The founder of Utne Reader chronicles his adventures on the frontlines of American culture—from the Vietnam era to the age of Trump—as a spiritual seeker, antiwar activist, and minor media celebrity. “Fascinating . . . a remarkable piece of social history.”—Bill McKibben, author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Far Out Man is the story of a life-long seeker who was occasionally a finder as well. In 1984, Eric Utne founded Utne Reader, a digest of new ideas and fresh perspectives percolating in the arts, culture, politics, business, and spirituality. With the tag line “The Best of the Alternative Press,” the magazine was twice a finalist for a National Magazine Award and grew to more than 300,000 paid circulation. In the nineties, the magazine promoted the Neighborhood Salon Association to revive the endangered art of conversation and start a revolution in people’s living rooms. More than 18,000 people joined, comprising nearly 500 salons across North America. Utne devoted the magazine to bringing people together to help make the world a “little greener and a little kinder.” Far Out Man serves as a chronicle of both an individual life and a generation, covering the conflicts of the Vietnam era, the hopes and excesses of the sexual revolution and the Me Decade, the idealism and depredations of the entrepreneurial eighties and nineties, and the promise and perils of the digital age. Ultimately, Far Out Man is the story of Eric Utne’s lifelong search for hope, how he lost it, and what he found on the other side that sustains him in his darkest moments. It is a book dedicated to helping all seekers become finders.

Jay Walljasper, Jon Spayde andThe Editors of Utne ReaderTable of Contents Acknowledgments Foreword by Eric Utne Introduction The Spirit Moving Us Introduction Thomas Berry Satish Kumar Stephen & Ondrea Levine Thich Nhat Hahn Zalman Schachter-Shalomi Starhawk The Sense of Community Introduction Ernesto Cortes Jr. Roberta Brandes Gratz Jane Jacobs Frances Moore Lappé Michael Lind David Morris Helena Norberg-Hodge John Papworth Andres Duany & Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk Virginia Valentine Social Action Introduction Noam Chomsky Gary Delgado Riane Eisler Colin Greer Ted Halstead Jim Hightower bell hooks Andrew Kimbrel lWinona LaDuke Geoff Mulgan Muhammed Yunus Seeing Green Introduction Kenny Ausubel & Nina Simons Fritjof Capra Theo Colborn Edward Goldsmith Paul Hawken Hazel Henderson Jerry Mander William McDonough Bill McKibben Donella Meadows Theodore Roszak Charlene Spretnak Creativity & Culture Introduction Gloria Anzaldua Octavia Butler Eduardo Galeano George Gerbner Barbara Marx Hubbard Kalle Lasn Bobby McFerrin Bill Moyers Neil Postman Rachel Rosenthal John Ralston Saul William Strickland Body, Psyche & Senses Introduction Larry Dossey Chellis Glendenning Susan Griffin James Hillman Tom Hodgkinson Henry & Karen Kimsey-House Jane Maxwell Vicki Robin Gabrielle Roth Alice Waters

From the ancient Greek symposia to Gertrude Stein's famous Paris gatherings, salons have always been the incubators of provocative - at times even dangerous - ideas: the frontiers of cultural change. People who might elsewhere have been socially ostracized were included in salons, welcomed for their wit, intelligence, charm, and insight. And passionate conversation often led to passionate action.In 1991 Utne Reader launched a salon renaissance all over North America when it featured a cover story on salons. The response to the article was staggering, leading Utne to organize a National Salon Association that quickly drew over 20,000 members. Conceived and written by the folks at Utne, Salons is the quintessential authority on the subject, demonstrating that joining or starting your own salon is just a living room away.Salons offers a fascinating history of the salon and supplies all the tools readers need to join or start a group of their own. Classic salon-keepers like Julie deLespinasse, Mabel Dodge, and Gertrude Stein offer models for modern salons. Variations on the salon theme are explored, from studious book clubs and book circles to creativity salons, and finally online saloning. Chapters are grouped under such categories as choosing a salon site, finding salon members, and selecting discussion topics. A closing chapter looks at salons as bedrocks for activism and institutions for keeping social consciousness alive for the long-haul.

