Welcome to this week’s Free Book Friday, wherein we give you the best titles in indie publishing for the low low price of nothing. Congrats to last week’s winner Mike W for snagging a copy of Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet.

This week, we are giving away a copy of The Withdrawal Method by Pasha Malla. The Withdrawal Method gives us worlds where Niagara Falls has run dry, where cream meant to curb skin cell rejuvenation can be purchased, and where ancient frustrated chess masters unwittingly invent machines that alter the course of history. Reminiscent of Lorrie Moore, Haruki Murakami, and George Saunders, these worlds are haunting, captivating, and constructed with a poise and precision that reaches beyond technical skill. You can read excerpts from Malla’s story “Pushing Oceans In and Pulling Oceans Out” on the Soft Skull Press website.

This week’s Free Book Friday is sponsored by Soft Skull Press. Read more »

Welcome to this week’s Free Book Friday, wherein we give you the best titles in indie publishing for the low low price of nothing. Congrats to last week’s winner Ardith for snagging a copy of Osama Van Halen by Michael Muhammad Knight.

This week, we are giving away a copy of Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet. Lions, rabbits, monkeys, pheasants—all have shared the spotlight and tabloid headlines with famous men and women. Sharon Stone’s husband’s run-in with a Komodo dragon, Thomas Edison’s filming of an elephant’s electrocution and David Hasselhoff’s dogwalker all find a home in Love in Infant Monkeys. At the rare intersections of wilderness and celebrity, Lydia Millet hilariously tweaks these unholy communions to run a stake through the heart of our fascination with pop icons and the culture of human self-worship. You can read Millet’s short story “The Lady and the Dragon” on the Soft Skull Press website.

This week’s Free Book Friday is sponsored by Soft Skull Press. Read more »

Welcome to this week’s Free Book Friday, wherein we give you the best titles in indie publishing for the low low price of nothing. Congrats to last week’s winner Scott Kennedy for snagging a copy of Floodmarkers by Nic Brown.

This week, we are giving away a copy of Osama Van Halen by Michael Muhammad Knight. Amazing Ayyub, an Iranian Shi’ite skinhead, and his sidekick Rabeya have hijacked Matt Damon, demanding that Hollywood depict Muslims in a positive light—”just one movie where we’re not these two-dimensional al Qaeda stereotypes.” But Damon’s concerned they’re playing into that same terrorist paradigm and furthering a neo-conservative perception of Islam. Meanwhile, Ayyub embarks on a mission to rid taqwacore of a Muslim pop-punk band, Shah 79. Along the way he makes himself invisible, escapes punk-eating zombies in a mosque off the desert highway, runs into some psychobilly jinns, and finds himself face to face with his creator, the author…a riotous journey of enlightenment. (But not all hilarious: At the end of the novel, Knight is decapitated by Rabeya.) You can read an excerpt of Osama Van Halen on the Soft Skull Press website.

This week’s Free Book Friday is sponsored by Soft Skull Press. Read more »