Featured Releases
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Dreaming Up America
Russell Banks
“My fiction is not about history or politics, but it has an underlying substructure that’s informed by my ideas and attitudes and temperament regarding politics and history. Dreaming Up America is an explicit attempt to articulate some of those ideas and attitudes…” — Russell Banks
“Russell Banks is not only one of our great novelists but also a courageous and visionary citizen… his first nonfiction book is a gem!” — Cornel West
Now in paperback.
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Voices of a People’s History of the United States, Second Edition
Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove
Updated and expanded in honor of the upcoming release of the History Channel’s documentary The People Speak, Voices of a People’s History brings together a symphony of our nation’s original voices, rich in ideas and actions, the embodiment of the power of civil disobedience and dissent wherein lies our nation’s true spirit of defiance and resilience.
Special Items
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The Old Garden: First Five Chapters
“Undoubtedly the most powerful voice of the novel in East Asia.” — Kenzaburo Oe on Hwang Sok-Yong, author of The Old Garden
A serialization of the first five chapters of Hwang Sok-yong’s The Old Garden ran on this site from September 1 to November 3, 2009. Click the book cover to read it from the beginning.
Seven Stories Spotlight 
RIP Howard Zinn 1922-2010
“I’m thinking that as much as anything else, people watching [Zinn's film, The People Speak] were sizing up Zinn himself, a very down to earth, soft-spoken historian who came from humble origins and who was saying things that made sense. They were saying to themselves, “If he can say those things, then I can say those things too. Out loud. And what I say will make a difference” — this of course being the opposite message from the one people usually hear. The film put Zinn front and center as narrator. Zinn himself was setting an example — not only of activist scholarship, but of citizenship plain and simple, and of humanity — an example that anyone is free to follow.” — Dan Simon
Alice Walker | Bob Herbert at the New York Times | Zinn Education Project | VOICES
In the News 
Linh Dinh poems at Bookslut
February 5, 2010
Bookslut has just reprinted three poems from Some Kind of Cheese Orgy, the most recent poetry collection from Linh Dinh, author of Blood and Soap, Fake House, and the forthcoming Love Like Hate. Check them out here.
I Owe You These Lines
Welcome, friend, I give you
My very best friend, to eat.
I did not kill my best friend, friend,
Although I did rejoice at his death,
As I would rejoice at your death,
As you would, no doubt, fall over
Laughing at news of my demise.
With the sharpest or dullest knife,
Whatever’s handy, I’ll point the tip
Of my blade at your jugular vein,
Observe your jiggling jaw, ask
About your questionable taste
In wine, painting and poetry.
Fall is my favorite season, I somberly reflect,
As your blood pools in the sharp morning air,
As I incise a clean cross on your funny belly,
As I gut you, glancing over my thin shoulders. —Linh Dinh
10,000 Dresses reviewed at Rainbow Rumpus
February 5, 2010
Rainbow Rumpus — “the magazine for kids with LGBT parents” — has written not one, but two excellent reviews of Marcus Ewert and Rex Ray’s 10,000 Dresses: one for kids, and one for parents. Check them out, and congratulations yet again to Marcus and Rex!
Multimedia 
David Swanson at Brave New Conversations
Check out this teaser from Daybreak author David Swanson’s long interview and discussion at Brave New Conversations. To see the whole thing, sign up at BNC here.
Web Spotlight
Revolution by the Book from AK Press
Everybody talks about the weather; we don’t—nor does AK Press, who not only run their press as a non-hierarchical collective, but who also maintain a fantastic blog combining your basic listings, reviews, and book announcements with original critical articles, political statements, biographies of anarchist writers and activists, and meditations on what it means to be a collectively-organized independent press in the increasingly manic and dog-eat-dog book publishing business.
Recent News
Upcoming Events
New Releases
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Towers of Stone
Wojciech Jagielski
The tragedy of Chechnya brought into focus by Poland's foremost journalist. -
The Black Body
Provocative personal essays on race, representation, and the experience of having-or loving-a black body.
