Posted on December 15th, 2011 in Recommended Reading
It’s that time of year, when everyone and their mother puts up their “year-in-review” blog post. Best films, best albums, Person of the Year, and what have you. Well, here we are with our own list, to celebrate all the awesome work we’ve done at AK Press this year. We like to step back and pat ourselves on the back every once in a while because we have been putting out some damn fine books (if we do say so ourselves) for twenty-one years.
The Top 10 AK Press titles of 2011 are:
1. Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther [Marshall “Eddie” Conway]
This important memoir, by a Baltimore Black Panther who has been incarcerated for 41 years for a crime he did not commit, really took off this year—thanks to some excellent launch events, some awesome professors teaching it in college courses, and some renewed public attention to Eddie’s case. But he’s still locked up, and people still need to hear what he has to say.
2. I Mix What I Like: A Mixtape Manifesto [Jared Ball]
Got a DJ or a hip-hop fan on your holiday shopping list? Look no further than this fascinating look at internal colonialism theory and modern African America through the lens of the hip-hop mixtape. Read the great two-part OC Weekly interview with Jared Ball (Part One and Part Two) to find out what this book is all about!
3. Oppose & Propose: Lessons from Movement for a New Society [Andrew Cornell]
The second book in the Anarchist Interventions series co-published with the Institute for Anarchist Studies! (See also the first book, Anarchism and its Aspirations, and the soon-forthcoming third book, Decolonizing Anarchism.) This one brings to life the history and legacy of Movement for a New Society, a radical pacifist organization that was active in the 1970s–80s
4. Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex [Edited by Nat Smith & Eric Stanley]
The first collection of its kind, on an essential topic: the experiences of trans and gender variant people caught up in the Prison Industrial Complex. Includes contributions from current and former prisoners, activists, and academics. Check out the release event videos of Miss Major and Eric Stanley & Angela Davis to get a feel for what’s covered in the book.
5. Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs: A Novel [D.D. Johnston]
Our second novel in as many years, this one should elicit many smiles and nods (and maybe snort-laughs?) from those of us who came of age in the anti-globalization movement. Trust us: it’s awesome. Or else you can trust the author, who does his best to be honest with you about whether or not you will like the book.
6. After the Future [Franco “Bifo” Berardi]
Bifo is gaining recognition within U.S. activist circles, and for good reason. He’s been saying some things worth listening to. Take this, for instance: “We don’t have to get indignant anymore, we have to revolt.” Here’s his new book about our collective obsession with “the future,” whose time, he argues, has come and gone. What’s next, if not the future? Well, that’s up to us…
7. Property Is Theft: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader [Pierre-Joseph Proudhon; Edited by Iain McKay]
Years in the making, here’s a massive (over 800 pages!) collection of writings by the first man to call himself an “anarchist.” Edited by Iain McKay (of Anarchist FAQ fame), who also wrote here about his thoughts on the process of editing this book, and the final result. An essential addition to any anarchist’s library.
8. “Yellow Kid” Weil: The Autobiography of America’s Master Swindler [J.R. Weil & W.T. Brannon]
You’ve probably just heard about this one on BoingBoing, where it was called the “perfect toilet-tank book.” It’s the latest in our popular Nabat Books series of outlaw biographies. It would make a great gift, don’t you think? Or maybe you’d like to brush up on your own swindling technique before that family holiday get-together? (Kidding! AK Press does not endorse ripping off your own family.)
9. Weaponizing Anthropology [David H. Price]
For anyone who’s worried about military incursions into schools and universities and the co-optation of research by intelligence agencies: well, you’re right to worry. For anyone else, here’s a wake-up call. The social science students and professors in your life need to read this. Check out this great review from La Jornada.
10. Zapatista Spring: Anatomy of a Rebel Water Project & the Lessons of International Solidarity [Ramor Ryan]
From the author of Clandestines, and more recently the translator of Dispersing Power, comes this nuanced look at what happens when a group of international volunteers converge to help build a water system in Chiapas and encounter a “real world” much more complex than the flowery Zapatista communiqués. You can read an excerpt from the book here.
Honorable Mention: Autonomy, Solidarity, Possibility: The Colin Ward Reader [Colin Ward; Edited by Damian White & Chris Wilbert]
It’s only been out a couple months, but our long-awaited Colin Ward reader nearly made it onto this list anyway. So what the hell, who says there can’t be 11 books on our Top 10? Colin Ward was one of the most influential anarchist writers of the 20th (and early 21st) century; this is the definitive collection of his work.
And, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the Friends of AK Press. In 2011, generous contributions from our Friends helped us to publish all 11 titles mentioned above—plus the also-excellent The Right to Be Lazy, Revolt and Crisis in Greece, Story of the Iron Column, Eyes to the South, and (any day now) Decolonizing Anarchism! In return for their support, Friends of AK received every one of these books in the mail, hot off the press! What lucky ducks! Sign up now to help us keep up the pace in 2012—we’ve even brought back Lifetime Friends of AK Press memberships for a limited time.
Much gratitude to those of you who have supported us either as Friends of AK, or by buying our books, in 2011! Here’s to many more…
Posted on December 9th, 2011 in Events, Uncategorized
Our annual holiday sale is back, but we’re trying out something new this year and having it on a Saturday! Everything else is the same as always: 25% off EVERYTHING in the warehouse, tables of sale items (GOOD ones!) priced at just $1–$5, free snacks and beverages, and a festive atmosphere for all your last-minute radical holiday shopping. Come on out, and bring your friends!
Facebook event at: http://www.facebook.com/events/214685165273190/
Posted on December 8th, 2011 in Reviews
Much to our delight, we woke up this morning to an excellent BoingBoing review of the latest book in our popular Nabat series, “Yellow Kid” Weil: The Autobiography of America’s Master Swindler!
Cory Doctorow describes the book:
“Weil’s autobiography is really more of a memoir—it doesn’t provide much of a coherent narrative of the man and his life. Rather, it is a series of unconnected—but hugely entertaining—anaecdotes about the various scams he ran and the venal fools he took for thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. Weil is a virtuoso exploiter of human foibles, and each story serves as a miniature morality play in which someone who thinks he’s getting something for nothing (usually at some innocent’s expense) instead loses everything as payback for his venality.”
In conclusion, he says:
“This is one of the most entertaining memoirs I’ve ever read. Its episodic nature makes it a natural for quick reads—a more perfect toilet-tank book there never was—and the detailed descriptions of Depression-era cons are priceless, especially for anyone interested in gadgets and improvisation. The scam fortuneteller whose turban disguised a telephone clamped to his head, which was wired down his collar and trouser-leg to an electrical contact on the bottom of his shoe, which would be mated to a telephone circuit when the ‘swami’ reclined on an ‘oriental lounger’ to ‘commune with the spirit world’ is one of the best things I’ve ever read.”
We are still laughing at the fact that Cory Doctorow called one of our titles a “perfect toilet-tank book.” We hope you will agree. Read the whole review on BoingBoing, and then check out the book—or better yet, the whole Nabat series!
Posted on December 2nd, 2011 in Events
Join AK Press and our officemates from the Baltimore Indyreader for a special holiday edition of our Radical Publishing Happy Hour! Enjoy some cocktails and festive snacks, take advantage of special deals on books (25% off EVERYTHING, plus a selection of awesome sale titles for just $5!), and celebrate… the season with two of Baltimore’s radical publishing collectives!
We’ve got a stockroom full of treasures. Something for everyone on your gift list. We can even help you choose! Come on out and support independent media in Baltimore, and invite your friends!
Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/330179906997021/
Posted on December 1st, 2011 in AK Distribution, AK News, Recommended Reading
It’s that time of year again—time to excitedly flip through the pages of the new AK Press catalog, pick out all your holiday gifts, and come up with your 2012 reading list. This year in the interest of saving trees and money, we’ve limited the production of print catalogs and tried to target our mailing to our less technologically inclined customers as well as folks in prison. We hope those of you who are following us here will take a look at our newfangled online catalog!
You have a couple of options: you can go to our Scribd page to download a PDF (or print it out, if you must!), or you can browse the catalog online (go to the Scribd page to adjust size and page view):
And thanks to the twenty-first century, you can easily help us spread the joy you no doubt felt when you picked up your first AK Press catalog: please pass this around via your social networks, e-mail, blog, or whatever you’ve got! And for those of you who still love the printed catalog (we’re with you, secretly!): if you don’t get a copy in the mail, you’ll very likely still have an opportunity to pick one up at an AK Press table near you.
Posted on November 28th, 2011 in Events
Buchvorstellung zur Geschichte des Anarchismus weltweit mit einem der Autoren: Lucien van der Walt, Sozialwissenschaftler aus Johannesburg/ Südafrika (Uni Witwatersrand)
In dem Buch “Black Flame” wird ein Überblick anarchistischen Denkens von den Anfängen im 19. Jahrhundert bis zu heutigen antikapitalistischen Kämpfen auf 5 Kontinenten gegeben. Die Autoren betrachten den Syndikalismus als wichtigsten Zweig des Anarchismus und setzten sich mit Fragen nach Organisierung, Strategie und Taktik ebenso wie mit Geschlechterverhältnissen und Rassismus auseinander.