Shortlisted for The Green Carnation Prize 2014 'This is not a fairytale. This is a story about how sex and money and power police our dreams.' Clear-eyed, witty and irreverent, Laurie Penny is as ruthless in her dissection of modern feminism and class politics as she is in discussing her own experiences in journalism, activism and underground culture. This is a book about poverty and prejudice, online dating and eating disorders, riots in the streets and lies on the television. The backlash is on against sexual freedom for men and women and social justice – and feminism needs to get braver. Penny speaks for a new feminism that takes no prisoners, a feminism that is about justice and equality, but also about freedom for all. It's about the freedom to be who we are, to love who we choose, to invent new gender roles, and to speak out fiercely against those who would deny us those rights. It is a book that gives the silenced a voice – a voice that speaks of unspeakable things.

From a startling new voice in American fiction comes a dark, powerful novel about a tragic city and its inhabitants over the course of one Halloween weekend. Set in a decaying Midwestern urban landscape, with its goings-on and entire atmosphere dominated and charged by one Jesuit prep school and its students, parents, faculty, and alumni, THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS is a window into the human condition. From the opening chapter and its story of the doomed quarterback, Frank McSweeney, aka The Minotaur, for whom prayers prove not enough, to the end, wherein the school's former headmaster is betrayed by his peers in the worst way possible, we see people and their oddness and ambitions laid out bare before us.

A queer poet documents depression and grief in this autobiographical novel-in-verse.

We think we know everything about our smartphones. We use them constantly. We depend on them for every conceivable purpose. We are familiar with every inch of their compact frames. But there is more to the smartphone than meets the eye. How have smartphones shaped the way we socialize and interact? Who tracks our actions, our preferences, our movements as recorded by our smartphones? These are just some of the questions that journalist Elizabeth Woyke answers in this muckraking expose of the $241 billion industry that produces more than 700 million devices each year. In the tradition of The Coffee Book, The Sneaker Book, Oil, and Cigarettes, The Smartphone offers not only a step-by-step guide to how smartphones are designed and manufactured but also a bold exploration of the darker side of this massive industry, including the exploitation of labor, the disposal of electronic waste, and the underground networks that hack and smuggle smartphones. Featuring interviews with key figures in the development of the smartphone and expert assessments of the industry's main players--Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung--The Smartphone is the perfect introduction to this most personal of gadgets. Your smartphone will never look the same again.

Written in the tradition of works by Joan Didion, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, and Eve Ensler, this “profoundly insightful and brilliantly inciting” (Dominique Morisseau, Obie Award-winning playwright) exploration of the soul of the United States—the past, the present, and the future Kevin Powell wants for us all, through the lens and lives of three major figures: his mother, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Ten short years ago, Barack Obama became president of the United States, and changed the course of history. Ten short years ago, our America was hailed globally as a breathtaking example of democracy, as a rainbow coalition of everyday people marching to the same drum beat. We had finally overcome. But had we? Both the presidencies of Obama and Donald Trump have produced some of the ugliest divides in history: horrific racial murders, non-stop mass shootings, the explosion of attacks on immigrants and on the LGBTQ community, the rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, a massive gap between the haves and the have-nots, and legions of women stepping forth to challenge sexual violence—and men—in all forms. In this collection of thirteen powerful essays, “Kevin Powell thoughtfully weaves together the connective tissue between gender, race, sexuality, pop culture, and sports through a series of raw, incredibly personal essays” (Jemele Hill, writer and ESPN anchor). Be it politics, sports, pop culture, hip-hop music, mental health, racism, #MeToo, or his very complicated relationship with his mother, these impassioned essays are not merely a mirror of who we are, but also who and what Powell thinks we ought to be.

This anthology covers diverse yet interconnected themes, including what it means to be a conscious witness of our times, questions about 9/11, the second Bush administration and the American Empire Project, the global economic crisis, income inequalities, personally navigating chaos and the election of Donald Trump. Here are alternative, radical ideas for social reform and tackling inequality. They offer an account of how American economic and political elites have undermined democracy and drastically weakened the U.S., while causing untold suffering in the Middle East and around the world. The author shows how we can make a lasting difference. The seeds of practical hope are nurtured for navigating chaos and for countering fear. He also suggests what we can do to re-imagine America as, "e;the promise of a new beginning."e; He calls for a new Covenant between the American people and its government that engages both conservatives and progressives