McSWEENEY’S NEW RELEASE SUBSCRIPTION
Giving this subscription as a gift? Click here to download an official printable PDF gift notice.
Get our next six books sent straight to your mailbox prior to or immediately upon publication with our official McSweeney’s New Release Subscription. On their own these books can retail for anywhere from $16 to $30, so dollar for book, McSweeney’s New Release Subscription is far and away the best deal we’ve ever put together, and very possibly the best subscription deal out there. With a future full of uncertainty at home and abroad, we’ve got a packed schedule of exciting new releases planned to make sure that one thing you CAN rely on is amazing new books from McSweeney’s Publishing.
Take a look at what you’ll have coming your way:
Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison by Ahmed Naji
Translated by Katharine Halls
In February 2016, Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison for “violating public decency,” after an excerpt of his novel Using Life reportedly caused a reader to experience heart palpitations. Naji ultimately served ten months of that sentence, in a group cellblock in Cairo’s Tora Prison.
Rotten Evidence is a chronicle of those months. Through Naji’s writing, the world of Egyptian prison comes into vivid focus, with its cigarette-based economy, homemade chess sets, and well-groomed fixers. Naji’s storytelling is lively and uncompromising, filled with rare insights into both the mundane and grand questions he confronts.
How does one secure a steady supply of fresh vegetables without refrigeration? How does one write and revise a novel in a single notebook? Fight boredom? Build a clothes hanger? Negotiate with the chief of intelligence? And, most crucially, how does one make sense of a senseless oppression: finding oneself in prison for the act of writing fiction? Genuine and defiant, this book stands as a testament to the power of the creative mind, in the face of authoritarian censorship.
Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize
New to town and delusionally confident, Slide imagined himself living in a glossy building with doormen and sweeping views of the skyline. Instead he’s landed in a creaking, stuffy apartment with two roommates: a loping giant who hardly leaves his room, and a weight-obsessed neurotic who keeps no fewer than forty-seven lamps throughout the house, blazing at all hours.
Unwilling to accept this fate, Slide—a barber with an opaque past—embarks on a quest for the perfect apartment, pinballing through the sprawling, madcap city of Polis and its endless procession of neighborhoods. As he bounces from foldout couch to disaster-relief tent, falling in with some tough types, Slide begins to realize that he’s going to have to scratch and claw just to claim a place for himself in this world—let alone a place with in-unit laundry.
An exuberant, fantastical odyssey, Pay As You Go wonders if what we’re searching for is ever really out there. Its pages—surreal, biting, and teeming with life—announce the startling talents of Eskor David Johnson, who knows that all any of us really want is a place to rest our head.
IMPORTANT LOGISTICAL INFORMATION: All subscriptions placed by October 1, 2023 will begin with Rotten Evidence. Exact book order liable to change due to unforeseen delays. All McSweeney’s New Release Subscriptions automatically renew after six books. Before the start of each six-book renewal, and in the case of any future rate changes, we will notify you via email. If you’d like to cancel your subscription at any time prior to its auto-renewal, you can log in to your account and adjust your subscription settings. Or send an email to custservice@mcsweeneys.net with the subject line “End New Release Autorenew.” Refunds will be accepted only up until the first issue of your renewal is shipped. Any subscription purchased with the “gift” option marked at checkout will not be enrolled in autorenew.
International shipping costs for a six-book subscription: $50
Get our next six books sent straight to your mailbox prior to or immediately upon publication with our official McSweeney’s New Release Subscription. On their own these books can retail for anywhere from $16 to $30, so dollar for book, McSweeney’s New Release Subscription is far and away the best deal we’ve ever put together, and very possibly the best subscription deal out there. With a future full of uncertainty at home and abroad, we’ve got a packed schedule of exciting new releases planned to make sure that one thing you CAN rely on is amazing new books from McSweeney’s Publishing.
Take a look at what you’ll have coming your way:
Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison by Ahmed Naji
Translated by Katharine Halls
In February 2016, Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison for “violating public decency,” after an excerpt of his novel Using Life reportedly caused a reader to experience heart palpitations. Naji ultimately served ten months of that sentence, in a group cellblock in Cairo’s Tora Prison.
Rotten Evidence is a chronicle of those months. Through Naji’s writing, the world of Egyptian prison comes into vivid focus, with its cigarette-based economy, homemade chess sets, and well-groomed fixers. Naji’s storytelling is lively and uncompromising, filled with rare insights into both the mundane and grand questions he confronts.
How does one secure a steady supply of fresh vegetables without refrigeration? How does one write and revise a novel in a single notebook? Fight boredom? Build a clothes hanger? Negotiate with the chief of intelligence? And, most crucially, how does one make sense of a senseless oppression: finding oneself in prison for the act of writing fiction? Genuine and defiant, this book stands as a testament to the power of the creative mind, in the face of authoritarian censorship.
Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize
New to town and delusionally confident, Slide imagined himself living in a glossy building with doormen and sweeping views of the skyline. Instead he’s landed in a creaking, stuffy apartment with two roommates: a loping giant who hardly leaves his room, and a weight-obsessed neurotic who keeps no fewer than forty-seven lamps throughout the house, blazing at all hours.
Unwilling to accept this fate, Slide—a barber with an opaque past—embarks on a quest for the perfect apartment, pinballing through the sprawling, madcap city of Polis and its endless procession of neighborhoods. As he bounces from foldout couch to disaster-relief tent, falling in with some tough types, Slide begins to realize that he’s going to have to scratch and claw just to claim a place for himself in this world—let alone a place with in-unit laundry.
An exuberant, fantastical odyssey, Pay As You Go wonders if what we’re searching for is ever really out there. Its pages—surreal, biting, and teeming with life—announce the startling talents of Eskor David Johnson, who knows that all any of us really want is a place to rest our head.
IMPORTANT LOGISTICAL INFORMATION: All subscriptions placed by October 1, 2023 will begin with Rotten Evidence. Exact book order liable to change due to unforeseen delays. All McSweeney’s New Release Subscriptions automatically renew after six books. Before the start of each six-book renewal, and in the case of any future rate changes, we will notify you via email. If you’d like to cancel your subscription at any time prior to its auto-renewal, you can log in to your account and adjust your subscription settings. Or send an email to custservice@mcsweeneys.net with the subject line “End New Release Autorenew.” Refunds will be accepted only up until the first issue of your renewal is shipped. Any subscription purchased with the “gift” option marked at checkout will not be enrolled in autorenew.
International shipping costs for a six-book subscription: $50