OntheWilderSide

 

Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin We’ve loved this children’s book for a while, and were not surprised to find it for sale on a union website as a gift for children. This book is the best inspiration we have ever seen to inspire a love of writing, and a feeling of empowerment. Talk about power of the pen! When Farmer Brown’s cows find a typewriter in the barn they realize they can start making demands. They go on strike when the farmer refuses to give them what they want. Doreen Cronin’s understated text and Betsy Lewin’s expressive illustrations make the most of this hilarious situation. Come join the fun as a bunch of literate cows turn Farmer Brown’s farm upside down. Buy a copy of this book for: your activist friends as comic relief; the children of your Republican friends to subvert them; children who haven’t yet figured out that writing can equal self-expression and liberation. This book was a 2001 Caldecott Honor Book and was named one of the Best Children’s Books 2000 by Publisher’s Weekly. Make a complete gift with the Click, Clack, Moo Cow Doll: 6.5″ Seated

Americans Who Tell the Truth by Robert Shetterly. A Young Adult book we could all use. A series of portraits and biographies (now a traveling exhibit), grew out of soul-searching after 9/11 that includes Ralph Nader, Sojourner Truth, Mark Twain, Molly Ivins, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Frederick Douglass, Rachel Carson, Chief Joseph, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Mark Twain, Woody Guthrie, and more. The quotes and brief biographies are a perfect introduction to begin discussions with children about patriotism, truth, and integrity. Shetterly’s 50 portraits, combined with thought-provoking quotes and concise biographies, offer a powerful view into what it means to be American.

The Grit Cookbook: World-Wise, Down-Home Recipes
by Jessica Greene and Ted Hafer The Grit, located in the quintessential boho town of Athens, Georgia, is known far and wide as the touring musicians’ restaurant of choice. This classic cookbook features 150 of The Grit’s most requested recipes, including 20 new recipes to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this famous establishment. True to its Southern roots, this hip vegetarian eatery combines soul-food sensibility with meatless cuisine, and while there are plenty of Italian, Indian, Mexican, and Middle Eastern favorites to satisfy the well-traveled vegetarian, the heart of this cuisine maintains the down-home, soul-food feeling of simple foods and classic combinations that are guaranteed to please. “The Grit has a far-flung reputation as the indie-rock Moosewood.” The New Yorker “The Grit is a great restaurant. They have consummate taste.” Michael Stipe

 

 

Ani DiFranco: Verses For the first time, DiFranco releases a book of poetry and paintings capturing her essential artistry that has helped define and invigorate a new generation. Ani DiFranco: Verses rages, eulogizes, menaces, revels, and envisions. With a poet’s precision and a citizen’s take, DiFranco finds the meeting places of intimacy and politics, of self and country, of resolve and compromise, and of the fickle and magnificent capacities of love and solitude. DiFranco was named one of the top twenty-five most influential artists of the past twenty-five years by CMJ New Music(alongside Nirvana and U2) and one of 21 Feminists for the 21st Century by Ms. Magazine. Together with Ani DiFranco: Verses, she released her first retrospective album, Canon, in September, and proceeded on a twenty-city tour in the United States.

The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf In a stunning indictment of the Bush administration and Congress, this best-selling author lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century’s worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile. “Most Americans reject outright any comparison of post 9/11 America with the fascism and totalitarianism of Nazi Germany or Pinochet’s Chile. Sadly, the parallels and similarities, what Wolf calls the ‘echoes’ between those societies and America today, are all too compelling.” —Michael Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights

Long Walks and Intimate Talks (Women and Peace Series) by Grace Paley. Originally published in part as a calendar to benefit the War Resisters League, this gorgeously packaged book provides 365 reasons not to have another war. Paley’s poems and short fiction–including material published here for the first time–are perfectly complemented by Vera Williams’ 30 vivid watercolors. This first collaboration of two long-time feminist and antiwar activists is a wonderful melding of word and image that creates a powerful call for world peace. This book depicts the beauty and dignity of “ordinary” lives from El Salvador to the Bronx, from New Hampshire to Vietnam. Scenes and stories of domestic life, solitude, and nature are interspersed with heart-wrenching images of women widowed and children crippled by war and incarcerated by urban poverty, Here, too, are stories and paintings of protest, joyous and defiant.

