Before his life went totally off the rails, Patrick O'Neil was living the punk rock dream, working at San Francisco's legendary Mabuhay Gardens, going on to become a roadie and then the road manager for such seminal bands as Dead Kennedys, Flipper, Subhumans, and T.S.O.L. But that was before his heroin addiction veered totally out of control. A junkie for eighteen years, O'Neil, the educated son of intellectuals, eventually turned to a life of crime, ending up the ringleader of a group of armed bank robbers, all in an increasingly out-of-control attempt to keep himself and his girlfriend in drugs. Now, after a stint in San Quentin and fourteen years sober, O'Neil takes a look back at the experiences--moving, calamitous, and at times both hilarious and terrifying--that led to his downfall and recovery. Told in sparse prose and graphic detail, Gun, Needle, Spoon examines the long road to redemption and the obstacles along the way, demystifying the "criminal life" so often depicted in film and fiction but seldom written about from the first-hand viewpoint of those who have lived it.

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters? The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. The Disappearing Spoon masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery -- from the Big Bang through the end of time. Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.

This is not simply a triumph of style; it is both a reflection on a time of bloodshed and a raw vision of human misery. Guillermo Saccomanno, winner of the Argentine National Literature Prize. This man knows. He knows about guns, knows about women...

Pioneering black-and-gray tattoo artist Freddy Negrete was twelve years old and confined in the holding cell of a Los Angeles juvenile facility when an older teenager entered—covered in tattoos. Freddy was in awe, not just of the art, but of what it symbolized, and he wanted what this kid had: the potent sense of empowerment and belonging that came from joining a gang. The encounter drove Freddy to join the notorious gang La Sangra, and it didn't take long before he was a regular guest at LA County's juvenile detention facilities. By the age of twenty-one, Freddy had spent almost his whole life as a ward of the state in one form or the other. Enthralled by the black-and-gray tattoo style that in the 1970s was confined to the rebel culture of Chicano gangsters and criminals, Freddy started inking himself with hand-poked tattoos. Everyone wanted a piece of Freddy's black-and-gray style--gangbangers but also Hollywood starlets and film producers. In a riveting narrative that takes the reader from Freddy's days as a cholo gang member to evangelical preacher to Hollywood body art guru to addiction counselor, Smile Now, Cry Later is, ultimately, a testament to that spark within us all, that catalyst which gives us the strength to survive, transform, and transcend all that can destroy us.

White Out

"A celebration of life on the streets, shared in gritty dirty glory by those too often ignored and unseen." Lesann Berry "You will come to care about this deeply flawed but charming cast of outsiders - like family." Lesann Berry, author of Passing Judgement, Alternate Endings, and Ambushing the Vigilante You've seen them darting from street corners and nightclub back alleys, the squatters and addicts, the underage strippers who've barely felt their first crush, the hustlers and millennial Cinderellas of the not always velvet underground aching for magic and surrogate connection. Thea Constantine is a Lou Reed for the Pacific Northwest, deep in the thrall of the characters she's set in motion, and in her skillful and weirdly redeeming crosshatch of modern Portland's days and nights, we may also see flashes of who we're busiest avoiding: ourselves. -Alan Rifkin, author of Signal Hill and Burdens by Water "It's been two weeks since I finished Thea Constantine's 'Stumptown, ' and her characters are all still with me. We like being around each other. The place I live is not far from Portland, evidently." Allan MacDonell, author of 'Prisoner of X' and 'Punk Elegies'

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A mystery that reverberates through families, friendships, and the corridors of power in New York and "captures the city’s dangerous, magnetic allure" (The New York Times). • Streaming now on Apple TV+ “As close to a great American novel as this century has produced.” —Stephen King New York City, 1976. Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heirs to one of the city’s great fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them; Charlie and Samantha, two suburban teenagers seduced by downtown’s punk scene; an obsessive magazine reporter and his idealistic neighbor—and the detective trying to figure out what any of them have to do with a shooting in Central Park on New Year’s Eve. When the blackout of July 13, 1977, plunges this world into darkness, each of these lives will be changed forever. City on Fire is an unforgettable novel about love and betrayal and forgiveness, about art and truth and rock ’n’ roll: about what people need from each other in order to live—and about what makes the living worth doing in the first place.