Sarah Kathryn York, pictured here on the right, will join the Babble Book Club today at 7:30pm EST to discuss her novel.
rabble book lounge
Review: From hell and back: Searching for self at the crossroads of social change
Night Town
(Iguana Books,
2013;
$23.99)
One marvels at how far we've progressed and yet how little has changed. In the 1970s in Canada there was still a profound stigma attached to homosexuality. Sound familiar?
We certainly like to think of ourselves as progressive in Canada, but one merely needs to glance at the headlines to see we are a long way off. Who hasn't read a story of a teenager committing suicide because they are bullied about their sexual orientation?
Arguing for Our Lives: A User's Guide to Constructive Dialogue
Arguing for Our Lives: A User's Guide to Constructive Dialog
(City Lights Publishers,
2013;
$13.95)
The following is an adapted excerpt from the new book Arguing for Our Lives: A User's Guide to Constructive Dialogue, published by City Lights Books.
"The universe is an undifferentiated whole. About that we can say nothing more."
This catchy aphorism from political philosopher Bruce Wright may seem nonsensical at first glance, but is worth exploring in the service of deepening our intellectual humility. Facing multiple, cascading ecological crises, we humans need science more than ever and more than ever we need to understand the limits of science.
Dave Zirin: Where sports and politics collide
Game Over: How politics has turned the sports world upside down
(The New Press,
2012;
$18.95)
Dave Zirin is the rare sportswriter who covers, in his words, the space "where sports and politics collide." His new book, Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down (New Press), explores the intersection of sports and politics over the past three years, touching on the London Olympics and their role in the city's anti-austerity riots, the lack of accountability after the Penn State sex-abuse scandals and the historic player lockouts in three out of the four major professional sports leagues.
10 key points for becoming a more compassionate activist
Occupy the Economy organizer guide.
(Occupy the Economy ,
2013;
Free download )
We have been great friends for the last ten years. Judy comes from a history of left and feminist activism, Velcrow is an activist film maker who has focused on environmental and spiritual activism. Over these ten years, we have learned a lot from each other, leading to collaboration on each of our projects.
Review: The Oil Road
The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London
(Verso ,
2012;
$12.99)
The corporate oil industry is unsustainable; it is damaging not simply to the environment, but across a range of political and social dimensions. The effects of the extraction, transport, trade and consumption of oil is well known in general, but often less easy to document in specific terms, given the secrecy with which oil companies and oil states generally try to shroud their activities.
A number of encounters with security personnel in The Oil Road bear out this problem, in the course of travels through the areas crossed by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
Catastrophism: Necessary critique of environmentalism or prescription for defeat?
Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth
(PM Press, Between the Lines (Canada) ,
2012;
$16.00)
In the January-February International Socialist Review (ISR), Dan Sharber described the book Catastrophism as "a superb intervention into a necessary debate on how we move forward, not simply in the environmental movement but also in the larger project of social change."
Anarchists in the boardroom
Anarchists in the boardroom
(Concrete Solutions ,
2013;
)
'The Left' has a funny relationship with the world of management.
On the one hand, it can be a dirty word; something the 'bad guys' do, a tool of 'the system.'
There's good reason for such associations.
Since its birth, the management field has largely served to reinforce the social and political status quo, manipulating the vast majority of those who fall victim to it, to work ever-longer hours and give up any sense autonomy, as well as both literal and symbolic ownership over the fruits of their labour.
One doesn't have to look far to find 'management' at the core of a range of problems, from labour disputes, to plain ol' soul-sucking bureaucracy.
In traditional leftist working class politics, 'management is the problem.'
Review: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens
Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens
(Verso Press,
2013;
$18.00)
Richard Seymour's Unhitched, a slim and scathing denunciation of turncoat scoundrel Christopher Hitchens, is a thoroughly satisfying and politically important book by one of the few remaining great radical left journalists. I have to hand it to Seymour -- this book was a cathartic read.
When I was an undergraduate, trying to be a lefty journalist and immersing myself in the literature of the Left, I was largely politicized by an emerging pantheon of great writers and thinkers. They were people I wanted to meet, people I wanted to be. I am of that "layer" of those politicized in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Women and War: Documenting a century of struggle for peace and justice
How a Century of War Changed the Lives of Women
(Pluto,
2013;
$19.99)
Lindsey German has an excellent knowledge of women’s history, and has written two perceptive books about women in the second half of the twentieth century, Sex, Class and Socialism (Bookmarks 1998) and Material Girls (Bookmarks 2007). As is well-known, she is also the National Convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, the biggest ever mass movement in Britain, and the one which organised the largest demonstration in British history on February 15, 2003, against war in Iraq. She is therefore the perfect person to write a book about women and war over the last one hundred years, and no one who reads How a Century of War Changed the Lives of Women will be disappointed.