Skylight Books Podcast Series

Farrah Penn, "TWELVE STEPS TO NORMAL"

Eight months ago, Kira's father was sent to rehab for alcoholism and she was forced to move in with her aunt across the country. She left behind everything--her best friends, her boyfriend, her dance team, and the life she'd known and loved. Now her father's done with rehab and wants her back home. But the normal life she once knew proves elusive--her friends are distant, one of them is dating her ex, and her dad brought home three strangers from rehab to live with them.

Is there any way to get back the life she once had? Kira embarks on her own twelve-step program to try to find some normalcy. But somewhere along the way, she learns that while some broken things can't be put back exactly the way they were, they can be repaired, and sometimes made even stronger.

Life, love, and loss come crashing together in this achingly authentic debut by Farrah Penn that will catch you and hold you close till the very end.

Penn is in conversation with Nicola Yoon, the author of The Sun Is Also a Star and Everything, Everything.

Mallory Ortberg, "THE MERRY SPINSTER"

Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children's stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief. Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night.

Author Mallory Ortberg is joined in conversation by Michelle Dean, a journalist, critic, and the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle’s 2016 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.

Mr. Fish, "AND THEN THE WORLD BLEW UP"

What do you get when you cross a fistful of pens and an enormous stack of blank paper with somebody who resents the sweet-smelling muzzle of good manners and polite conversation, will go to his grave insisting that phuck is not a four-letter word, has never been able to hold a 9 to 5 job for more than a handful of meager months, who regularly permits himself the crude grace of giving a shit about absolutely everything, and who delights in always saying the wrong thing at the right time in contempt of every expectation that the naked truth is at all obscene?

You get And Then the World Blew Up, a collection of cartoons, illustrations, personal essays and culture-war correspondence from an author who's just trying to defuse the apocalyptic bomb that is the miracle of our Creation. Drawn, painted, and collaged in Mr. Fish’s many virtuosic styles, And Then the World Blew Up is an eloquent take-no- prisoners response to American political life. 

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, "WRESTLING WITH THE DEVIL"

Written in the early 1980s and never before published in America, this compelling prison memoir gives readers a rare glimpse into the hidden story behind one of Ngũgĩ’ wa Thiong'o's most famous novels. Beginning literally half an hour before Ngũgĩ’s release on December 12, 1978, Wrestling with the Devil: A Prison Memoir recounts both the intense drama and painful challenges of writing fiction under twenty-four-hour surveillance.

Joy Press, "STEALING THE SHOW"

In Stealing the Show: How Women are Revolutionizing Television, journalist and television critic Joy Press celebrates the women who broke through male-dominated Hollywood and helped change the face of television forever.

Drawing on scores of interviews with key participants in this revolution, Stealing the Show is a revelatory story about the women who changed not just what we see on television but the culture in which we live.

Wallace Shawn, "NIGHT THOUGHTS"

Writer and actor Wallace Shawn's probing, honest, and self-critical take on civilization and its discontents.

Although he is guided and inspired by the people he respects, and despite the insufficiency of his knowledge and experience—an insufficiency shared by most (or all) other humans, Wallace Shawn can’t see any real alternative to trying to figure out his own answers to the most essential questions about the world he lives in.

Having recently passed the age of seventy, before which he found it difficult to piece together more than a few fragments of understanding, Shawn would like to pass on anything he's learned before death or dementia close down the brief window available to him, but he may not be ready yet.

Elizabeth Flock, "THE HEART IS A SHIFTING SEA"

We may view India as a country steeped in, and perhaps constrained by, tradition, yet in the twenty-first century the pervasive influence of Western culture touches the lives of all ethnicities, classes, and religions. In her enveloping work of narrative nonfiction, The Heart is a Shifting Sea, journalist Elizabeth Flock, a reporter for PBS NewsHour, offers a penetrating look into three contemporary Mumbai marriages that reveals the surprising diversity and complexity of marital life in the largest metropolis of that evolving nation.

Alec Byrne, "LONDON ROCK"

What happened on the music scene in 1960s and 1970s London was nothing short of a cultural revolution. At the center of this heyday was photographer and teenager Alec Byrne, who, because of his talent and tenacity, landed a job capturing rock and roll’s greatest legends for various British media outlets. After ten years, Byrne packed up his archive and moved to Los Angeles where these photos remained in Byrne’s garage, sequestered from the public for close to forty years.

Now, Insight Editions will publish London Rock: The Unseen Archive, a striking compilation of Byrne’s never-before-seen images documenting an unprecedented time in music history. From The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie to Jimi Hendrix, The Who and The Doors, Byrne’s unique portraits, rare concert performance shots, and intimate candids, offer a distinct perspective of rock stars celebrated and known around the world. With a signature style that fuses artistry and a documentarian’s eye, Byrne’s collection is a coveted back-stage pass to many rock stars’ rise to stardom. Containing more than 250 pages of untouched and uncompromised high-quality photos, this recently unearthed collection of rock and roll history brings the era into stunning focus, painting an evocative picture of an inimitable time and place.

Kim Purcell, "THIS IS NOT A LOVE LETTER"

This Is Not a Love Letter, by award-winning author Kim Purcell, is a both intimate and immediate love story examining race, loss, and mental health in small town America. 

