The Naked World

In a world stripped bare of digital images and promotainment, unveiled with the audiovisual overlay of the ImmaNet, in an exposed world, a naked world, Amon Kenzaki awakens, lost and alone. He must now travel deep into the District of Dreams in search of Rashana Birla, the one person that might help him unravel the mystery of jubilee. But deprived of the apps and informational tools he’s depended on his entire life, traversing the largest bankdeath camp on Earth is no easy task. Inside an ephemeral labyrinth of slowly-dissolving disposable skyscrapers clogged to the limit with the bankdead masses, Amon soon finds himself face to face with two dangerous groups: a cult called the Opportunity Scientists, who preach bizarre superstitions about economic salvation, and a supposedly humanitarian organization called the Philanthropy Syndicate, whose mandate of serving the poor conceals rapacious motives. Amon takes refuge in Xenocyst, a community that genuinely strives to improve conditions in the camps, where he begins to work towards its cause and reconciles himself to his newfound poverty. But when political forces threaten the community’s existence and the lives of its members, he is forced to team up with a vending-machine designer, an Olympic runner, a fertility researcher, a corporate tycoon, and many others to expose the heinous secret festering at the heart of the action-transaction market he once served. In book two of the Jubilee Cycle, Eli K. P. William delves beneath the surface of his cyber-dystopian Tokyo to unearth the fate of outcasts trapped in its depths and shine a light on the financial obstacles blocking one individual’s efforts to help them. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

“A thorough yet thoroughly digestible book on the ubiquity of data gathering and the unraveling of personal privacy.” —Daniel Pink, author of Drive Thanks to recent advances in technology, prediction models for individual behavior grow more sophisticated by the day. Whether you’ll marry, commit a crime or fall victim to one, or contract a disease are becoming easily accessible facts. The naked future is upon us, and the implications are staggering. Patrick Tucker draws on fascinating stories from health care to urban planning to online dating. He shows how scientists can predict your behavior based on your friends’ Twitter updates, anticipate the weather a year from now, figure out the time of day you’re most likely to slip back into a bad habit, and guess how well you’ll do on a test before you take it. Tucker knows that the rise of Big Data is not always a good thing. But he also shows how we’ve gained tremendous benefits that we have yet to fully realize.

The first full cultural history of the ultimate modern structure: the airport, revealed as never before ... Since its origins in the muddy fields of flying machines, the airport has arguably become one of the defining institutions of modern life. In Naked Airport, critic Alastair Gordon ranges from global geopolitics to action movies to the daily commute, showing how airports have changed our sense of time, distance, travel, style, and even the way cities are built and business is done. Gordon introduces the people who shaped this place of sudden transportation: pilots like Charles Lindberg, architects like Eero Saarinen, politicians like Fiorello La Guardia, and Hitler, who built Berlin's Tempelhof as a showcase for Fascist power. He describes the airport's futuristic contributions, such as credit cards, in the form of fly-now-pay-later schemes, and he charts its shift in popular perception, from glamorous to infuriating. Finally, he analyzes the airport's function in war and peace—its gatekeeper role controlling immigration, its appeal to revolutionaries since the hijackings of the 1960s, and its new frontline position in the struggle against terror. Compelling and accessible, Naked Airport is an original history of a long-neglected yet central creation of modern reality and imagination.

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) emerged alongside Pound, Eliot, Stevens, Frost, and Yeats as one of the foremost poets of the 20th century. Paterson, Williams's epic masterpiece, raised everyday American speech to the highest levels of poetic imagination. A finalist for the national Book Award and a New York Times Notable Book, William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked is a remarkable, rich blend of art and scholarship. From a small-town doctor who delivered more than 3,000 babies to an extraordinary revolutionary, Paul Mariani unfolds Williams' life and times while simultaneously letting the reader inside the poet's mind and language in this definitive masterwork.

A cyber-dystopian thriller unlike any other. In a near future Tokyo, every action—from blinking to sexual intercourse—is intellectual property owned by corporations that charge licensing fees. A BodyBank computer system implanted in each citizen records their movements from moment to moment, and connects them to the audio-visual overlay of the ImmaNet, so that every inch of this cyber-dystopian metropolis crawls with information and shifting cinematic promotainment. Amon Kenzaki works as a Liquidator for the Global Action Transaction Authority. His job is to capture bankrupt citizens, remove their BodyBank, and banish them to BankDeath Camps where they are forever cut off from the action-transaction economy. Amon always plays by the rules and is steadily climbing the Liquidation Ministry ladder. With his savings accumulating and another promotion coming, everything seems to be going well, until he is asked to cash crash a charismatic politician and model citizen, and soon after is charged for an incredibly expensive action called “jubilee” that he is sure he never performed. To restore balance to his account, Amon must unravel the secret of jubilee, but quickly finds himself asking dangerous questions about the system to which he’s devoted his life, and the costly investigation only drags him closer and closer to the pit of bankruptcy. In book one of the Jubilee Cycle, Cash Crash Jubilee, debut novelist Eli K. P. William wields the incisive power of speculative fiction to show how, in a world of corporate finance run amok, one man will do everything for the sake of truth and justice. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

