Today's Featured Book:

The Young Man

by Annie Ernaux

Translated by Alison Strayer

Seven Stories Press

Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

The Young Man is Annie Ernaux’s account of her passionate love affair with A., a man some 30 years younger, when she was in her fifties. The relationship pulls her back to memories of her own youth and at the same time leaves her feeling ageless, outside of time— together with a sense that she is living her life backwards.

Amidst talk of having a child together, she feels time running its course, and menopause approaching. The Young Man recalls Ernaux as the “scandalous girl” she once was, but is composed with the mastery and the self-assurance she has achieved across decades of writing. It was first published in France in 2022.

Now Available:

Whorephobia:  Strippers on Art, Work, and Life

by Lizzie Borden

Seven Stories Press

Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

No one knows more than strippers about being looked at: as objects of desire, objects of curiosity, as angels or Jezebels or hookers with hearts of gold. In this anthology, twenty-three dancers whose careers span decades, geographies, and identities demand to be seen. Through stories from first nights on the job to the day they hung up their sky-high heels—or decided they never will—these writers offer glimpses into lives of camaraderie and celebration, joy, pride, despair, frustration, self-doubt, and fear.
 
Their unfiltered perspectives on their lives, onstage and off, are a powerful counternarrative to the whorephobia that shrouds the conventional portrayals of strippers in crime movies, TV shows, music videos, newspaper articles, and legislative debates. Each of these illuminating essays and interviews peels away tired myths and salacious speculation and presents the naked truth: that sex work is real work and strippers are real people.
 
Contributors:

Cookie Mueller • Kathy Acker • Jo Weldon • Susan McMullen • Maggie Estep • Chris Kraus • Jodi Sh. Doff • Terese Pampellonne • Jill Morley • Susan Walsh • Debi Kelly Van Cleave • Elissa Wald • Essence Revealed • Sassy Penny • Jacq Frances • Reese Piper • Lindsay Byron • The Incredible, Edible Akynos • Antonia Crane • Lily Burana • A M Davies • Kayla Tange • Selena the Stripper

On My Radar:

How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America's Vanished Voters
by Greg Palast with comics by Ted Rall
Seven Stories Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Has Trump already stolen the 2020 election? Vote theft was once considered to be a marginal issue that no one wanted to talk about, but as the stakes have risen and the facts have become known–in large part thanks to this author–it is now recognized as one of the central issues deciding our presidential elections.

The scope is staggering. In the Georgia 2018 midterm election alone–the testing ground–Republican voting officials quietly removed half a million voters from the voter rolls–including Martin Luther King’s ninety-two-year-old cousin Christine Jordan. How Trump Stole 2020 is the story of the racially poisonous schemes to steal the 2020 election, the political operatives behind the trickery–and the hard right billionaires funding it all, written by the investigative reporter who has been covering this story from the outset.

On My Radar:

Gullible's Travels: A Comical History of the Trump Era
by Marvin Kitman
Seven Stories Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Kitman describes the land of Gulliblesylvania as a democratic country ruled by 34.9 % of the people, "a minority better known as 'the base,' of whom a candidate said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they would still vote for him." At first Kitman assumed that Trump's candidacy was a publicity stunt. After he realized it was serious, as a satirist he felt very lucky and began to keep a comical journal, modeled after A Journal of the Plague Yearwhich Daniel Defoe described as "Observations of the most remarkable occurrence, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665"—which is not to compare the Trump administration to the bubonic plague, Kitman hastens to add. "For one thing, as our POTUS has been telling us, he's made America Great again—AND IT ONLY TOOK A YEAR AND A HALF!" Kitman adds, "And I have never before had such a good time observing and writing about the follies of our country."

Gullible's Travels includes 32 "Trumponicles; the debate over the president's intellectual capacity; "That Russian Thing;" "Who is Agent Orange"; and a CODA that asks the question, "How Will It All End?" Impeachment? 25th Amendment sacking? Resignation? Or reelection?

On My Radar:

Escape Artist: Memoir of a Visionary Artist on Death Row
by William A. Noguera 
Seven Stories Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

William A. Noguera has spent thirty-four years at the notorious San Quentin Prison, home to the nation’s largest and deadliest death row. Each day, men plot against you and your life rests on a razor’s edge. In Escape Artist, he describes his personal growth as a man and artist and shares his insights into daily life and the fight to survive in the underworld of prison culture.

