In years past, I’ve managed to go to a number of book gatherings: the annual Book Expo in New York City or Chicago was always a highlight. I’ve been to a number of meetings of the American Booksellers Association as well. I haven’t been able to get to any of these meetings in recent years, but maybe next time!
The American Booksellers Association Winter Institute took place last week in Pittsburgh. Lots of book presentations, lots of author meet and greets, and lots of panels. Here is a link to a rundown of the Bookstores in the Time of Fascism panel discussion.
"You do not wait for times to get better," said Keaun Michael Brown of Ujamaa Community Bookstore, Indianapolis, Ind., during Winter Institute 2026 in Pittsburgh, Pa., last week….
"You do not wait for an administration to end," Brown continued. "You wait for nobody but yourself."
When it comes to activism and resistance, Brown emphasized the importance of starting small, starting locally, and starting "with what you can do." Booksellers should think about what they can do "right now" with the resources at hand, and if something isn't sustainable, it's a "waste of time." Places to start might include asking customers to round up to the nearest dollar to benefit a local mutual aid fund, or donate a percentage of sales to help local families. And speaking from his experience as an activist, he noted that booksellers already have an extremely valuable asset--a venue, which can sometimes be the "hardest thing" to find.
My 20% off Women’s History Month promotion is live at The Literate Lizard. Over 100 books in ten categories for all ages. Most are recent hardcovers, as well as preorders for books coming out this month, but there is also an offering of classics and old favorites. Check it out.
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Truth and Consequence: Reflections on Catastrophe, Civil Resistance, and Hope, by Daniel Ellsberg. When Daniel Ellsberg passed away in 2023 at the age of ninety-two, his lifelong commitment to nuclear disarmament and truth-telling at the highest levels of government enshrined him as one of the most courageous patriots America has ever seen. From his role in leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971, for which he was charged with multiple felonies under the Espionage Act, to his anti-war activism and writings in the decades that followed, his effects on American nuclear policy, peacemaking efforts, and information politics cannot be overstated.
Yet the principles he stood on remain more urgent than ever, as catastrophic wars break out and political unrest throws into question the authority of democracy and governments across the world. Truth and Consequence-edited by his son, Michael Ellsberg, and his longtime assistant Jan R. Thomas-captures Ellsberg's lifelong preoccupations with the problem of evil, the massacre of civilians, the threat of nuclear annihilation, the dangers of unquestioned obedience, and the necessity to cultivate empathy for those whom we have been taught to see as enemies.
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Black Evidence: A History and a Warning, by Candis Watts Smith. From Reconstruction to Redemption, from the enactment of landmark civil rights legislation to the execution of the Southern strategy, from 2020’s multiracial protests to the swift elimination of policies etching out a more inclusive society, Americans regularly experience periods of racial reckoning followed by walloping retrenchment.
In Black Evidence, political scientist Candis Watts Smith shows that this pattern is the result of an American habit: denying the truths about our society that Black people experience and remember. Smith then delivers a warning: the effects of this habit ripple out, dulling our ability to identify the signs of authoritarianism and heightening our tolerance for cruelty. Still, she shows how these same truths offer models to overcome our repeated predicament.
Through a curation of critical moments across four centuries, Smith invites us to review the evidence that has been obscured, distorted, and denied. She rigorously investigates the practices that turn Black witnesses into liars in the court room, Black patients into superbodies that don’t feel pain in health care settings, Black people into subhumans in scientific experiments, and Black children into superpredators. She reveals what happens when Black voices are subject to exclusion—their communities are terrorized, their memories are refuted, and their resistance is pathologized. “Here is our beautiful, terrible, and complicated past and present, told in all their sparkling complexity. This is history that explodes indoctrination and offers a vision of democracy that calls us toward belonging.”— Timothy B. Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till
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Civil Rights Warrior: A Life on the Front Lines of Justice, Equality, and the American Dream, by Evelyn Jones Rich. From the working-class streets of Depression-era Philadelphia to the front lines of America’s most pivotal civil rights battles, Evie Rich’s extraordinary journey is a testament to courage, conviction, and the relentless pursuit of justice. In Civil Rights Warrior, Rich chronicles her rise from humble beginnings to becoming a trailblazer in the fight for equality-breaking barriers as an African-American woman at Bryn Mawr College, debating Malcolm X on the airwaves, and shaping the course of history through her leadership in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Americans for Democratic Action.
