The stories in Tales of Two Cities mix fiction and reportage to convey the indignities and heartbreak, the callousness and solidarities, of living side-by-side with people who have a stupefyingly different income. More

Even if you think you don’t know him, you know him. Few in the Hollywood orbit have had greater influence; few have experienced more humiliating failure in their lifetime. Thanks in part to the biopic directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp and bearing his name, Ed Wood has become an icon of Americana.
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Julian Assange and the chairman of Google Eric Schmidt debate the political problems faced by society, and the technological solutions engendered by the global network—and outline radically opposing perspectives. More

Simon Critchley melds personal narratives of how David Bowie lit up a dull teenage life in England’s suburbs with philosophical forays into the way authenticity and identity are turned inside out in the artist’s work. More

Using his captivating illustrations and no more than a handful of words, Thomas decrypts some of the most intriguing books of our day for readers of The Rumpus: now seventy-five of his favorites are collected in one volume. More

Technocreep is the definitive dissection of privacy-eroding and life-invading technologies, coming at you from governments, corporations, and the person next door. More

In his usual pithy, to-the-point style, Micah L. Sifry explores why data-driven politics and our digital overlords have failed or misled us, and how they can be made to serve us instead, in a real balance between citizens and state, independent of corporations. More

Drawing in real time from inside the courtroom, artist and WikiLeaks activist Clark Stoeckley captures the extraordinary drama of The United States vs. Pvt. Chelsea Manning, one of the most secretive trials in American history. More

After being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, writer and political activist Mike Marqusee came to realize that writing about his cancer provided a precious continuity with his life before contracting the disease. More

Sex and knife-fights, stutterers and addicts, losers and lost literary classics: welcome to a raw and genuine island universe closed to casual visitors. More

Like his landmark debunking of Joan Peters’s From Time Immemorial, Finkelstein’s clinical dissection of My Promised Land will be welcomed by those who yearn for a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict based on justice. More

In this forceful, eye-opening survey, Andrew Ross contends that we are in the cruel grip of a creditocracy – where the finance industry commandeers our elected governments and where the citizenry have to take out loans to meet their basic needs. More