Amazing Ayyub, an Iranian Shi'ite skinhead, and Rabeya, a burqa-wearing punk, have kidnapped Matt Damon and are holding him hostage. They demand that Hollywood depict Muslims in a positive light just one movie where we're not these two-dimensional al Qaeda stereotypes. But Damon's concerned they're playing into that same terrorist paradigm, thereby furthering the neoconservative perception of Islam. Meanwhile, Ayyub embarks on a mission to rid the taqwacore scene of a Muslim pop-punk band called Shah 79. Along the way, he makes himself invisible, escapes punk-eating zombies in a mosque off the desert highway, and runs into some psychobilly jinns. Things turn existential when Ayyub finds himself face-to-face with his creator no, not Allah, but the author. This riotous journey of enlightenment reads like a religious service for teenagers on Halloween. But it isn't all raucous fun; written into his own novel, the author finds he is at the mercy of his creation.

Amazing Ayyub, an Iranian Shi'ite skinhead, and Rabeya, a burqa-wearing punk, have kidnapped Matt Damon and are holding him hostage. They demand that Hollywood depict Muslims in a positive light—“just one movie where we're not these two-dimensional al Qaeda stereotypes.” But Damon's concerned they're playing into that same terrorist paradigm, thereby furthering the neoconservative perception of Islam. Meanwhile, Ayyub embarks on a mission to rid the taqwacore scene of a Muslim pop-punk band called Shah 79. Along the way, he makes himself invisible, escapes punk-eating zombies in a mosque off the desert highway, and runs into some psychobilly jinns. Things turn existential when Ayyub finds himself face-to-face with his creator—no, not Allah, but the author. This riotous journey of enlightenment reads like a religious service for teenagers on Halloween. But it isn't all raucous fun; written into his own novel, the author finds he is at the mercy of his creation.

When Michael Muhammad Knight sets out to write the definitive biography of his “Anarcho-Sufi” hero and mentor, writer Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey), he makes a startling discovery that changes everything. At the same time that he grows disillusioned with his idol, Knight finds that his own books have led to American Muslim youths making a countercultural idol of him, placing him on the same pedestal that he had given Wilson. In an attempt to forge his own path, Knight pledges himself to an Iranian Sufi order that Wilson had almost joined, attempts to write the Great American Queer Islamo-Futurist Novel, and even creates his own mosque in the wilderness of West Virginia. He also employs the “cut-up” writing method of Bey’s friend, the late William S. Burroughs, to the Qur’an, subjecting Islam’s holiest scripture to literary experimentation. William S. Burroughs vs. the Qur’an is the struggle of a hero-worshiper without heroes and the meeting of religious and artistic paths, the quest of a writer as spiritual seeker.

Academy Award-nominated filmmaker and director Morgan Spurlock, who volunteered his body as a guinea pig for the fast food industry in the hit documentary Super Size Me, now sets his sights even higher in Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? Spurlock is a jittery father-to-be with a simple question: If OBL is behind 9/11 and all the ensuing worldwide chaos, then why can’t we just catch him? And furthermore, why is his message so compelling to so many people? So the intrepid Spurlock kisses his anxious wife goodbye and–armed with a complete lack of knowledge, experience, or expertise–sets out to make the world safe for infantkind and find the most wanted man on earth. After boning up on his basic knowledge of OBL, Islam, and the Global War on Terror–and learning how to treat “sucking chest wounds” in a “Surviving Hostile Regions” training course–he hits the Osama trail. He zigzags the globe, drawing ever closer to the heart of darkness near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where OBL is rumored to be hiding. Along the way he interviews imams and princes, refugees and soldiers, academics and terrorists. He visits European ghettos where youth aspire to global jihad, breaks the Ramadan fast with Muslims in Cairo, rides in the bomb squad van in Tel Aviv, and writes his blood type on his Kevlar vest at a U.S. base outside of Kandahar. And then the fun really starts. Companion to the acclaimed documentary, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? delves even deeper. What readers come away with is possibly the first-ever funny book about terrorism, as well as a greater understanding of a conflict that has cast a shadow across America and the world. www.whereisobl.com

The widespread use of electronic communication at the dawn of the twenty-first century has created a global context for our interactions, transforming the ways we relate to the world and to one another. This critical introduction reads the fiction of the past decade as a response to our contemporary predicament – one that draws on new cultural and technological developments to challenge established notions of democracy, humanity, and national and global sovereignty. Peter Boxall traces formal and thematic similarities in the novels of contemporary writers including Don DeLillo, Margaret Atwood, J. M. Coetzee, Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, W. G. Sebald and Philip Roth, as well as David Mitchell, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dave Eggers, Ali Smith, Amy Waldman and Roberto Bolaño. In doing so, Boxall maps new territory for scholars, students and interested readers of today's literature by exploring how these authors narrate shared cultural life in the new century.

