Soft Skull Press

21/11/2024

"Do you ever really look at the sky, really look at it for long enough to let your mind wander away and then wander all the way back—back to the looking, and then further back to noticing what it is you’re looking at, and how the sky is not a thing to be looked at, how the sky is not even a thing at all?" —From AN EARTHQUAKE IS A SHAKING OF THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH via Literary Hub

They say that walking is controlled falling, they say put one foot in front of the other, they say things will return to normal and you will adjust to the change, as if those are similar promises, …

19/11/2024

Happy publication day to Anna Moschovakis!

AN EARTHQUAKE IS A SHAKING OF THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH is on sale everywhere now.

✨ A December 2024 Indie Next Pick ✨
✨ Named a Most Anticipated Book of Fall by ✨

"Taut and narratively ambiguous, a book of riddles or a riddle of a book . . . Propulsive and elusive at once.” — Los Angeles Times

“A vibrant and uncanny retelling of an earthly disaster of seismic proportions . . . Intense, bizarre, and urgent.” — Our Culture

“A narrative meditation on the obsessions one clings to in the face of chaos . . . Reading Moschovakis’s prose is a singular experience.” — Shelf Awareness

19/11/2024

"AN EARTHQUAKE IS A SHAKING OF THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH is a haunting in nine acts–a terrifyingly apt commentary on contemporary psychology in which what has been lost is somehow too close to touch.” — Lucy Ives via Literary Hub

November has been quite a month, and one of the few constants it has had is its lack of constancy, its surprises. Still, one thing does remain consistent: that there will be new books to consider e…

18/11/2024

Backlist spotlight: VANISHING TWINS by Leah Dieterich 👥

Sharing her story of an evolving marriage, Leah offers an intimate look at ethical nonmonogamy and polyamory that redefines how she experiences love, trust, and her own q***r identity.

✨ "In many ways, Dieterich's provocative, poetic memoir is about wanting more than what we—particularly as women—are told we can have. . . It is also a book about making choices, and knowing that those decisions are best made after thoroughly exploring the available options, and also fully getting to know ourselves in the process." — NYLON

✨ “Crisp and intelligent . . . Dieterich writes about her own reckoning with her s*xuality and exploration of q***r identity without becoming pat or coy, giving readers intimate access to her fears and conflicting emotions.” — NPR

18/11/2024

"Kawakami's terse, candid prose emphasizes the alienation of a world where death, s*x, and clones all feel equally mechanical." — The New Yorker

Short reviews of recent releases.

13/11/2024

Portland folks! Join Lyta Gold and Liberty Hardy next week at Print: A Bookstore to celebrate the release of DANGEROUS FICTIONS.

More details here: https://www.printbookstore.com/event/lytagold

07/11/2024

Booksellers recommend: AN EARTHQUAKE IS A SHAKING OF THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. Congrats to Anna Moschovakis, and thank you to all of the booksellers who nominated us for an American Booksellers Association Indie Next Pick! ⭐

☁️ “A terribly intelligent novel." — Locus Magazine

☁️ “A narrative meditation on the obsessions one clings to in the face of chaos . . . Reading Moschovakis’s prose is a singular experience.” — Shelf Awareness

☁️ "A coolly provocative portrait of an aging actor in a city beset by seismic activity. . . deep and lively." — Publishers Weekly

☁️ "Moschovakis continues to provoke her readers to ask: What is a story? Or, even, what is a life?” — Kirkus Reviews

A formidable, uncanny, and utterly unique new work from accomplished novelist and poet, Anna Moschovakis, whose translation of David Diop’s Frêre d’âme (At Night All Blood Is Black, Pushkin and FSG) won the 2021 International Booker Prize

07/11/2024

"Anna Moschovakis’s An Earthquake is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth is unsettling both in its plot and its writing; it’s a dark, comic, and unflinching look at our drive to survive in a crumbling world." —

Let me start with quite the understatement: This November is a stressful, stressful, stressful month. Here at the Chicago Review of Books, we hope your month is marked by two things: action and care. For our American readers, that means getting out to vote and showing your love to yourself and your....