With unflinching honesty, Rich shares the triumphs and setbacks of a lifetime spent challenging discrimination in education, employment, and public life-from holding institutions accountable in Washington, D.C. to advocating for the rights of New York City’s most vulnerable citizens. Alongside luminaries like James Baldwin, she raised funds for sit-ins and mentored new generations of activists, all while rising to Associate Dean within the City University of New York.
Now in her nineties, Evie Rich remains a powerful voice--spearheading the fight to protect retirees’ health care and inspiring those who refuse to accept injustice. Civil Rights Warrior is a vital legacy for activists past, present, and future, and a stirring reminder that the struggle for equality is far from over.
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Good Woman: A Reckoning, by Savala Nolan. A lifetime of playing by the rules of female social conditioning is not what it’s cracked up to be for Nolan. The years of making herself smaller (literally and metaphorically); the sexual advances that led to more than she wanted; the bad marriage she fought like hell to keep; all the ways others questioned her identity or choices and she let it slide to keep the peace; her silence when requested; her body when desired—none of it worked. None of it protected her the way it was advertised to.
Nolan noticed the same was true for the women around her and the women in history she read about. Across time and location, they were raised to be agreeable and “good.” Hyper-visible as sexual objects but invisible as full people. Living in a physical world created by men for men. Taking on the ultimate role of birth-giver and caretaker, yet seeing it remain an unsung act, even as it’s a God-like endeavor. Only in midlife did Nolan begin to realize she was capable of living outside these cages of conditioning so slyly insidious that they’re nearly invisible. "This good woman thinks boldly and writes with exhilarating passion. Whatever the subject – gender, sex, race, class, art, politics—she disrupts piety and honors complexity. These are smart and daring essays to learn from and revel in." - Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland and Constructing a Nervous System
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Reproductive Wrongs: A Short History of Bad Ideas About Women, by Sarah Ruden. In Reproductive Wrongs, acclaimed translator and cultural historian Sarah Ruden exposes how ideologies that oppress women and families in the service of power took hold. Ruden traces a sweeping history through her trenchant analysis of seven pieces of literature that, she argues, marked key inflection points across two thousand years. From propagandistic poetry written by Ovid in the early Roman Empire to the biography of an evangelical American “abortion survivor,” Ruden lays bare how doctrines of control over women were invented and propagated.
The New Testament’s Pastoral Epistles introduced near-totalitarian measures to force childbearing in the early days of Christianity. In the late fifteenth century, The Hammer of Witches outlined a program that demonized women’s fertility, justifying mass torture and killing. And Charles Dickens’s The Chimes glorified the virtues of large families among the very poor, playing into their suffering and exploitation in industrialized Victorian Britain. Scathing and vital, Reproductive Wrongs unearths the evolution of a right-wing radicalism that endures to this day, when half of the US population is once again threatened with the loss of basic human rights and totalitarian law. “With the right mix of humor and outrage, Sarah Ruden takes us on a sobering tour of western culture’s ever more sinister arguments for controlling women’s fertility. This is a bracing reminder of what we are up against in the fight for reproductive rights.”— Sheila Murnaghan, Alfred Reginald Allen Memorial Professor of Greek at University of Pennsylvania
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El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory, by Jazmine Ulloa. El Paso is an extraordinary, can’t-look-away reported history; it uses deep research and dozens of new interviews to blow away the myth of this place, where Mexico’s Juarez and America’s El Paso intertwine. It charts the history of El Paso through five families. From the Mexican Revolution and the Mexican Repatriation, to the shifting immigration laws under Reagan and Trump and the violence and bloodshed brought on by the drug war, El Paso captures a place often misunderstood or forgotten by the rest of the country, and the world.