Every Friday since they started dating, Chris has written Jessie a love letter. Then, days before graduation, popular, attractive, college-bound Chris vanishes. Now Jessie is writing Chris a letter of her own to tell him everything that’s happening while he’s gone. Jessie searches for answers. The police think he's run away, but she doesn't believe it. He disappeared while going for a run along the river—the same place where some boys beat him up just three weeks ago. Chris is one of the only black kids in a depressed paper mill town, and Jessie is terrified of what might have happened.

As the police investigate, Jessie and others speak up about the harassment Chris experienced and the danger he could be in. There are people in Jessie's town who are infuriated by the suggestion that a boy like Chris would be a target of violence. They threaten Jessie, and smear Chris’s character. As tensions escalate, Jessie must face her own fear and guilt. What really happened to Chris?

Tender and unflinching, This Is Not a Love Letter is an emotionally devastating examination of love, life, and the ties that bind, and what happens to those left behind when they break. 

"CULPRITS" Anthology Reading

A hard-bitten crew of professional thieves pull off the score of their lives, coming away with seven million in cash. Like any heist there are some unforeseen complications; a hitch or two and a couple of bodies drop. But despite this, they get away with the swag. Enough to change their lives, make new identities, start fresh. But that’s when the real trouble begins...In this unique, riveting, linked anthology, we follow each culprit as they go their separate ways after the heist, and watch as this perfect score ends up a perfect nightmare. Featuring stories penned by acclaimed writers Brett Battles, Gar Anthony Haywood, Zoë Sharp, Manuel Ramos, Jessica Kaye, Joe Clifford and David Corbett, Culprits shows that sometimes the end means things are just getting started...

Christopher Zeischegg, "BODY TO JOB"

Former porn star Christopher Zeischegg (aka Danny Wylde), gathers six years of writing into one definitive collection. A memoir of an adult film career from beginning to end and a life lived after, marked by post-porn dysphoria. Interspersed with select fiction, Zeischegg writes about youthful naivete, sex worker love, pro-porn activism, disenchantment, and violence. Body to Job is the ex-porn star's third book, and his most comprehensive to date—an explicit work of vulnerability, longing, terror, and life.  

Morgan Jerkins, "THIS WILL BE MY UNDOING"

As one of the fiercest and most powerful critics writing today, Morgan Jerkins is a rising star in the literary world. Praised by such icons as Roxane Gay and Alexander Chee, Jerkins establishes herself in This Will Be My Undoing as an insightful and brutally honest writer who isn’t afraid of tackling tough and controversial subjects. Not just a personal essay collection, Jerkins mines her own experience growing up black and female for moments that lead into bigger, more universal discussions about urgent issues facing black women today, such as the paradox of black female sexuality, dating men who say they “don’t see color”, and being objectified, silenced, and marginalized in ways that are rarely acknowledged in our country’s larger discussion about inequality.

Set against the backdrop of a divided nation under the Trump administration when racism and misogyny are on full public display, Jerkins masterfully tackles real issues about intersectionality, diversity, and privilege. Whether Jerkins is writing about the highly problematic Rachel Dolezal, “good hair,” being a black visitor in Russia, or her complex relationship with her own physical body, the portrait that emerges in This Will Be My Undoing is deeply intimate yet entirely universal.

Tavi Gevinson, "ROOKIE ON LOVE"

Tavi Gevinson returns to start the New Year off right with Rookie on Love, an anthology about the heart's most powerful emotion. Featuring exclusive, never-before-seen essays, poems, comics, and interviews from contributors like Jenny Zhang, Emma Straub, Hilton Als, Janet Mock, John Green, Rainbow Rowell, Gabourey Sidibe, and many more, this collection is the perfect reflection on love in its many forms.

Tee Franklin, "BINGO LOVE"

When Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray met at church bingo in 1963, it was love at first sight. Forced apart by their families and society, Hazel and Mari both married young men and had families. Decades later, now in their mid-’60s, Hazel and Mari reunite again at a church bingo hall. Realizing their love for each other is still alive, what these grandmothers do next takes absolute strength and courage. From Tee Franklin (Nailbiter’s The Outfit, Love is Love) and Jenn St-Onge (Jem & The Misfits), Bingo Love is a touching story of love, family, and resiliency that spans over 60 years.

Franklin is in conversation with award-winning television and comic book writer Amanda Deibert.

Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, "CALL ME ZEBRA"

National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi has been hailed as an author “on the verge of developing a whole new literature movement” (Bustle) and, now, her new novel, Call Me Zebra, affirms her “brilliant, demented” (Kirkus) genius as she explores the ways in which we cope with grief, our unresolved histories, and the tangled depths of love.

More than a decade after fleeing Iran during the height of the Iraq War, Zebra, now an orphan, must face life in exile alone, with literature as her only armor. To reconcile her past and uncertain future, Zebra embarks on a literary pilgrimage, leaving America to retrace her family’s dislocation. As she traverses the vast expanse of the Western Mediterranean, she’s guided by the sage words of Cervantes,Borges, Stendhal, and Dali. But her journey back to Iran quickly derails in Barcelona when Ludo, a stalwart realist mystified by her intensity, enters the picture and the two begin a sexy, if fraught, affair.