Sie versuchen eine Kategorisierung verschiedener anarchistischer Strömungen und gegenwärtiger Klassenkämpfe in verschiedenen Teilen der Welt. Auf der Veranstaltung werden zunächst die zentralen Thesen des Buchs vorgestellt und dann soll auf Wunsch von Lucien van der Walt viel Raum zur Diskussion gegeben werden.
Die Veranstaltung findet auf Englisch statt und wird ins Deutsche übersetzt.
Montag, 21.11.2011 um 20 Uhr in der Agathe, Tannenheckerweg 5
*BUCHVORSTELLUNG*
Lucien van der Walt (Universität Witwatersrand, Johannesburg)
Co-Autor von: Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism
Vorstellung des Buches in Berlin am 30. Nov. 2011, 20.00 Uhr
FAU-Lokal
Lottumstr. 11, 10119 Berlin
(U2 Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz / U8 Rosenthaler Platz)
Eintritt frei!
“Black Flame” untersucht die antiautoritäre Klassenpolitik der anarchistischen/syndikalistischen Bewegung und ihre 150 Jahre des Kampfes auf fünf Kontinenten. Eine unverzichtbarer gedanklicher und historischer Leitfaden, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Bewegungen in Afrika, Asien, der Karibik und Lateinamerika.
Das Buch blickt auf deren:
* Widerstand: Gegen Hierarchien, Kapitalismus und den Staat
* Strategie: Aufbau revolutionärer Gegenmacht
* Geschichte: Arbeit, Soziales, Antiimperialismus
* Agenda: Partizipatorische, kooperative Ökonomien
* Revolutionen: Mexiko, Spanien, Ukraine, Korea
* Revival: Heutige Kämpfe
MORE: http://black-flame-anarchism.blogspot.com/
Posted on November 28th, 2011 in Events
Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it’s an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into “straight-acting dudes hangin’ out,” what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?
Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? challenges not just the violence of straight homophobia but the hypocrisy of mainstream gay norms that say the only way to stay safe is to act straight: get married, join the military, adopt kids! Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore reinvokes the anger, flamboyance, and subversion once thriving in gay subcultures in order to create something dangerous and lovely: an exploration of the perils of assimilation; a call for accountability; a vision for change. A sassy and splintering emergency intervention!
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore will be at the Claremont Colleges to do both a lecture (1/26) and a workshop (1/27).
For more on the book: http://www.akpress.org/2011/items/whyarefaggotssoafraidoffaggots
Posted on November 28th, 2011 in AK Authors!, Events, Happenings
Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it’s an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into “straight-acting dudes hangin’ out,” what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?
Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? challenges not just the violence of straight homophobia but the hypocrisy of mainstream gay norms that say the only way to stay safe is to act straight: get married, join the military, adopt kids! Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore reinvokes the anger, flamboyance, and subversion once thriving in gay subcultures in order to create something dangerous and lovely: an exploration of the perils of assimilation; a call for accountability; a vision for change. A sassy and splintering emergency intervention!
For more on the book: http://www.akpress.org/2011/items/whyarefaggotssoafraidoffaggots
Posted on November 28th, 2011 in Events
A delicious discussion with contributors Jaime Cortez, Tommi Avicolli Mecca, Debanuj DasGupta, Booh Edouardo, Eric Stanley, Harris Kornstein, Gina de Vries, Horehound Stillpoint, Matthew D. Blanchard, and your lovely host Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Join editor Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore for a sweet and sassy intervention into the heart of queer culture! Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots collects essays, experiences, analyses, and explorations into the norms that have come to define mainstream gay life in America: marriage, military, kids. Against the grain (as always), Mattilda and the contributors to this saucy volume postulate a different life for queers, one that recalls the liberatory moments of gay culture of the late twentieth century, and looks forward to a new, more radical queering of twentieth-century gay culture.
6PM – 8PM!
Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform (February 2012), edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore | http://www.akpress.org/2011/items/whyarefaggotssoafraidoffaggots
Come early for heart-shaped refreshments!
Posted on November 28th, 2011 in Events
Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it’s an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into “straight-acting dudes hangin’ out,” what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?
Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? challenges not just the violence of straight homophobia but the hypocrisy of mainstream gay norms that say the only way to stay safe is to act straight: get married, join the military, adopt kids! Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore reinvokes the anger, flamboyance, and subversion once thriving in gay subcultures in order to create something dangerous and lovely: an exploration of the perils of assimilation; a call for accountability; a vision for change. A sassy and splintering emergency intervention!
For more on the book: http://www.akpress.org/2011/items/whyarefaggotssoafraidoffaggots
At this event, Mattilda will be joined by several of the book’s contributors: Debanuj DasGupta, Harris Kornstein, Booh Edouardo and Gina de Vries!