El Paso is a brave new work of narrative nonfiction that gives new voice and perspective to history that has long been checked at the border, or told through the lens of white men alone. Ulloa draws upon meticulous research and reporting and stunning historical detail to craft the intimate narratives of an unforgettable cast of characters. “Jazmine Ulloa’s stunning book is at its core an origin story, one filled with tales of revolution, uprising, displacement, rioting, rampage, and mass migration. In the five families portrayed here their yearning to be heard and understood is surpassed only by the sense of hope and the reimagining that comes from living between two countries and cultures. El Paso will amaze you with what it reveals about this iconic border city that has been both in plain sight and never truly seen until now.”—Oscar Cásares, author of Where We Come From
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You Can't Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson's Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her, by Shannon McKenna Schmidt. At a time when political candidates' wives were expected to be seen and not heard, Lady Bird Johnson made history as the first presidential spouse to take a leading role on the campaign trail. Her mission: to aid her husband, Lyndon B. Johnson, in his reelection bid.
Proud of her southern heritage and of what her husband had done for civil rights, Lady Bird undertook an eight-state whistle-stop tour in October 1964, both to garner votes for Lyndon and to help ease the animosity that arose from the signing of the Civil Rights Act three months earlier.
The "Lady Bird Special," a custom, nineteen-car train, forged headlong into the powder keg of Southern politics, traveling from Washington DC to New Orleans and making forty-seven stops in only four days. Despite the potential dangers, the First Lady, aided by a team of pioneering women, pressed forward, making speeches, shaking hands, and breaking ground.
You Can't Catch Us isn't simply the story of an election campaign. It's the story of a women-led operation and an appeal for understanding and civility. Lady Bird Johnson's monumental journey expanded the role of women in politics and progressed the fight for women's rights—a fight we still continue today.
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The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History, by Odd Arne Westad. From a renowned Yale historian comes a chilling look at the looming threat of the next Great Power war and the urgent interventions necessary to avoid it in the twenty-first century
The vast majority of people alive today have come of age in a world of remarkable stability, presided over by either one or two Superpowers. This is not to say the world has been peaceful; but it has, to a great extent, been predictable. As an increasing number of Great Powers jostle for regional supremacy, as well as competitive advantage in nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, space exploration, and trade, our world has become more fragile, unpredictable—and combustible. The outbreak of global war among today’s Great Powers seems increasingly likely. Such war, as Odd Arne Westad powerfully argues in this urgent book, would be of a magnitude and devastation never before seen.
To understand the threats that face us in this complex new terrain, we must look to the lessons of the past, and especially the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—a time when Great Powers clashed and sought regional dominance, nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many felt that globalization had failed them; a time when tariffs increased, immigration and terrorism were among the biggest issues of the day, and a growing number of people blamed the citizens of other countries for their problems. A time, in other words, that carries eerie parallels with our own.
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Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution, by Anand Gopal. In 2011, in a northern Syrian city, a small group of men and women began a movement that overthrew a brutal dictatorship. For the next eighteen months, many of the citizens of Manbij carried out one of the most remarkable experiments in democracy in modern times.
Days of Love and Rage details the powerfully intimate narratives of the men and women who led this struggle, and who experienced the highs of camaraderie and the lows of betrayal. Among them: a pair of best friends torn apart by political polarization, a mother who stands up to male dominance, and a worker who risks everything for the dream of equality.
