Firecracker Alternative Book Award
Art/Photo
1997 Nothing but the Girl1998 Devil Babe's Big Book of Fun! by Isabel Samaras
Drugs
1997 Everything I Know I Learned on Acid by Coco Pekelis
Amusing and thought-provoking, this off-the-wall collection features short quotes by John Lennon, Groucho Marx, Andy Warhol, Alice (in Wonderland), Jack Kerouac, Marilyn Monroe, and Edgar Allan Poe--just to name a few. On every page are diagrams, underground comics, Native American glyphs, Deadobilia, icons, cartoons, artifacts, and entertaining doodles.
Fiction
1996 A Void by Georges Perec
In Perec's extraordinary tour de force--written entirely without the use of the letter "e"--a group of people die or are otherwise eliminated as a result of their inability to "name the unnameable," i.e. to use the letter "e." This novel is a classic text of the Oulipo, the French literary movement that produces works of art using formal restraints.
1997 Distorture by Rob Hardin
Distorture is a fiercely modern book full of jeweled descriptions of violent eroticism. In the first book, Rob Hardin subverts nineteenth century romanticism and redefines the aesthetics of excess. This book splices the digital and the autumnal with the drive of dark ambient music and the elegance of a late liszt sonata.
1998 In Awe by Scott Heim
Three outcasts seeking solace come together, with bizarre and violent results, in this literary thriller.
Graphic Novel
1997 Real Americans Admit by Ted Rall
An hilarious compilation of true stories as related to Ted Rall by all sorts of Americans.
1998 Minimum Wage by Bob FingermanMusic
1996 Get in the Van by Henry Rollins
Life in a rock band may seem alluring to outside observers who've become familiar with stories of money, glamour, sex, and drugs. But, in Henry Rollins's memoir of five years on the road with seminal punk band Black Flag, it seems more like a war. The enemy varies: boredom, grueling all-night drives, and frequently the band's crowd, who seem expert in devising ever more excruciating forms of torture, from crotch-grabbing and the traditional showers of spittle to urine-filled beer glasses. Rollins kept a journal of his years in the punk-rock trenches, scrawling entries while hunched in smelly vans, where he alternately fantasized and vented his rage at the privations visited upon his band by its uncaring public. A mix of surreal reverie, violent musings, and mundane detail, GET IN THE VAN accurately mirrors the long periods of boredom punctuated by brief, hyper-real episodes of intense, often brutal activity, endured by Rollins and his fellow band members in their frequently evangelical-seeming mission to bring their message to the masses. Throughout, Rollins continually exposes his naked emotions; his talent lies in making the process compelling enough to keep his readers as viscerally involved as his live audience obviously is.
Nonfiction
1997 Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg
A revealing look at the history of those who "challenge the boundaries of sex and gender." Joan of Arc, we find, was burned at the stake for cross dressing, rather than for her crimes against the Church or for fighting the English. Feinberg lets many tell their own stories, but also covers transgendered people from such historical eras as the Civil War.
1998 Ono Ono Girl's Hula by Carolyn Lei-Lanilau
Observations on Hawaii, language, and her Chinese-Hakka upbringing, by a poet and radical feminist.
Poetry
1996 In Defense of Mumia
In 1982, the award-winning journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing a Philadephia police officer and was sentenced to death. He was on death row for 13 years before a groundswell of public opinion questioned the fairness of his trial and demanded a stay of execution. In August 1995, artists, activists, and concerned citizens met in New York City to demand a new trial. This book documents their overwhelming outpouring of support.
1997 Home in Three Days. Don't Wash by Linda Smukler
Poetry from an emerging lesbian voice.
Politics
1996 Race for Justice1997 Censored 1997 by Peter Phillips
The 1997 edition of "Censored" contains 25 articles judged by America's top journalists and citizen advocates as the most important--and most underreported--stories of the year. Also included is the "Censored Deja Vu", censored stories from past years that finally made it into the mainstream press. Illustrations.
1998 The Zinn Reader by Howard Zinn
Radical historian Howard Zinn, author of THE PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, collects a career's worth of his best essays. THE ZINN READER is organized around six broad categories that reflect his main concerns: Race, Class, War, Law, History, Means and Ends. Winner of the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in politics.
Sex
1996 Breathless by Kitty Tsui, Kitty Tsuki
This book won a FAB Award (Firecracker Alternative Books) at the American Bookseller's Association convention in 1996.
1997 The Guide to Getting It On! 1998 Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women by Tristan Taormino
User-friendly, sexy, honest and fun, the first self-help manual for women on anal sex....This attractive, upbeat guide covers anatomy, taboos and myths, fantasy, genderbending, and power play; latex, lube and toys; relaxation exercises and penetration; and anal health....For all women--heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered.
Special Recognition/Wildcard Categories
1996 Saving Graces by David Robinson
Presents a collection of photographs of statues depicting female figures in mourning found in nineteenth-century European cemeteries.