"Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority."
—Arthur Schoenhauer, Aphorisms
(Our Quote of the Week is taken from The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations, Charles Bufe, ed. When we're in the mood, we change our Quotation of the Week between 15:00 and 18:00 GMT on Monday mornings; ditto for our Definition of the Week.)
Definition of the Week
DEMOCRATIC PARTY, n. 1) The "good cop" in the biennial good cop/bad cop mugging of the American public; 2) A political party which has persevered and prospered for over two centuries without, curiously, ever having had any principles to betray.
Our Definition of the Week is taken from
The Devil's Dictionaries (Second Edition, revised & expanded): The Best of The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Biercee, and
The American Heretic's Dictionary, by Chaz Bufe. This week's definition is by Bufe.
About See Sharp Press
See Sharp Press (distributed to the book trade by Independent Publishers Group) is a cause-driven small press, dedicated to making the world a freer, more rational place. We publish nonfiction in the areas of anarchism, atheism, music intruction/reference, psychology, skepticism, and classic anarchist/socialist/atheist reprints. Our other niche is anti-authoritarian science fiction. If you'd like more info, here 'tis.
(Privacy Policy: We do not collect user info. We contact those who order from us only once, to acknowledge their orders. And we never share information with anyone.)
New Releases
 The Bassist's Bible Second Edition: How to Play Every Bass Style from Afro-Cuban to Zydeco, by Tim Boomer. This greatly expanded second edition is brimming with new features: both standard musical notation and tablature for all written musical examples; a DVD with 93 video tracks; the audio tracks for the 192 musical examples on the book's 2 CDs are twice as long as the tracks on the CDs in the original edition; many lengthier, more comprehensive chapters; and dozens of new written bass grooves (approximately 450 total). Styles covered include blues, rock, jazz, salsa, bossa nova, samba, ska, reggae, rai, country, cajun/zydeco, funk, metal polka, punk, surf, and klezmer.
Bass Player said of the original edition: "This cool new book will prove useful on many a working pro's reference shelf." The new second edition is more comprehensive, considerably longer, and much more user friendly than the original edition. It's now a book for all bass players, from beginning students to working pros.
 Culture Wars: The Threat to Your Family and Your Freedom, by Marie Alena Castle. Boldly stated and passionately argued, this wide-ranging book analyzes the impact religion has on culture and daily life in the United States. Culture Wars delves into the theology of intrusive religions, and goes on to shows that many of our laws are based in religious belief and have harmful effects on individuals and society.
Culture Wars graphically describes religious intrusions into the most intimate aspects of our lives—our rights to contraception, abortion, the right to marry, end-of-life decisions—and how preferential treatment of religious institutions harms all of us financially. Culture Wars shows in detail that religious encroachment into public life is far more serious and far more pervasive than symbolic religious displays in public places. The book ends with a call to arms—a call to resist the authoritarian intrusions into our daily lives by the religious right, America's Taliban.
 The Best of Social Anarchism, Howard Ehrlich and a.h.s. boy editors. Social Anarchism is one of the longest-running and most respected anarchist journals in the United States. Since its appearance in 1980, the journal has published hundreds upon hundreds of articles by writers such as Janet Biehl, Brian Martin, Brian Morris, and Colin Ward.
At over 400 pages, this massive collection contains an introduction by Jeff Shantz, Howard Ehrlich's highly amusing history of the journal, and Social Anarchism's 30 best articles divided into five major categories: 1) Theory; 2) Practice; 3) Education; 4) Notable historic figures; 5) Contemporary voices.
Recent Releases
 The Hour of Lead, by Kathleen De Grave, our most recent science fiction release, is set in a near-future Kansas beset by catastrophic climate change. This novel of ever-shifting realities explores how individual choices affect society, how careerism and academic ambition affect medical experiments, and how local solutions affect global problems.
- The Messiah Game Part II: The Messiah Emerges, by Tom Flynn, continues Tom's far-future tale of a conniving messiah figure on a post-apocalyptic world. In its review of the book, the San Diego Union Tribune stated: "The twining yarns of the multiple plots weave seductively and the reader cares about the characters and their conditions." The review on the Infinity Plus site called the book "Endlessly thought-provoking. Tremendous fun."
 Free Radicals: A Novel of Utopia and Dystopia, by Zeke Teflon, takes a sharp, darkly humorous look at political repression, interstellar colonization, political and religious cults, and playing the blues in dive bars in the late 22nd century.
Reviews for the book have been favorable:
"Solidly entertaining . . . reminiscent of early Mick Farren" —Publishers Weekly (online)
"[T]he plot holds the reader's interest and should appeal to a fairly broad audience." —Booklist Online
"[Free Radicals] is among the best future-shock reads in years. . . . If we lived in the '60s and '70s—when audience-rattling paperbacks like Naked Lunch were cheap, plentiful and available on pharmacy-spinner racks— critics would hail Free Radicals as a masterpiece." —Tucson Weekly
"Absolutely funny. . . . A very enjoyable read: . . . humorously offensive entertainment with a big dose of reality that made me laugh out loud." —Westernsfa.org
Upcoming Releases
- In late May, we'll publish the third and final volume in Tom Flynn's science fiction trilogy, The Messiah Game, Tom's very funny look at far-future religious meddling on a primitive world.
- In August we'll issue Nicholas Oakley's science fiction novel, The Watcher, which takes a critical look at consensus process and primitivism.
- And in September we'll issue The Youngest Bishop in England, by Robert Bridgstock, a memoir of life in the Mormon Church, and an exposé of that church.
Editorial Comment
If you're concerned about the Obama Administration's war on dissent, you're not alone. Since its advent, the Obama Administration has aggressively persecuted whistle blowers, such as Thomas Drake, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, and Anonymous; it has aggressively persecuted dissenters, notably the Occupy Movement; it has shielded the criminals in the Bush Administration responsible for torture, being asleep at the switch prior to 9/11, and for lying the U.S. into an illegal war of aggression; and it has shielded the criminals on Wall Street responsible for the largest financial fraud in world history and the collapse of the economy.
Among its other dissent-crushing actions, the Obama Administration has attempted to strangle Wikileaks financially by (successfully) pressuring the credit card companies and Paypal to refuse to process donations for the whistle-blowing group. Thanks to Glenn Greenwald, Daniel Ellsberg, John Cusack, and other defenders of free speech, there is once again a way to donate. The Freedom of the Press Foundation is now accepting donations for Wikileaks and other whistle-blowing groups. We urge you to support the Foundation and the groups it in turn supports.
Miscellany
- With the appearance of the expanded second edition of The Bassist's Bible, the original edition is no longer available via commercial booksellers. However, we still have a few dozen copies of the original edition and will be selling them at $10 each until they're gone.
- Unfortunately, because of the recent extreme increases in the costs of overseas shipping, we no longer sell books (or anything else) directly to overseas buyers. Our in-print books, however, are distributed in Canada and Europe, so readers in those countries can still obtain See Sharp Press titles via normal commercial channels.
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