After being sentenced to death, he arrived at San Quentin Prison and was thrown into a rat-infested cell—it was there that he discovered the key to his escape: art. Over the next three decades, Noguera rebelled against conventional prison behavior, and instead forged the code he lives by today—accepting responsibility for his actions, and a self-imposed discipline of rehabilitation. In the process, he has explored his capacity to bring focus and clarity to his artistic vision. 

Escape Artist exposes the violence, politics and everyday existence within the underbelly of society that is prison life. In an unprecedented narrative, Noguera reveals the emotional and heart-wrenching loss that landed him on death row and the journey he has taken to become an award-winning artist, speaker, and author -- a tale of one man's transformation through tragedy.

Currently Reading:

Parecomic: The Story of Michael Albert and Participatory Economics
by Sean Michael Wilson
drawn by Carl Thompson
Seven Stories Press
Graphic Novel

From the publisher website:

Parecomic is a graphic novel about something that affects us all: the system we live in--what's wrong with it, and how we might be able change it for the better. Written by Sean Michael Wilson, and drawn by Carl Thompson, Parecomic is about Michael Albert--the visionary behind "participatory economics"--and his life's struggle as a left-wing activist in the US. 

Proposed as an alternative to capitalism, participatory economics (parecon, for short) values equity, solidarity, diversity, and participatory self-management. In Albert's vision, workers and consumers councils use self-managed decision-making, balanced job complexes, renumeration according to duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor; and participatory planning.

Parecomic will guide readers through this anarchist-influenced economic system, alongside the biography that led to its development--beginning with the heady days of 1960s student demos and lifestyle rebellions; following the developments of the antiwar, civil rights, woman's, and Black Panthers movements; to the establishment of alternative media like South End Press and ZNet.
The recent upsurge in popular protest in the US and around the world shows that people are not happy with the state of capitalism. The Occupy movement, particularly, makes plain the desire for a better system, a model that will work for the 99%, not just the 1%. Parecon is one such model, and Parecomic brings this to life in illustrated form.

About Sean Michael Wilson and Carl Thompson

SEAN MICHAEL WILSON is a comic book writer from Scotland, currently based in Japan, who has written fourteen books of comics and manga. His work includes a version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (with artist Mike Collins); Emily Brontë'sWuthering Heights; Oscar Wilde's A Canterville Ghost; The Japanese Drawing Room (with RING horror manga artist Sakura Mizuki); and the documentary book Iraq: Operation Corporate Takeover (with artist Lee O'Connor). His version of Sweeney Todd (with artist Declan Shalvey) is forthcoming. He is presently editing the second volume of the critically acclaimed AX: Alternative Manga; the first volume was selected as one of the top ten comic books of 2010 by Publishers Weekly. Wilson has received several grants from both the English arts council and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation in support of his Japan-related publications. 

CARL THOMPSON is a cartoonist based in Minneapolis. A graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, he has worked with writer Sean Michael Wilson on the political comic strip "Green Benches," published monthly in the British magazine Blue and Green Tomorrow. Carl also works on an ongoing book-length project called BFD with writer Scotty Gillmer.

On My Radar:

Billionaires and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps
by Greg Palast & Ted Rall
Seven Stories Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Introduction by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 

With complete comic book by Ted Rall

A close presidential election in November could well come down to contested states or even districts—an election decided by vote theft? It could happen this year.
Based on Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s investigative reporting for Rolling Stone and BBC television, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps might be the most important book published this year—one that could save the election.

Billionaires & Ballot Bandits names the filthy-rich sugar-daddies who are super-funding the Super-PACs of both parties—billionaires with nicknames like “The Ice Man,” “The Vulture” and, of course, The Brothers Koch. Told with Palast’s no-holds-barred, reporter-on-the-beat style, the facts as he lays them out are staggering. What emerges in B&BB is the never-before-told-story of the epic battle being fought behind the scenes between the old money banking sector that still supports Obama, and the new hedge fund billionaires like Paul Singer who not only support Romney but also are among his key economic advisors. B&BB exposes the previously unreported details on how operatives plan to use the hundreds of millions in Super-PAC money pouring into this election. We know the money is pouring in, but Palast shows us the convoluted ways the money will be used to suppress your vote.

The story of the billionaires and why they want to buy an election is matched with the nine ways they can steal the election. His story of the sophisticated new trickery will pick up on Palast’s giant New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
For more information go to www.ballotbandits.org or www.gregpalast.com. 