How America Lost Iraq by Aaron Glantz As a reporter for the staunchly antiwar Pacifica Radio, twenty-seven-year-old Aaron Glantz had spent much of early 2003 warning of catastrophe if the U.S. invaded Iraq. But, as he watched the statue of Saddam topple, he wondered whether he had been mistaken: In interviews with regular Iraqis, he found wide support for the Americans. Then, public opinion changed. In early 2004, the U.S. military initiated a completely unprovoked bombing campaign against the population of Fallujah, increasing support for an armed resistance. The attack confounded many anti-Saddam Iraqis, and plunged the nation into chaos. In How America Lost Iraq, Glantz tells his story of working on the front lines, while revealing truths that most media outlets have missed or failed to report. For instance, 50 percent of the U.S.-trained Iraqi army has either mutinied or refused to fight; the Iraqi public has sustained appalling civilian casualties; corporate contractors including Halliburton and Bechtel have failed to supply Iraqis with the basic necessities of daily life, such as clean water and electricity; and a respected poll shows that 82 percent of Iraqis want the U.S. to leave.

Your Money Or Your Life Transforming You by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin sparked the modern simplicity movement. It remains one of the pre-eminent sources for how to create financial freedom by separating your needs from your wants. This is not a get rich quick scheme. It is the progeny of Thoreau’s “On Walden Pond”. The Harvard-educated Thoreau freed himself from the business world by by taking the extraordinary measure of changing his life from pencil manufacturer to squatter. Dominguez and Robin suggest a less drastic change by helping you re-direct your prosperity from consumer driven wants to enough wealth to stop working.

Politics the Wellstone Way, How to Elect Progressive Candidates and Win on Issues With election season coming up for villages, school boards and library boards in the next few months, it’s timely to read this book. I found it more useful than most other books on running for office which start from a major party point of view. This book comes to running for office from an activist point of view. I found the discussion of how to effectively communicate with voters provides step-by-step information to make sure you are heard. The Wellstone people also show you how to apply the same organizing techniques used for political campaigns to issues activism.

It Happens as We Speak — A Feminist Poetics by Pat Falk The personal, the poetic, the political, the historic, the mythic-they braid together in this saga of the growth of a woman’s mind. Pat Falk’s story is unique, and at the same time she is Everywoman. It Happens As We Speak is a book of birth, and life, and change, and wisdom. –Alicia Ostriker

Pat Falk’s rare pastiche of memory and lively literary analysis gathers a momentum so persuasive that we catapult from page to page with the shifts and turns of her life as they affect her twin lives of scholar and poet. A riveting mix of candor and musing. –Molly Peacock

Falk uses a mixture of previously separated writing forms to cross what she sees as an arbitrary line between the personal and the professional in writing. Each category informs the other in a way that carries forward the thoughts of the writer. She attempts to move beyond this simple dichotomy in both her thoughts and the form of this book. Read the rest of my review of Pat Falk’s “Feminist Poetics”

Bonus book:
Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism by Joel Andreas  Kimberly & I always keep an extra copy of this around to give as a present.  Howard Zinn called it:  “A witty and devastating portrait of U.S. military policy.”

Addicted to War takes on the most active, powerful and destructive military in the world. Hard-hitting, carefully documented and heavily illustrated, it reveals why the United States has been involved in more wars in recent years than any other country. Read Addicted to War to find out who benefits from these military adventures, who pays-and who dies. Over 120,000 copies of the previous edition are in print. This new edition is substantially reworked and fully updated through the War in Iraq.

 

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Filed under: activism, Art, Books, Ecology, election, elections, Food, green, Holidays, international politics, Iraq, Labor, media, Peace, Political Websites, Ralph Nader, Recommended Poetry, US Politics, vegetarian Tagged: | ahnuka, aliciaostriker, Amy Goodman, ani difranco, Cesar Chavez, Chief Joseph, christmas, feminist, Frederick Douglass, gifts, grace paley, green books, howard zinn, Iraq, Mark Twain, michael stipe, Molly Ivins, molly peacock, naomi wolf, new yorker, Noam Chomsky, pacifica, pat falk, paul wellstone, Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader, Rosa Parks, simplicity, Sojourner Truth, union cookbook, woody guthrie