finance, all evaluating potential public policies by how effectively they stand to stem the growth of uselessness. A lucid assessment of our current geopolitical situation and a stirring forecast of what will happen if we fail to act quickly and collaboratively on a global scale, The Useless Man is an essential, compassionate addition to the debate around economic inequality and its political consequences. Pierre-Noël Giraud is professor of economics at Mines ParisTech, Paris Dauphine University, and the EMINES School of Industrial Management in Morocco, as well as a member of the National Academy of Technologies of France. He is the author of a number of landmark books on economics, of which The Useless Man is the first published in English.

In New York in the middle of the twentieth century, comic book companies figured out how to make millions from comics without paying their creators anything. In San Francisco at the start of the twenty-first century, tech companies figured out how to make millions from online abuse without paying its creators anything. In the 1990s, Adeline drew a successful comic book series that ended up making her kind-of famous. In 2013, Adeline aired some unfashionable opinions that made their way onto the Internet. The reaction of the Internet, being a tool for making millions in advertising revenue from online abuse, was predictable. The reaction of the Internet, being part of a culture that hates women, was to send Adeline messages like 'Drp slut ... hope u get gang rape.'Set in a San Francisco hollowed out by tech money, greed and rampant gentrification, I Hate the Internet is a savage indictment of the intolerable bullshit of unregulated capitalism and an uproarious, hilarious but above all furious satire of our Internet Age.

A classic, smart comedy in which a college professor attains mankind's oldest dream: the ability to fly...sort of... George Entmen just turned forty, and he can't complain. He is a respected hermeneutics professor, beloved by friends and family, and ready to drift quietly into tenured middle age. But then, he discovers he can fly. Sure, he can only fly very, very slowly, and he only flies three or four inches above the ground . . . But why does this nonetheless amazing phenomenon drive so many people into a rage? Why do he and his family find themselves dodging livid magicians, scheming billionairesses, and, perhaps worst of all, angry hermeneuticians? Beneath all the chaos, his gift has to have a meaning. But to find it, George needs to understand one thing his friend and guru keeps telling him: "You're not flying, you're being flown."

Joshua Isard’s debut novel is a hoot. Our hero Nathan Wavelsky moves into the burbs with his wife. Life is good. He’s a successful slacker. He doesn’t want to rock the boat. His definition of a good time is listening to his favorite bands on his iPod and staring at the grass and the poplar trees in his backyard. As a mid-level corporate manager, he does what his bosses tell him. If they want somebody fired, he fires them. No questions asked. But the boat does start to rock. He innocently gives a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle to a teenage girl and his neighbors are righteously appalled. His wife’s hormones start to tango and now she wants a baby. Sure, he enjoys sex, but that doesn’t mean he wants a baby in the house. Worse, his best friend wants him to climb Mount Everest. Nathan likes the solitude of camping and hiking, but climbing in the Himalayas? He could die, for God’s sake. He just wants to be left alone. But no chance. Shit begins to happen. Joshua Isard developed and is the director of Arcadia University’s low-residency MFA Creative Writing program. Since the program is high tech and has a study abroad component, it gives him a chance to enjoy two of his favorite things at work: travel and Apple products. His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and in the anthologies The Lie of the Land and Outlandish Affairs. He lives outside Philadelphia with his wife and two cats.

On Whidbey Island, the Gray quintuplets are the stuff of legend. Pixie and her brothers have always been bigger and blonder than their neighbors, as if they were birthed from the island itself. Together, they serve as an unofficial search-and-rescue team for the island, saving tourists and locals alike from the forces of wind and sea. But, when a young boy goes missing, the mysteries start to pile up. While searching for him, they find his mother’s dead body instead—and realize that something sinister is in their midst. Edgar-nominated author M. J. Beaufrand has crafted another atmospheric thriller with a touch of magical realism that fans of mystery and true crime will devour.