notanotherbookreview

  SEVEN STORIES PRESS beautifully resurrects "Both an extraordinary 1930s text on anarchism in its original sense of liberatory principles of equality and mutual support, and short chapters with all age-appropriate illustrations and explanations of each principle. This book is certainly for progressive parents and their children."   “Help: To those who hesitate, give them encouragement: to those who despair of seeing victory far away, give them courage. Mutual help is a sacred and universal duty.” "Anarchy is a political and social state characterized by the absence of government, hierarchy, or enforced authority. It emphasizes voluntary cooperation, individual autonomy, and mutual aid rather than coercive rule. While often associated with chaos, proponents see it as a self-organized, free society."--wikipedia What is Anarchy? In my education,  Anarchy w as a political philosophy for crazy people, like the Russian who infamously rolled marbles across a stage during ...

The back cover of  The Beginning Comes After the End:  Notes on a world of change calls it   a sequel to  Hope In The Dark.  That book relates the historical moment in 1955, w hen Grace Lee Boggs ushered in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. That event, says Solnit, began the era of progressive social change. Now it may seem eclipsed in a distant past.. What we may not realize in our present world's incessant "newness" is the ageless persistence of social values--old ways and wisdoms. In our rising world view,  interconnection is a core value. Solnit shows how underlying transformations are often obscured by a longer arc of history. The scale of what's underlying is seldom recognized. Yet these currents shape destiny.  In Rebecca Solnit’s new book, The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a world of change, there is plenty of evidence for a long view of political change. Though in our current period of backlash, after decades of progressive change, ...

Bamboo Dart Press consistently delivers the unexpected and brilliant in form and content. Of these delectable slender volumes by Peter Wortsman, the editors explain, "The poems are condensed and diverse, reflecting the mind of a poet and collage artist. Paintings, also created by the author, are interspersed among the poems."  For the first time, these books are offered internationally. Sets of four or two are available."Bamboo Dart Press explains the latest book in the series.   What We Leave Behind , Peter Wortsman’s fourth book of cut-ups, he lets the words run wild, in some cases, as in French poet Guillaume Apollinaire’s  Calligrames  (1918), letting words break ranks and dance on the page; in other cases, coupling word and image; and finally, succumbing to the lure of the visual in collages in which words play a subordinate role or disappear altogether. If, as this book’s first poem maintains, “we know each other from what we leave behind,” Wortsman write...

“Censorship had raised gossip to the level of official communication.” 1933: The Year the Nazis Seized Power" by Philip Metcafe.0\--  The Gossip Columnist, Sunday, April 22 , 1945    It's been a strange experience, reading this book at this time in the United States. It's arrived as democracy is under daily assault in Congress and the streets of our cities. Processes similar to those used by the Nazis have been echoed in our news headlines, attacks on our institutions, including press repression. I asked Martyn Burke , author of the new novel, THE GOSSIP COLUMNIST (1/27/26 DarkSpur Press), the following question:          Q. What is there from your own experience that you brought into the story of The Gossip Columnist? A. "In totalitarian societies I’ve seen the terror and the crushing of moral guidelines, and always there is the question you ask yourself: “How did it get to this?” I spent a lot of time researching the step-by-step descent o...

PUB DATE TODAY! THE GOSSIP COLUMNIST By Martyn Burke, BOOK TRAILER, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_iEHvbUe6Y Burke manages, with impressive literary artistry, to shed some light on a historical conundrum:   How did such unabashed   savagery spring from such a famously refined national culture? A stunning novel crackling with historical insight ”  -- Kirkus Reviews FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE “Gossip long ago became the only truth we get. After the Nazis took over, I had to write my newspaper column in a kind of code.” –THE GOSSIP COLUMNIST.   MARTYN BURKE’S THE GOSSIP COLUMNIST EXAMINES WHAT HAPPENED IN 1933, WHEN CENSORSHIP RAISED GOSSIP TO OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION.  Based on historical fact, THE GOSSIP COLUMNIST, is set in Berlin--from the depraved and hedonistic days of Weimar Germany to the end of WW2. The Nazi infatuation with power had degenerated to a sexual circus in the 20’s and 30’s. Bella and Karin, two sisters about ten years apart...

NOVELS WHERE TIME IS POROUS  DAYS AT THE TORUNKA CAFE By Satoshi Yagisawa Satoshi Yagisawa's DAYS AT THE TORUNKA CAFE ( November 2025 Harper Perennial ) also looks at a cultural artifact that is out-of-time, in this case, not a person, but a place in  modern Tokyo, Japan. Like his previous book, Days at the Morisaku Bookshop, the Cafe, on a narrow side street, is an unexpected place, known to locals and the "initiated." It is a place "where the passersby are more likely to be local cats than tourists." Who goes there and why? There's no profit motive in the location, no advertising, what's the attraction? Fabulous perfect coffee, each cup individually milled, after customer selection, for a customer's taste. Aromas are mesmerizing, the cafe owner's satisfaction a visible smile. Oddly, the cafe owner's teenage daughter, Shizuku Tachibaba, hates coffee and never drinks it. A hidden mystery of the Cafe. The owner himself, seems too relaxed, ele...