Docile (Hardcover)

By K.M. Szpara

$27.99

This book. THIS BOOK. It's a queer, upgraded reimagining of 50 Shades that's also an indictment of capitalism and an exploration of bondage, consent, and privilege. Obviously, I loved it. In this highly plausible future world, personal debt never goes away, but is passed down through generations. To survive and avoid prison, inheritors of these burdensome legacies can sell themselves and their debt to the unforgivably wealthy. Dociline is what gets them through it, a drug that forces compliance and numbs users to the pain and indignity of their situation. But when Elisha becomes a Docile to Alex, he refuses to take it, determined to hold onto his true self. But there's more than one way to control someone... Here Szpara presents such a nuanced look at power dynamics, both within a BDSM relationship and on a sociopolitical level. It's uncomfortable at times, but in a way that feels important. Docile is incredibly hot, troubling, and thought-provoking--K.M. Szpara has written the exact book I want to read!

Malina (Paperback)

By Ingeborg Bachmann, Philip Boehm (Translated by), Rachel Kushner (Introduction by)

$16.95

Malina explores the mind of a woman experiencing fascism's faceless undercurrents in the "freedom" of postwar society. The narrator does not mince words: to even think of transcending this world, beyond the binary of man and woman and all our society's power structures, would mean "murder," in every sense. Quotidian, lurid, surreal, radical -- and all veiled in a love triangle of sorts. This novel belongs to our moment as much as any.