Pihla, a beautiful journalist from Helsinki, is on an assignment to cover subterranean sex scenes across Europe. Although detached from the decadence she witnesses, Pihla needs a respite, and checks into the Grand Hotel Vittoria in the hills of Tuscany. And then she meets Giovanni…
The 27th volume in our collectible Pocket Erotica series is a sensual work of contemporary fiction by Nina Ansani. Warm up your holiday and visit the Grand Hotel Vittoria.
As the world comes to an end, and the bed bug infestation spreads from France throughout Europe, it is time for a journal devoted to infestation, invasion, and chaos.
Featuring works by Alphonse Allais; Tim Anderson; Tom Bradley; Norman Conquest; Farewell Debut; R J Dent; Larry Fondation; Jesse Glass; Boris Glikman; Rhys Hughes; Harold Jaffe; Amy Kurman; Terri Lloyd; John-Ivan Palmer; Jason E. Rolfe; Paul Rosheim; Thaddeus Rutkowski; Doug Skinner; Yuriy Tarnawsky; Corinne Taunay; Catrin Welz-Stein; Tom Whalen; Carol White; and D. Harlan Wilson.
What happens when constellations socialize, when Faust and the Devil start drinking, when imaginary friends gain imaginary friends, when Sleeping Beauty and Rip van Winkle trade places, when Duncan paints a cockatrice, when a terrifying Werechurch roams the land? And was it really a good idea for August and Collier to start that potato farm, especially given Collier’s troubled past? Doug Skinner defines his own comic genre, filled with vivid characters, fictional physics, and surprising narratives, often filtered through stringent constraints to keep the language lively. If you read only one book this year, read this one over and over again!
Here in America, Black Scat Books has published thirteen collections by the master absurdist — all skillfully translated by Doug Skinner. And coming this December — we’ll bring you Allais’s 14th book—WE ARE NOT SHEEP.
While you’re waiting, please check out our vast Alphonse Allais Collection below. These volumes will keep you laughing throughout 2024. (Click on the titles below for details.)
This year we’re celebrating the holiday early with author Amy Kurman. Listen closely as she reads a creepy tale from her new book, SHORTS and other fiction.
Enjoy!
CLICK HERE to order her collection of edgy, witty, strange, & sexy short stories.
It’s an exciting time at Black Scat when we get the chance to publish a talented writer’s first book. So we’re ecstatic to announce the launch of Amy Kurman‘s collection of fiction — SHORTS.
Featuring edgy, witty, strange, & sexy short stories by a powerful new voice
This is now a BLACK SCAT BOOKS BESTSELLER!
ADVANCE PRAISE for SHORTS
“Short stories that gleefully jettison all the rules and hydroplane across the most unexpected surfaces, freeing the imagination to crash into the world full speed.” —Tantra Bensko, author of Floating on Secrets
“Those of you who have not yet met the work of Amy Kurman are in for a treat. Her debut collection is compelling, quirky, and crafted with effective attention to detail. Some passages could easily be sung for how mellifluous they are. Shorts is a compendium of compelling juxtapositions, a contrapuntal delight, but, most of all, it is the type of work that resonates in the mind long after the actual reading has ended. Kurman has the rare ability to write prose in feminine and masculine voices. Her sardonic story, ‘A Night at the Zoo,’ reads like an old black-and-white film, like something Alec Guinness or Charlie Chaplin might have done. Excellent!” —Eckhard Gerdes, author of The Pissers’ Theatre
“Don’t be fooled by the length of the affectionately bizarre stories in Shorts. A colony of dryads, a sentient Kit-Kat clock called by its wrong name, two moles in an existential marital crisis, these tropes of strangeness belie an underbelly of social commentary about the human condition that I couldn’t stop reading. A new satirist is in our midst.” —Suzanne Burns, author of The Veneration of Monsters
In this brief video, artist-writer-musician Doug Skinner talks about his collaboration with Derek Pell and AI on a collection of short stories: THE MAN WHO ATE HIS HOUSE.
We’re now accepting submissions for OULIPO PORNOBONGO #4: Anthology of Erotic Wordplay. Pucker up your lipograms and visit our submissions page for details.
Music: Alexander Nakarada / Video production: BuzzReel Studio