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Newsletter, Vol I, No. 1, August 2009
Tim Gatto Gaining Traction
"Homer for Real: A Reading of the Iliad" Is Oliver's Second Book
What Else Is Coming Up?
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Tim Gatto's From Complicity to Contempt Gains Traction
  
Tim GattoTim Gatto's voice is deservedly beginning to find its readers, and may it continue to do so. The complete title of Tim's book is FROM COMPLICITY TO CONTEMPT: An American Writer and Veteran Speaks Out Against American Lies, and it consists of a masterful selection from two years' worth of Tim's political--AND impassioned AND hilarious--blogs, almost all of them followed up by short comments where Tim looks back and tells us a thing or two about what's happened since.
 
What everybody needs to remember--and what Tim's many faithful readers already know--is what kind of intelligent fun there's to be had in reading Tim Gatto. As we said last time, "Here's a new, honest, absolutely unaffected voice that's part Mark Twain, part Ring Lardner, part E.L.Mencken--and a great basketful of Tim Gatto." Tim is writing about the most serious of things--but never for a nano-second is he boring, and never for a nano-second does his native wit disappear.

To read a sampler of pieces from Tim's book, go to Tim's Oliver page and, at the bottom, click on "Download a Sampler." Then, back on Tim's page, you can actually buy his book. 
 
For author interviews, to request review copies, or for more information, please contact Gabrielle LeMay, Oliver 's Publicity Director and Editorial Associate, at lemaynyc@aol.com.
Eric Larsen's Homer for Real: A Reading of the Iliad aims to reach readers of every kind--in this fist of a series called "Great Literature for Regular People."
 
Eric LarsenIf you've never read the Iliad, it's possible that this little book could be just the way for you to get a start on it. If you remember hating the great epic because it was taught by the most boring instructor the imagination of all of the gods could ever have produced--well, this book will offer a second shot at the poem that's likely to work out better. And if, like so many others, you're plain old intimidated by the "great classics," Homer for Real is for you. Eric Larsen was like that. Bored to tears by his first classics prof, he could barely stand the Iliad. Then, as a professor himself, he taught it--for 40 years! Afterward, he decided to write about what it was that made him come to love the poem. He brings the epic alive by citing passages, then analyzing what's really going on and why. We not only learn about the culture of Homer's time, but also understand the action through present day analogies. That's the purpose and aim of Homer for Real, first of a series called Great Literature for Regular People: A Course of Readings Drawn from a Life in the Classroom. It's user-friendly but it doesn't simplify. Chances are good that it's a book for you.
 
Again, to request review copies or to ask for more information, please contact Gabrielle LeMay at lemaynyc@aol.com
 
By the way, Eric has written another installment in an ongoing series asking whether "The Literary Life Can Continue to Exist in a post-1984 Nation." The new installment asks a question most pertinent: "What's Wrong with Self-Publication? And Why Is It More Important Now than Ever Before?" Just  click on the title to read every word.
What's Coming Up?

Banner RevisedAdam Engel's TOPIARY--A Novel will soon be going into production. This is a vital and important novel--a book that crackles with the energy of a powerful intellect mixed with equal parts of passion, vision, urgency, and depth. And yet, Engel's novel is also in the great tradition of serious books that come out of the kiln of humor, from the droll to the witty and even to the laugh-out-loud. There was a time when the publication of books like this one were called " literary events." This time, it really will be.

Equally exciting is Gregory Marszal's first volume of poetry, THE CHROMOSOMES OF SUMMER. This book, by a greatly gifted poet, offers up both great beauties and extraordinary depths of feeling and seeing--qualities rare in any genre but especially rare (strange as this may sound to some ears) in most of the poetry of our day. Marszal plays on the entire keyboard, making for dazzling effects and heart-breaking recognitions again and again. THE CHROMOSOMES OF SUMMER will touch and absorb even readers who may not think that they're "poetry people." Stay tuned for more news about the book.
 
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With every best wish,
Publisher and President