A Times Higher Education Book of the Year Uprisings spread like wildfire across the Arab world from 2010 to 2012, fueled by a desire for popular sovereignty. In Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere, protesters flooded the streets and the media, voicing dissent through slogans, graffiti, puppetry, videos, and satire that called for the overthrow of dictators and the regimes that sustained them. Investigating what drives people to risk everything to express themselves in rebellious art, The Naked Blogger of Cairo uncovers the creative insurgency at the heart of the Arab uprisings. “A deep dive into the cultural politics of the Arab uprisings...Kraidy’s sharp insights and rich descriptions of a new Arab generation’s irrepressible creative urges will amply reward the effort. Reading Kraidy’s accounts of the politically charted cultural gambits of wired Arab youth rekindles some of the seemingly lost spirit of the early days of the Arab uprisings and offers hope for the future.” —Marc Lynch, Washington Post “The Naked Blogger of Cairo is a superb and important work not just for scholars but for anyone who cares about the relationships between art, the body, and revolution.” —Hans Rollman, PopMatters

Dressing the Naked Hand is for anyone interested in the art of puppetry. Teachers, amateurs, and even professionals will find new ideas and inspiration in the designs created by this trio of puppet enthusiasts. Includes trade secrets, tips, and how-to’s on puppetry unlike anything that has been published before. Puppets aren't just for looking at; they are for doing, and as we found out, they have a mind of their own. This one-of-a-kind how-to is not only an invaluable resource for the puppet artist, but a joy to read. From tongue-in-cheek humor to outright laugh-out-loud hijinks, this book teaches and tells the real story—from a puppet’s point of view. And, while the full-color and detailed how-to and finished puppet illustrations give you most of what you need, if you choose to read the text, well . . . it’s worth your time.

With the mission to “lay naked before the world the true meaning of chocolate,” David Wolfe and Shazzie present a spirited and unconventional history, materia medica, and recipe book for the world’s most pleasurable food: chocolate. This book describes the wonders of cacao–where it comes from, how it is processed, its three varieties, and its origins and role in pre-Columbian cultures of the Americas. It explains the scientific properties and health benefits of chocolate, and elaborates how you will lose weight, soothe your heart, double your joy, increase your sensuality, nourish your intellect, and attract prosperity by eating it!In contrast to most books about chocolate, this one focuses on the raw cacao bean, or “naked” chocolate. Of course, this chocolate manual wouldn’t be complete without a step-by-step guide on what to do with the cacao beans, and over sixty original and mouthwatering chocolate recipes guaranteed to enhance your life.

Welcome to the world of the naked corporation. Transparency is revolutionizing every aspect of our economy and its industries and forcing firms to rethink their fundamental values. We are in an extraordinary age where businesses must make themselves clearly visible to shareholders, customers, employees, partners, and society. Financial data, employee grievances, internal memos, environmental disasters, product weaknesses, international protests, scandals and policies, good news and bad; all can be seen by anyone who knows where to look. Don Tapscott, bestselling author and one of the most sought after strategists and speakers in the business world, is famous for seeing into the future and pointing out both its forest and its trees. David Ticoll, visionary researcher, columnist, and consultant, has identified countless breakthrough trends at the intersection of technology and business strategy. These two longtime collaborators now offer a brilliant guide to the new age of openness. In The Naked Corporation, they explain how the new transparency has caused a power shift toward customers, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders; how and where information has exploded; and how corporations across many industries have seized on transparency not as a challenge but as an opportunity. Drawing on such examples as Shell Oil’s reinvention of itself as an environmentally focused business, to Johnson & Johnson’s longstanding and carefully nurtured reputation as a company worthy of trust—as well as little-known examples from pharmaceuticals, insurance, high technology, and financial services—Tapscott and Ticoll offer invaluable advice on how to lead the new age, rather than simply react to it. The Naked Corporation is a book for managers, employees, investors, customers, and anyone who cares about the future of the corporation and society.