Monday, October 19, 2009

A New Kid on the Block

Although the miseries of a cold kept me from attending any other panels at the Seattle Anarchist Bookfair this weekend, I did have the pleasure of browsing at the table of a new press that I hadn't previously heard of. PM Press is located in Oakland and though it's only about two years old has an impressive list of titles, all beautifully designed. I was pleased to see some reprint sf (work by Terry Bisson and Kim Stanley Robinson), some comics, film criticism, a book on graffiti by guerilla artist Banksy in London, another titled Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today, practical political theory like Labor Law for the Rank and File: Building Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law), classics of political theory like C.L.R. James's The Invading Socialist Society and Every Cook Can Govern. I bought one book that I've already started reading-- Wobblies & Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History-- and have my eye on Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca and Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico. Go to their site and browse: there's much, much more!

As I mentioned, I've already started reading Wobblies & Zapatistas. It's a book composed of conversations between Staughton Lynd and Andrej Grubacic; and the introduction makes it clear from the start that the book is rich with stories (not lectures), stories of the kind I'm always hungry to read, stories that are not heard or told in the mainstream. And also, in case you're wondering? The Zapatistas in the title refers not to the mainstream glamor of "the first cyber revolution," but to the Mayan struggle against the appropriation of their lands that accompanied NAFTA.

Three cheers for PM Press!

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