07/11/2024

Excited to see Anna Moshovakis' "intense, bizarre, and urgent" AN EARTHQUAKE IS A SHAKING OF THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH listed as one of Our Culture 's most-anticipated November reads.

The weather is cooling as we recommend sagas of literary frenemy-ship, skewing satires centuries apart, and the stories of superstars like Cher and Taylor Swift in our November list. The Man in the Banana Trees, Marguerite Sheffer (November 5) Winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, Marguerite Sheff...

31/10/2024

Getting into the proper Halloween spirit with ’s bloodcurling gothic ghost story THE JOB OF THE WASP 🐝 💀

What are you reading today?

30/10/2024

🍃 COVER ANNOUNCEMENT 🍃 Today we share the cover for ’s FRESH, GREEN LIFE, designed by Kit Schluter (), with art direction by .

FRESH, GREEN LIFE will be available everywhere on 6/24/25, and is available to preorder now at the link in our bio. 🔗

About the book:
A young writer, after a year of self-imposed exile, attends a New Year's Eve party in the hope of reconnecting with old classmates in this alternately ruminative and blackly humorous tale of interiority and inferiority that takes place over the course of a single, snowy night.

After experiencing a mysterious, heart-related health scare, our narrator Sebastian Castillo, who shares a name with our author, Sebastian Castillo, and also with a translated Spanish writer, Sebastián Castillo, resolves to spend a year alone in self-imposed exile, passing the time by exercising each day and watching self-improvement videos.

But, come New Year's Eve, Sebastian (the narrator) will break his expulsion from everyday life by accepting an invitation to the home of a former philosophy professor for a reunion with his cohort, one decade after graduating. This invitation surely would have been ignored if not for the promised attendance of Maria, Sebastian’s former classmate and love interest. What follows is an inexplicable series of fascinating events charting the erosion of young bookish hope.

Fresh, Green Life is a meditation on literature, education, and philosophy; a trek through the past that forecasts a mediocre future; and a compact miracle of the fake-real.

29/10/2024

RSVP now to join Lyta Gold for a virtual in-conversation with Talia Lavin to celebrate the release of her new book DANGEROUS FICTIONS.

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Virtual Author Talk with Lyta Gold: Dangerous Fictions. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

29/10/2024

"A rich text, well-researched and full of insights. . .The challenge, in attempting to communicate how compelling this book is, looms large." — The Rumpus

Happy publication day to DANGEROUS FICTIONS 📚 🔥

We are once again living through an age when this fight over the purpose of storytelling, whose stories deserve to be heard, and how freely ideas should circulate is heated.

29/10/2024

It’s publication day for DANGEROUS FICTIONS! 🔥📚

In DANGEROUS FICTIONS, Lyta Gold traces arguments both historical and contemporary that have labeled fiction as dark, immoral, frightening, or poisonous. Within each she asks: How “dangerous” is fiction, really? And what about it provokes waves of moral panic and even censorship?

⭐️ “Reality has been severely altered in the past few years—with fiction as a balm or a cause—but Gold’s analysis might be a way through.” — Our Culture

⭐️ “An incisive book debut with a thoughtful, often witty, examination of the causes and consequences of banning novels . . . A savvy contribution to current debates.” — Kirkus Reviews

24/10/2024

"Thought-provoking. . . Throughout the book, human and AI mirror each other, forcing us to ask where one ends and the other begins. Silva wonders if she is losing her identity as a writer in the same way she has often lost herself in motherhood and in love. Yet she’s having fun, relishing the magic and the madness, just as she does in her human relationships."

— MIT Technology Review on Hannah Silva's MY CHILD, THE ALGORITHM

Three books explore the promise and peril of artificial intelligence.

22/10/2024

Happy publication day to these gorgeous new repackaged editions of Lydia Millet's HOW THE DEAD DREAM and OH PURE AND RADIANT HEART 📚 ✨

22/10/2024

Happy pub day to these gorgeous new repackaged editions of .millet’s HOW THE DEAD DREAM and OH PURE AND RADIANT HEART 📚✨

10/10/2024

“Reality has been severely altered in the past few years—with fiction as a balm or a cause—but Gold’s analysis might be a way through.” — 📚🔥