Edited by William J. Savage Jr. and Dan Simon
The Man with the Golden Arm is Nelson Algren's most powerful and enduring work. On the 50th anniversary of its publication in November 1949, for which Algren was honored with the first National Book Award (which he received from none other than Eleanor Roosevelt at a ceremony in March 1950), Seven Stories released the first critical edition of an Algren work.
With special contributions by Russell Banks, Bettina Drew, James R. Giles, Carlo Rotella, William Savage, Lee Stringer, Studs Terkel, Kurt Vonnegut, and others.
Collected in
Books That Shook the WorldFor way down there, in a shot glass's false bottom, everything was bound to turn out fine after all.
Books That Shook the World: A November Promotion in Partnership with Indie Bookstores!
In the age of online retailers and large corporate bookstores, independent booksellers can find themselves struggling to keep up. That’s why Seven Stories Press is partnering with indie bookstores for a series of new promotions to encourage readers to buy our books in ways that benefit both booksellers and publishers. The collaboration began in August, with Seven Stories offering indie bookstores a unique discount on a collection of seven themed titles. The first two collections were “For Human Rights, Against War” and “Women in Translation.” The same collections were also featured on the Seven Stories website.
To go with the featured collections, Seven Stories is holding a book display contest, in which indie booksellers compete to construct the best display showcasing the featured titles. Each winner is selected by the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) and awarded $300. The wonderful winner from our first display, Curious Iguana in Frederick, MD, is featured in the photo above.
This initiative sprang from the question of how independent publishers can leverage their web presence in a way that also benefits independent booksellers. Eileen Dengler, the executive director of NAIBA, and Todd Dickinson, NAIBA’s president and the co-owner of his own indie bookstore, both believe that Seven Stories’s promotional indie partnership is a crucial first step to addressing this question.
Dan Simon, the founder of Seven Stories Press, said the idea for the promotion and contest materialized through conversations with Dengler and Dickinson about ways that publishers can support indies through their approaches to online sales. Dickinson said that of all the publishers NAIBA spoke with about possible partnership, Seven Stories “came back the strongest” and “were the most interested in developing some sort of pilot program” to support indies. Simon acknowledges that the promotional program may adapt over time, but he, Dickinson, and Dengler are confident that the collaboration will have a positive impact on indie booksellers.
From November 15th to November 22nd, seven “Books that Shook the World” will be featured on the Seven Stories website with a special offer: buy three of these books, and receive a fourth free. Just email sevenstories@sevenstories.com with your first and last name, and the book you would like sent for free. We'll verify that you bought three books already, and then get your fourth one in the mail!
This collection includes The Hite Report, Operation Massacre, Profit Over People, Z, The Man with the Golden Arm, Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2018, and Nuestros Cuerpos, Nuestras Vidas. Whether conducting in-depth research on little-explored topics, chronicling individuals’ journeys to expose injustices, or turning a spotlight on the issues facing overlooked communities, these books are united by a shared dedication to exposing important truths about the world—and they’re not afraid to shake up the status quo in the process.
Any book purchased through the Seven Stories website comes with a free e-book version, and anyone purchasing one of the titles from an independent bookseller can also get a free e-book by emailing a photo of their receipt to sevenstories@sevenstories.com. For booksellers competing in the November book display contest, submit a picture of the display to NAIBAeileen@gmail.com by 12/3/2018. This promotion is a great opportunity to discover your next favorite book, and to support the many indie booksellers committed to supplying us all with great works of literature.
One of the most neglected of modern American authors and also one of the best loved by those who know his work, Nelson Algren (1909–1981) believed that “literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity.” His own voluminous body of work stands up to that belief. Algren’s powerful voice rose from the urban wilderness of postwar Chicago, and it is to that city of hustlers, addicts, and scamps that he returned again and again, eventually raising Chicago’s “lower depths” up onto a stage for the whole world to behold. Recipient of the first National Book Award for fiction and lauded by Hemingway as “one of the two best authors in America,” Algren remains among our most defiant and enduring novelists. His work includes five major novels, two short fiction collections, a book-length poem, and several collections of reportage. A source of inspiration to artists as diverse as Kurt Vonnegut and Donald Barthelme, Studs Terkel and Lou Reed, Algren died on May 9, 1981, within days of his appointment as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
