Oliver's treasured emblem of historicity, unflagging dedication to humanism and its traditions, and belief in the value and purpose of literary writing--that is, Isotta Nagarola (1418-1466),  of Florence, Italy, pictured to the right--has moved with us from our own web site to a new location on Facebook. Please come visit us there and, among other things, see our new and growing photo album, "Covers and Others."  And, of course, follow all the news from The Oliver Arts & Open Press as it unfolds.

                                                                            

The major pages of Oliver's web site have been  revised in the interest of making them more clear, focused, and accurate in explaining what Oliver is, how it works, and what it stands for. One of the things you'll find there, if you read, say, "The Brute Facts of Being a Publisher Without Assets" on the HOW OLIVER WORKS page, is this sentence: 

Nicely rhythmic, it means that Oliver has no money but does have high aims and a belief in achieving them. We're not asking for money, although if someone has an extra million and wants to give some of it away, well, "Oliver is willin.'" Something else, though, that Oliver desperately needs and WILL ask for  is lots and lots and lots of EMAIL ADDRESSES!

 

Oliver can't buy advertising space (much too dear), but it CAN send  out emailings about what it's doing, what's happening, and when. Right now, in fact, email (well, email and Facebook) is Oliver's chief, almost sole, means of connecting with the world and of trying to get the world to connect back with Oliver in return.

 

And that's something that Oliver really WILL ask you for, even beg and plead for: Email addresses.

 

Everyone has friends and relatives, true? And those friends and relatives have THEIR friends and relatives, right? And many, many of the people making up this ever huger group are interested in good books, right? In books not to be found elsewhere? In books significantly unlike "all the others"? AND in books--like Kimchee Days and Homer for Real and I Am Not Dead and the forthcoming Ablong and I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague, and Listening to the Thunder--that make terrific gifts for, well, friends, family, relatives, acquaintances at those many and varied times when gifts are called for and the recipients are alert, indepently thinking, self-sufficient adult people. No present is more worth giving than a book--especially when it's given to a person who still thinks for him or herself, and especially also when it's  a book that's not "like all the others."

 

And so Oliver begs of you: SEND IN THE EMAIL ADDRESSES OF PEOPLE YOU'RE CERTAIN WOULD LIKE TO BE ON OLIVER'S MAILING LIST. And tell other people how interesting it is to receive news of Oliver books, and urge THEM them to send in their own email addresses, or urge THEM to sign up by themselves (something so simple as to click the box where it says, "Join Our Mailing List").

 

And Oliver will say: THANK YOU!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watch for Adam Engel, whom all readers who are in the know  will remember for his dazzling, brilliant, truth-telling--and, oh, yes, dystopic--novel, TOPIARY. Preternaturally gifted and unsurpassably learned as a writer, Engel appears again--a publication date of 9/11/2010--with I HOPE MY CORPSE GIVES YOU THE PLAGUE: MY LIFE IN THE BUSH ERA OF GHOSTS.

 

Oliver said a while back and will say again that CORPSE is "a clock-stopping, head-spinning, intellectual and emotional  feast of  hilarious, outraged essays, every one of them exposing another tumor in the diseased body politic of a dying America. All the essays were posted earlier this century on the most influential political sites on the internet, and rightly so. Adam Engel is prophet and poet in one."

And then we have Alan Salant, whose first novel, ABLONG, will  come from Oliver in October. What--or who--is Ablong? Read this:

 

Unlike Humbert Humbert, Professor Wilson Ablong has no special problem with pubescent girls--although young men, or one in particular (non-sexually), makes for another story. This one happens to be his son.
 
Past sixty, Ablong is a genius, Nobel  winner, a man envied by the world--and absolutely unable to admit to himself that he's miserable, despairing, incapacitatingly lonely, and--well, sometimes terrified about what being alive even means. But he's going to find out before novel's end.
 
His story is one of the richest, funniest, most moving tales of a life transformed since Lucky Jim, although this time around there's more that's ontological though yet not a syllable less that's hilariously funny. Don't miss Ablong as he, at long last, discovers his real self and takes you along with him.

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In November, Oliver will bring out Helen Tzagoloff's wonderful and wonderfully sympathetic first book-length collection of poetry, LISTENING TO THE THUNDER.

 

Born in Russia, where she has memories of World War II, Tzagoloff came to the U.S. as a young girl and, from her own curiously charmed--and often troubled--perspective, observed the changes taking place from the 1950's onward.