Books published by Restless Books

Newly introduced by leading Quixote scholar Ilan Stavans, this 400th Anniversary edition of Don Quixote of La Mancha¿called the most popular book in history after the Bible and the first modern novel¿inaugurates Restless Classics: interactive encounters with great books and inspired teachers. Each Restless Classic is beautifully designed with original artwork, a new introduction for the trade audience, and a video teaching series and live online book club discussions led by passionate experts. Described as ¿the novel that invented modernity,¿ Miguel de Cervantes¿s Don Quixote of La Mancha has become since its publication in Spain in two parts¿the first in 1605, the second in 1615¿a machine of meaning, endlessly adapted into ballet, theater, dance, film, music, and television, not to mention a veritable tourist industry. Lionel Trilling argued that ¿all prose fiction is a variation on the theme of Don Quixote.¿ Mark Twain was a passionate fan. Flaubert modeled Madame Bovary after it. Dostoyevsky reimagined its protagonist in The Idiot. And Borges, in his story about Pierre Menard, looked at it as the gravitational center of Hispanic civilization. Milan Kundera fittingly summarized this unstoppable devotion when he said that ¿Cervantes teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question.¿ Of course, Don Quixote has its detractors, too. Nabokov, for instance, maintained it was one of the cruelest narratives ever. Still, after 400 years, the book remains with us, winding improbably through history like the famous errant knight and his companion, Sancho Panza. The commemorative Restless Classics edition, published on the four-hundredth anniversary of its full release, features John Ormsby¿s canonical English translation, illustrations by award-winning Mexican artist Eko, and an insightful, thought-provoking introduction by Ilan Stavans, one of the foremost public intellectuals today. Don Quixote, Stavans writes, is ¿not only a novel but a manual of life. Yoüll find in it anything you need, from lessons on how to speak and eat and love to an exhortation of a disciplined, focused life, an argument against censorship, and a call to make lasting friends, which, in Cervantes¿s words, is `what makes bearable our long journey from birth to death¿.¿ The volume includes access to an interactive series of video lectures by Stavans, available online at restlessbooks.com/quixote. The videos serve as map to this restless classic, which speaks more eloquently than ever to our perennial desire to sacrifice for a dream in order to see its true worth.

"e;Deeply psychological and mysterious, the book will stimulate the imagination of the reader's mind to the extreme."e; -Marina Abramovic "e;In his latest novel, Jodorowsky builds on his multi-decade long assault of the public imagination.... a fantastical and genre-defying parable of love and friendship.... At its core, Albina and the Dog-Men is a love story about two people committed to one another's survival and to discovering their potential. And, as with life, it is sometimes only through the weathering of a storm that our true capacities are made clear."e; -NPR BooksWhen two women-an amnesiac goddess and her protector, a leather-tough woman called Crabby-arrive in a Chilean desert town, Albina's otherworldly allure and unfettered sensuality turn men into wild beasts. Chased by a clubfooted corrupt cop, evil corporate overlords, giant-hare-riding narcos, and Himalayan cultists, Albina and Crabby must find a magical cactus that will cure Albina and the men's monstrous affliction before the town consumes itself in an orgy of lust and violence.Albina and the Dog-Men is Alejandro Jodorowsky's darkly funny, shocking, and surreal hybrid of mystical folktale, road novel, horror story, and social parable, ultimately uniting in a universal story of love against the odds and what makes us human.

¿Ruth Ozeki, a Zen Buddhist priest, sets herself the task of staring at her face in a mirror for three full, uninterrupted hours; her ruminations ripple out from personal and familial memories to wise and honest meditations on families and aging, race and the body.¿ ¿Minneapolis Star TribuneWhat did your face look like before your parents were born? In The Face: A Time Code, bestselling author and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki recounts, in moment-to-moment detail, a profound encounter with memory and the mirror. According to ancient Zen tradition, ¿your face before your parents were born¿ is your true face. Who are you? What is your true self? What is your identity before or beyond the dualistic distinctions, like father/mother and good/evil, that define us?With these questions in mind, Ozeki challenges herself to spend three hours gazing into her own reflection, recording her thoughts, and noticing every possible detail. Those solitary hours open up a lifetime's worth of meditations on race, aging, family, death, the body, self doubt, and, finally, acceptance. In this lyrical short memoir, Ozeki calls on her experience of growing up in the wake of World War II as a half-Japanese, half-Caucasian American; of having a public face as an author; of studying the intricate art of the Japanese Noh mask; of being ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest; and of her own and her parents¿ aging, to paint a rich and utterly unique portrait of a life as told through a face.Alternately philosophical, funny, personal, political, and poetic, the short memoirs in The Face series offer unique perspectives from some of our favorite writers. Find out more at www.restlessbooks.com/the-face.

The forces of science, human error, and power run amok all collide in a wildly inventive, funny, and razor-sharp political satire about Putin¿s Russia, from one of the country¿s most fearless journalists.When a scientist experimenting on humans in a sanatorium near Moscow gives a growth serum to a dwarf oil mogul, the newly heightened businessman runs off with the experimenter¿s wife, and a series of mysterious deaths and crimes commences. Fantastical and wonderfully strange, this political parable has an uncanny resonance with today¿s Russia under Putin.Oleg Kashin is a famous Russian journalist and activist who, in 2010, was beaten to within an inch of his life by unknown assailants, in an attack most likely politically motivated by his reporting. The events of Fardwor, Russia! (the title is taken from a flag with a slogan¿¿Forward, Russia!¿¿gone wrong) could seem grotesque, if they did not so eerily echo the absurd state of affairs in modern Russia. Under Putin¿s regime, authors dare to criticize the state of affairs and affairs of the state only through veiled satire¿and even then, as Kashin¿s experience shows, the threat of repercussions is real.A witty, playful, brave, and incisive work that blends science fiction with political satire, Fardwor, Russia! is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Russiäor the hilarious and frightening follies of power.

¿A Planet for Rent is the English-language debut of Yoss, one of Cuba's most lauded writers of science fiction. Translated by David Frye, these linked stories craft a picture of a dystopian future: Aliens called xenoids have invaded planet Earth, and people are looking to flee the economically and socially bankrupt remains of human civilization. Yoss' smart and entertaining novel tackles themes like prostitution, immigration and political corruption. Ultimately, it serves as an empathetic yet impassioned metaphor for modern-day Cuba, where the struggle for power has complicated every facet of society¿ ¿NPR, Best Books of 2015Out of the modern-day dystopia of Cuba comes an instant classic from the island¿s most celebrated science fiction author: a raucous tale of a future in which a failing Earth is at the mercy of powerful capitalist alien colonizers.In A Planet for Rent, Yoss critiques life under Castro in the `90s by drawing parallels with a possible Earth of the not-so-distant future. Wracked by economic and environmental problems, the desperate planet is rescued, for better or worse, by alien colonizers, who remake the planet as a tourist destination. Ruled over by a brutal interstellar bureaucracy, dispossessed humans seek better lives via the few routes available¿working for the colonial police; eking out a living as black marketeers, drug dealers, or artists; prostituting themselves to exploitative extraterrestrial visitors¿or they face the cold void of space in rickety illegal ships.This inventive book marks the English-language debut of an astonishingly brave and imaginative Latin American voice.