Books published by Melville House Publishing

"A lucid, bright and essential work of reporting, analysis and genuine care. Peter Ward has given us a new way to think about private endeavors in space. Superb."⁠-Rivka Galchen, author of Little LaborsThis in-depth work of reportage dares to ask what's at stake in privatizing outer spaceEarth is in trouble-so dramatically that we're now scrambling to explore space for valuable resources and a home for permanent colonization. With the era of NASA's dominance now behind us, the private sector is winning this new space race. But if humans and their private wealth have made such a mess of Earth, who can say we won't do the same in space?In The Consequential Frontier, business and technology journalist Peter Ward is raising this vital question before it's too late. Interviewing tech CEOs, inventors, scientists, lobbyists, politicians, and future civilian astronauts, Ward sheds light on a whole industry beyond headline-grabbing rocket billionaires like Bezos and Musk, and introduces the new generation of activists trying to keep it from rushing recklessly into the cosmos. With optimism for what humans might accomplish in space if we could leave our tendency toward deregulation, inequality, and environmental destruction behind, Ward shows just how much cooperation it will take to protect our universal resource and how beneficial it could be for all of us.

Berlin's hip present comes up against the city's dark past in these seven supernatural tales by the son of the great filmmaker who "shares his father's curious and mordant wit" (The Financial Times).In these hair-raising stories from the celebrated filmmaker and author Rudolph Herzog, millennial Berliners discover that the city is still the home of many unsettled-and deeply unsettling-ghosts. And those ghosts are not very happy about the newcomers. Thus the coddled daughter of a rich tech executive finds herself slowly tormented by the poltergeist of a Weimer-era laborer, and a German intelligence officer confronts a troll wrecking havoc upon the city's unbuilt airport. An undead Nazi sympathizer romances a Greek emigre, while Turkish migrants curse the gentrifiers that have evicted them. Herzog's keen observational eye and acid wit turn modern city stories into deliciously dark satires that ride the knife-edge of suspenseful and terrifying.

The New York Times Bestseller This is the full text, Volumes 1 and 2, of special counsel Robert Mueller''s investigation. It is THE REPORT AND NOTHING BUT THE REPORT, in a beautifully typeset edition, with full searchability in ebook formats, presented exactly as released by the Attorney General of the United States, with no positioning—such as a celebrity introduction—that would give it a bias or impede its clarity. One of the most-talked-about investigations in American history, the subject of constant media discussion and speculation, non-stop and controversial attacks from the president, and the eager anticipation of a public wondering what the truth is, this long-awaited publication is an historic event. The Mueller Report continues Melville House''s "tradition of publishing pivotal public documents."—The New York Times

A dazzling, inventive literary adventure story in which Captain Ahab confronts Captain Nemo and the dark cultural stories represented by both characters are revealed in cliffhanger fashion.A sprawling adventure pitting two of literature's most iconic anti-heroes against each other: Captain Nemo and Captain Ahab. Caught between them: real-life British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the century's greatest ship, The Great Eastern. But when he's kidnapped by Nemo to help design a submarine with which to fight the laying of the Translatlantic cable - linking the two colonialist forces Nemo hates, England and the US - Brunel finds himself going up against his own ship, and the strange man hired to protect it, Captain Ahab, in a battle for the soul of the 19th century.

"Boucher makes the world come alive by making language come alive." -George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo A WILDLY INVENTIVE, HEARTBREAKING, AND HILARIOUS NEW NOVEL ABOUT A MAN WHOSE LIFE IS FALLING APART . . . IN VERY BIZARRE WAYS . . . After his wife announces on Twitter that she's leaving him, Christopher's life in small-town Coolidge just goes from one catastrophe to another. He contracts a strange illness that divides him in half, undergoes a failure competition, and is driven to join a cult called The Unloveables. How did it all get this bad? How can he regain his bearings, and find meaning and love once again? Heartfelt and riotously imaginative, Big Giant Floating Head is the daring, dazzling account of a man's struggle with love, loss and redemption.

A portrait of a woman stranded between her hometown and a new city, naivete and cynicism, welcoming togetherness and the nagging feeling of somehow being apart ...The woman lives on a cul-de-sac with her lover and her dog. She is smart and sensible. She buys groceries and goes to work. And she finds herself reliving her childhood memories while she waits--for what, she is not sure.In the tradition of Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti, The Ballad of Big Feeling reveals the mind of a woman perched before middle age and confronting the hidden contradictions and intricacies of everyday life.In the hands of an exciting new writer, Ari Braverman, it's a tale both spare and spacious, textured and poetic, frustrating and funny -- a delicately crafted volume that will linger in the mind of the reader long after they've put it down. It is, in short, a startling and assured debut.

