Monday, December 20, 2010

Letters Of Insurgents by Freddy Perlman


For sale at SubRosa and in the Anarchist Library.

One-time lovers who share anarchist ideals find themselves on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain having lived through a composite of many of the 20th century's major revolutions and uprisings. 

Other reviewers here may do this book more justice. But yes, the reviews are effusively glowing and for good reason. A complicated story with even more complicated ideas beneath it. Again and again, the characters reject dogma in their search for truth and question the very nature of their beliefs, loves, and ideals.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner

On wish list. Consider donating for Anarchist Library.

You know how sometimes meetings are awesome and sometimes meeting suck?  Usually we blame it on the people who happened to be at the meeting, "Gee, that guy was disruptive or dominating," or "Everybody seemed scattered and disorganized."  However, it is seldom recognized that the facilitator of a meeting makes the difference between successful and sucktastic.  For those of us who lead meetings often or occasionally, this book comes to the rescue!

The Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision Making is a highly-accessible and concise manual to running successful meetings that feel good.  As a member of numerous consensus-based collectives, I quickly saw how our meetings and decision-making could be vastly improved by reading this book.

Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World


On wish list. Consider donating for Anarchist Library.

This is one of the best illustrated histories, that is, a graphic novel dealing with the subject of history, I've discovered. Lots of writers, lots of artists. Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill.  A reminder that anarchists helped bring you the eight hour day and the weekend.  Full of variety and stories of everyone over 100 years of IWW history. Essential reading. (Review by Wes)

Paperback, 305 pages
Published April 17th 2005 by Verso

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin

In the Anarchist Library

This is an thoughtful and nuanced science fiction book that happens to take the idea of anarchism (a socialist-anarchist flavor) seriously enough to give us a whole planet.

What is a word for a utopia that isn't a utopia? Not a distopia either. Just a simple 'topia. A view of a world and how it might be. Things that work and things that don't. Excellent ideas and really bad ones. That's what this story is about. An anarchist society on the moon, that leaves all us Capitalists and propertarians down here on this troubled sphere to fend for ourselves.

If you've read The Fountainhead in the last ten years, this is the antidote.
(Review by Wes)

311 pages 
Published July 1975 by Avon Books

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Learning Good Consent by Cindy Crabb

For sale at SubRosa.

Curated by Doris editor Cindy Crabb, Learning Good Consent looks at the culture of sexual consent from a standpoint both sexy and educational. Over the course of 46 pages, Cindy and friends create a well-rounded consent workshop, with all sites set on healing and helping. In a world of shady abusers, demonized victims, and one-sided dating rituals, Consent has your back. As says Cindy in the zine's intro, "Talking about our experiences with consent, our struggles, our mistakes and how we've learned, these are part of a much larger revolutionary struggle."

Paperback, 40 pages
Published October 15th 2009 by Microcosm Publishing (first published 2009)