Melville House: 350 books
The Scapegoat
A Novel
Language: English
Release Date: February 3, 2015
An engrossing and richly panoramic novel from a major new writer, based on a true story...
In 1948, the body of an American journalist is found floating in the bay off Thessaloniki. A small-time Greek journalist is tried and convicted for the murder...but when he's released twelve years later,...
by Hans Fallada
Language: English
Release Date: September 8, 2009
Language: English
Release Date: September 8, 2009
Based on a true story, this never-before-translated masterpiece was overlooked for years after its author—a bestselling writer before World War II who found himself in a Nazi insane asylum at war’s end—died just before it was published.
In a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin...
The Science Delusion
Asking the Big Questions in a Culture of Easy Answers
Language: English
Release Date: May 28, 2013
One of our most brilliant social critics—author of the bestselling The Middle Mind—presents a scathing critique of the “delusions” of science alongside a rousing defense of the tradition of Romanticism and the “big” questions.
With the rise of religion critics such as Richard Dawkins,...
Networks of New York
An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure
Language: English
Release Date: August 30, 2016
A guided tour of the physical Internet, as seen on, above, and below the city’s streets
What does the Internet look like?
It’s the single most essentail aspect of modern life, and yet, for many of us, the Internet looks like an open browser, or the black mirrors of our phones and...
How to Do Nothing
Resisting the Attention Economy
Language: English
Release Date: April 23, 2019
A galvanizing critique of the forces vying for our attention—and our personal information—that redefines what we think of as productivity, reconnects us with the environment, and reveals all that we’ve been too distracted to see about ourselves and our world
Nothing is harder to do these...
Ada's Algorithm
How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age
Language: English
Release Date: October 14, 2014
“[Ada Lovelace], like Steve Jobs, stands at the intersection of arts and technology."—Walter Isaacson, author of The Innovators
Over 150 years after her death, a widely-used scientific computer program was named “Ada,” after Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate daughter of the eighteenth...
The Dark Net
Inside the Digital Underworld
Language: English
Release Date: June 2, 2015
An Independent and New Statesman Book of the Year
Beyond the familiar online world that most of us inhabit—a world of Google, Facebook, and Twitter—lies a vast and often hidden network of sites, communities, and cultures where freedom is pushed to its limits, and where people can be anyone,...
A Religious Orgy in Tennessee
A Reporter's Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial
Language: English
Release Date: December 29, 2010
"The native American Voltaire, the enemy of all puritans, the heretic in the Sunday school, the one-man demolition crew of the genteel tradition."
—Alistair Cooke
Fiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, H.L. Mencken’s coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so...
The Right Way to Do Wrong
A Unique Selection of Writings by History's Greatest Escape Artist
Language: English
Release Date: October 30, 2012
One of the most intriguing and recognized figures of the twentieth century conducts a masterclass in subversion
Originally published in 1906, The Right Way to Do Wrong was a masterclass in subversion conducted by the world’s greatest illusionist. It collected Houdini’s findings, from...
The Courage of Hopelessness
A Year of Acting Dangerously
Language: English
Release Date: February 6, 2018
In THE COURAGE OF HOPELESSNESS, maverick philosopher Slavoj Zizek returns to explore today's ideological, political and economic battles, and asks whether radical change is possible.
In these troubled times, even the most pessimistic diagnosis of our future ends with an uplifting hint that...
Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbors
Against the Double Blackmail
Language: English
Release Date: October 4, 2016
Called "the Elvis of cultural theory*"* by The New York Times, popular philosopher and leftist rabble-rouser Slavoj Zizek, looks at one of the most desperate situations of our time: the current refugee crisis overwhelming Europe.
In this short yet stirring book, Zizek argues that...
This Chair Rocks
A Manifesto Against Ageism
Language: English
Release Date: March 5, 2019
From childhood on, we're barraged by messages that it's sad to be old. That wrinkles are embarrassing, and old people are useless. Author and activist Ashton Applewhite believed them too - until she realised where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. Lively, funny, and deeply researched,...
Stuffed and Starved
The Hidden Battle for the World Food System - Revised and Updated
Language: English
Release Date: June 5, 2012
Completely updated and revised edition of one of the most widely-praised food books of recent years.
It’s a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before, while there are also more people who are overweight.
To find out how we got to this point...
by Heinrich Boll
Language: English
Release Date: May 31, 2011
Language: English
Release Date: May 31, 2011
A unique entry in the Böll library, Irish Journal records an eccentric tour of Ireland in the 1950's. An epilogue written fourteen years later reflects on the enormous changes to the country and the people that Böll loved. Irish Journal is a time capsule of a land and a way of life that has disappeared.