Read an excerpt from the book (in French). Buy the book online. Check out David’s blog 10 Secondes Tigre.

“Beastness” is the contraction of “fitness” (in a biological sense) and “beast”. It’s the name David Jaclin gave to the evolution of the relationship’s economy (“business”) bonding humans and animals since the dawn of time to the present day.

From the publisher’s website:

“On a September day in 1920, an angry Italian anarchist named Mario Buda exploded a horse-drawn wagon filled with dynamite and iron scrap near New York’s Wall Street, killing 40 people. Since Buda’s prototype the car bomb has evolved into a “poor man’s air force,” a generic weapon of mass destruction that now craters cities from Bombay to Oklahoma City.

In this gripping and disturbing history, Mike Davis traces its worldwide use and development, in the process exposing the role of state intelligence agencies—particularly those of the United States, Israel, India, and Pakistan—in globalizing urban terrorist techniques. Davis argues that it is the incessant impact of car bombs, rather than the more apocalyptic threats of nuclear or bio-terrorism, that is changing cities and urban lifestyles, as privileged centers of power increasingly surround themselves with “rings of steel” against a weapon that nevertheless seems impossible to defeat.” (more)

This book won the Lannan Literary Award for Non-Fiction. Read a short review of the book.

Check his new official website (made with indexhibit).

Previously on Skandalon

Poster design by Mark Weaver inspired by the book Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851). The poster was designed for the Kitsune Noir Poster Club.

Follow the link to read an interview with Cody Hoyt about his creative process.

Previously on Skandalon : Mark Weaver, Kitsune Noir

“J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most important American writer to emerge since World War II but who then turned his back on success and adulation, becoming the Garbo of letters, famous for not wanting to be famous, died Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. He was 91.”

From The New York Times, “J.D. Salinger, Literary Recluse, Dies at 91” by Charles McGrath, Jan 28, 2010

Conan the Nietzschean… Way to go, Conan.

The quote is taken from Twilight of the Idols (Die Götzen-Dämmerung, 1895). It’s the 8th maxim from the section “Maxims and arrows” (the very first section of the book, after the preface). Here is a slightly different translation : “Out of life’s school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.” (tr. by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale here).