REVIEWS

"A 48-page comic book, 'Tales from the Crypt of Democracy,' brilliantly illustrated by the award-winning artist Ted Rall, summarizes the bleak horrors detailed in Billionaires and Ballot Bandits. Palast reaches out to all of us with his revelations in a nutshell. Years from now we can turn to it and remember and marvel in our triumph that such atrocities once dominated the human landscape, here and throughout the world."--Op-Ed News

About Greg Palast and Ted Rall

GREG PALAST, a resident of New York City, is an investigative reporter for the BBC’s Newsnight and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, a book Michael Moore has called “courageous reporting.” He is also the author of The Joker's Wild: Dubya's Trick Deck with Robert Grossman.

Twice the winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, TED RALL is a political cartoonist, opinion columnist, graphic novelist and occasional war correspondent whose work has appeared in hundreds of publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Village Voice, and Los Angeles Times. He is also the author of The Anti-American Manifesto and The Book of Obama: From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt.

On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress - And a Plan to Stop It

by Lawrence Lessig
Twelve Books
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

In an era when special interests funnel huge amounts of money into our government—driven by shifts in campaign-finance rules and brought to new levels by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission—trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress, and that business interests wield control over our legislature.

With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how we arrived at this crisis: how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and reductive logic—and instead using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left—Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He plumbs the issues of campaign financing and corporate lobbying, revealing the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system. He puts the issues in terms that nonwonks can understand, using real-world analogies and real human stories. And ultimately he calls for widespread mobilization and a new Constitutional Convention, presenting achievable solutions for regaining control of our corrupted—but redeemable—representational system. In this way, Lessig plots a roadmap for returning our republic to its intended greatness. 

While America may be divided, Lessig vividly champions the idea that we can succeed if we accept that corruption is our common enemy and that we must find a way to fight against it. In REPUBLIC, LOST, he not only makes this need palpable and clear—he gives us the practical and intellectual tools to do something about it.

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Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life
by Thomas Geoghegan

New Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Tired of working ’til you drop and not going anywhere? Try to imagine your life in a full-blown European social democracy—especially the German version. In an idiosyncratic, entertaining travelogue written in a “chatty, anecdotal style [that’s] appealingly digressive and winning” (Publishers Weekly), Thomas Geoghegan explains the appeal of “boring” Germany, where workers sit as directors on the big corporate boards and ordinary people have six weeks off and retire with pensions like golden parachutes.

Free public goods, a bit of worker control, and whopping trade surpluses—the German version of “European socialism” doesn’t sound too bad. Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? explains where you might have been happier—or at least had time off to be unhappy properly. “Written with humor and candor, making for an easy, fun read” (AARP Bulletin), it is also a “timely, cogently argued, laugh-out-loud-funny book” (Katrina vanden Heuvel). And it tells us why Americans should pay attention to Germany, where ordinary people can work three hundred to four hundred hours less a year than we do and still have one of the most competitive economies in the world. 

Thomas Geoghegan is a practicing attorney and the author of several books, including the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Which Side Are You On?, In America’s Court, and See You in Court (all available from The New Press). He has written for The Nation, the New York Times, and Harper’s and lives in Chicago.

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Censored 2012: The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2010- 2011
by Mickey Huff and Project Censored

Seven Stories Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Every year since 1976, Project Censored, our nation's oldest news-monitoring group—a university-wide project at Sonoma State University founded by Carl Jensen, directed for many years by Peter Phillips, and now under the leadership of Mickey Huff—has produced a Top-25 list of underreported news stories and a book, Censored, dedicated to the stories that ought to be top features on the nightly news, but that are missing because of media bias and self-censorship.

Seven Stories Press has been publishing this yearbook since 1994, featuring the top stories listed democratically in order of importance according to students, faculty, and a national panel of judges. Each of the top stories is presented at length, alongside updates from the investigative reporters who broke the stories.

Beyond the Top-25 stories, additional chapters delve further into timely media topics: The Censored News and Media Analysis section provides annual updates on Junk Food News and News Abuse, Censored Déjà Vu, signs of hope in the alternative and news media, and the state of media bias and alternative coverage around the world. In the Truth Emergency section, scholars and journalists take a critical look at the US/NATO military-industrial-media empire. And in the Project Censored International section, the meaning of media democracy worldwide is explored in close association with Project Censored affiliates in universities and at media organizations all over the world.

A perennial favorite of booksellers, teachers, and readers everywhere, Censored is one of the strongest life signs of our current collective desire to get the news we citizens need—despite what Big Media tells us.

Project Censored is a proud supporter of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the bookseller's voice in the fight against censorship. Celebrate the right to read!  www.bannedbooksweek.org