A collection of the very first, the very last, and the very best interviews conducted with Prince over his nearly 40 year career.There is perhaps no musician who has had as much influence on the sound of contemporary American music than Prince. His pioneering compositions brought a variety of musical genres into a singular funky and virtuosic sound. In this remarkable collection, and with his signature mix of seduction and demur, the late visionary reflects on his artistry, identity, and the sacrifices and soul-searching it took to stay true to himself. An Introduction by Hanif Abdurraqib offers astute, contemporary perspective and brilliantly contextualizes the collected interviews.

A delightful collection of interviews with the beloved Julia Child--"The French Chef," author, and television personality who revolutionized home cooking in 20th century AmericaThis delightful collection of interviews with "The French Chef" Julia Child traces her life from her first stab at a writing career fresh out of college; to D.C., Sri Lanka, and Kunming where she worked for the Office of Strategic Services (now the CIA); to Paris where she and her husband Paul, then a member of the State Department, lived after World War II, and where Child attended the famous cooking school Le Cordon Bleu. From there, Child catapulted to fame--first with the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961 and the launch of her home cooking show, "The French Chef" in 1963. In this volume of carefully selected interviews, Child's charm, guile, and no-nonsense advice are on full, irresistibly delicious display. Includes an Introduction from Helen Rosner, food critic for the New Yorker.

Kathy Acker was a punk-rock counter-cultural icon, and innovator of the literary underground. The interviews collected here span her amazing, uncompromising, and often misunderstood 30-year career.From Acker's earliest interviews--filled with playful, evasive, and counter-intuitive responses--to the last interview before her death where she reflects on the state of American literature, these interviews capture the writer at her funny and surprising best. Another highlight includes Acker's 1997 interview with the Spice Girls on the forces of pop and feminism (which reads as if it could have been conducted with a new generation of pop star in 2018).

"This book is a daring intervention to get us back in the game-and a witty, delightfully personal meditation on collective power." -Naomi Klein The energy on the left has never been higher. But because there are so many issues to tackle, each one more urgent and divisive than the next, some say progressives will once again fail to seize the moment and gain real power. But what if we're getting the story all wrong? In The Marginalized Majority, Onnesha Roychoudhuri makes the galvanizing case that our plurality of identities is not only our greatest strength, but is also at the indisputable core of successful progressive change throughout history. From the civil rights movement to the Women's March, mainstream media to Saturday Night Live, Roychoudhuri illuminates how historical narratives are written and, by holding the myths about our disenfranchisement up to the light, reveals we have far more power than we're often led to believe. With both clear-eyed hope and electrifying power, she examines our ideas about what's possible, and what's necessary-opening up space for action, new realities, and, ultimately, survival. Now, Roychoudhuri urges us, is the time to fight like the majority we already are.

As the Black Lives Matter movement gains momentum, and books like Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me and Claudia Rankine's Citizen swing national attention toward the racism and violence that continue to poison our communities, it's as urgent now as ever to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., whose insistence on equality and peace defined the Civil Rights Movement and forever changed the course of American history. This collection ranges from an early 1961 interview in which King describes his reasons for joining the ministry (after considering medicine), to a 1964 conversation with Robert Penn Warren, to his last interview, which was conducted on stage at the convention of the Rabbinical Assembly, just ten days before King's assassination. Timely, poignant, and inspiring, Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Last Interview is an essential addition to the Last Interview series.

A brilliant modernist classic--now available for the first time in a stand-alone editionThis dreamy, formally audacious story of a summer's day in the life of one family is a small masterpiece by Katherine Mansfield, hailed as "one of the great modernist writers. Virginia Woolf said of Mansfield, hers was "the only writing I have ever been jealous of."A modernist master of cool precision and extraordinary delicacy, Mansfield wrote about family life with a sharp radicalism, and At the Bay is one of her greatest works. Told in thirteen parts, beginning early in the morning and ending at dusk, At the Bay captures both the Burnell family's intricate web of relatives and friends, and the dreamy, unassuming natural beauty of Crescent Bay. Haunting but ever understated, At the Bay is as timeless novella, and a testament to Mansfield's remarkable powers.