This volume considers literary fiction by Muslim writers, dealing with the interaction of Muslim and non-Muslim cultures and exploring liberal orthodoxies such as secularism and multiculturalism. It covers writers such as Rushdie, Kureishi, Hamid, Aslam and Shamsie in essays by experts in English, South Asian, and postcolonial literatures in English.

If Tripping with Allah is a road book, it’s a road book in the tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey, rather than On the Road. Amazonian shamanism meets Christianity meets West African religion meets Islam in this work of reflection and inward adventure. Knight, the “Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature” seeks reconciliation between his Muslim identity and his drinking of ayahuasca, a psychedelic tea that has been used in the Amazon for centuries. His experience becomes an opportunity to investigate complex issues of drugs, religion, and modernity. Though essential for readers interested in Islam or the growing popularity of ayahuasca, this book is truly about neither Islam nor ayahuasca. Tripping with Allah provides an accessible look into the construction of religion, the often artificial borders dividing these constructions, and the ways in which religion might change in an increasingly globalized world. Finally, Tripping with Allah not only explores Islam and drugs, but also Knight’s own process of creativity and discovery.

Performing Englishness examines the growth in popularity and profile of the English folk arts in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In the only study of its kind, the authors explore how the folk resurgence speaks to a broader explosion of interest in the subject of English national and cultural identity. Combining approaches from British cultural studies and ethnomusicology, the book draws on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with central figures of the resurgence and close analysis of music and dance as well as visual and discursive sources. Its presentation of the English case study calls for a rethinking of concepts such as revival and indigeneity. It will be of interest to students and scholars in cultural studies, ethnomusicology and related disciplines.

Eliza Carthy is the daughter of Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson. The clan has often been rightly described as folk's royal family. Martin was in Steeleye Span, Albion Dance band and the Watersons as well as holding down a successful solo career. Norma was a member of the Watersons folk group. Perhaps it was inevitable that Eliza would follow the family trade and become a folk musician. She is no pale imitator though, and can play just about any stringed instrument like a virtuoso, though amazingly she underrates herself. This self- doubt seems at odds with the public persona of a brassy northern lass, who has sometimes been described as 'difficult' (though not in our experience). Her albums are exceptional slices of traditional and new folk, but the stage is her natural home, enthralling audiences with a blend of folk, jazz, rock and music hall. 2011 saw her win two out of the three categories she was nominated for in the Radio 2 British Folk Awards, to swell an already bulging trophy cabinet. At 35 years of age it seems apt to chronicle the first half of an eventful life. In addition to extensive interviews with Eliza herself, the book contains interviews with her parents and other family members and also many of the people Eliza has worked with: Billy Bragg, comedian Stewart Lee, Richard Thompson Vandyke Parkes and many more were fulsome in their praise of Eliza when interviewed. She has toured America with Joan Baez. Eliza has an extensive collection of photographs that people have taken of her and she has been exceptionally generous in letting us use them.

"More than a survey of the prophet’s life and times, this book is an introduction to the stunning diversity of Islam and the ways in which Muslims think, dream, and make Muhammad into their very own prophet." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) He ranks among the most venerated historical figures in the world, as well as among the most contested. Muhammad: Forty Introductions offers a distinct and nuanced take on the life and teachings of the prophet Muhammad, using a traditional genre of Islamic literature called the forty hadiths collection. Hadiths are the reported sayings and actions of Muhammad that have been collected by the tens of thousands throughout Islamic history. There is a tradition in which Muslim scholars take from this vast textual ocean to compile their own smaller collections of forty hadiths, an act of curation that allows them to present their particular understanding of Muhammad’s legacy and the essential points of Islam. Here, Michael Muhammad Knight offers forty narrations that provide windows into the diverse ways in which Muslims envision Muhammad. He also examines his own relationship to Muslim traditions while exploring such topics as law, mysticism, sectarianism, gender, and sexuality. By revealing the Prophet to be an ongoing construction, he carefully unravels notions about Islam’s center and margins.