Anand Gopal immerses you in the world of a single city in the throes of revolution, and lays bare the danger that inequality poses to democracy. But this book transcends the particulars of one terrible conflict to tell the broader story of rising authoritarianism in our times. Days of Love and Rage has the force, sweep, and artistry of a great novel, and is ultimately a story of our enduring human need for dignity and hope. "Anand Gopal is one of the great war reporters of our age. Rather than writing about the politicians and generals driving the wars, Gopal writes with great knowledge and empathy about the lives of ordinary people who were thrust into extraordinary circumstances."—Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
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Lost: Amelia Earhart's Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life, by Rachel Hartigan. In Lost, former National Geographic reporter Rachel Hartigan delves into Earhart’s disappearance, introducing a host of eccentric characters who have become obsessed with finding the truth. Did the great aviator crash land near the Marshall Islands, only to be captured by Japanese soldiers? Did she manage to land on Nikumaroro Island but die of injury or starvation? Or did she run out of fuel and crash into the ocean?
Interspersed with the search for Earhart is the story of her extraordinary life: her unstable childhood, her itinerant early career, and how a PR-savvy publisher transformed her into an aviation icon and became her husband in an unconventional marriage.
As tantilizing new evidence mounts, Hartigan and her fellow investigators descend deeper into a world of conspiracy and obsession. Through its irresistible characters and prodigious research, Lost reveals not just why we remember Amelia Earhart as a trailblazer and adventurer, but why unsolved mysteries keep us forever searching for answers. “There’s a reason the story of Amelia Earhart stays in our minds, and Rachel Hartigan beautifully captures it in Lost, conjuring the inspiration, the daring, the failings, and the sheer mystery within this enduring tale. Beautifully reported and gracefully written, Lost is fascinating and fulfilling.”
—Susan Orlean
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Muv: The Story of the Mitford Girls' Mother, by Rachel Trethewey. Everyone knows about the six flamboyant Mitford girls but in fact there were seven remarkable women in the famous family—the seventh was "Muv," Lady Sydney Redesdale, the mother of the notorious sisters. Too often portrayed as different from them and outside the girl gang, she was really the original and much of her daughters’ strong will, self-confidence, and extremism came from her.
Sydney Redesdale was a divisive figure both among her daughters and subsequent biographers. Until their deaths, her girls were still squabbling over what she was really like, their differing views of her persisted for even longer than the political divides between them. Each daughter wanted to control the narrative and they wrote competing novels, memoirs and letters to vindicate their perspective. For Nancy and Jessica, she was a scapegoat. For Unity, Diana, Debo and Pam, she was a saint.
Biographers have been equally divided about how she should be portrayed. Many wondered how such exceptional children could spring from such ordinary parents, but was Sydney really so "ordinary?" The story of her life at the heart of one of Britain’s most famous families is told in full here for the first time and is a missing piece in understanding one of the twentieth century's most complex and fascinating families. “For the first time, the matriarch of the Mitfords emerges as an exciting historical figure in her own right, who was as brilliant and maddening as her six daughters. A treat for Mitford aficionados, this book offers a wealth of new information, re-framing and refreshing the story of the Mitfords as never before. Rachel Trethewey has set a new standard in the Mitford world – a truly dazzling book.”— Lyndsy Spence, author of The Mitford Girls’ Guide to Life
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Cheese Trekking: How Microbes, Landscapes, Livestock, and Human Cultures Shape Terroir, by Trevor Warmedahl. In Cheese Trekking, nomadic cheesemaker, fermentation educator, and popular Substack writer Trevor Warmedahl recounts his experiences visiting pastoral communities and cheesemakers in overlooked border regions around the world, traveling on a shoestring budget with little more than a rucksack and sleeping bag. With every step, he explains how cheeses can be exquisite manifestations of locale and exposes the destructive methods and bland homogeneity of modern industrial production. In clear, propulsive language, Trevor describes a range of milk foods that utilize all byproducts of cheesemaking and are the lifeblood of the communities from which they spring.
There is a growing international movement to return to the roots of natural cheesemaking, at the core of which is a philosophy of working with—rather than against—microbes and nature; the sacredness of motherhood, milk, and life itself; and the ethics involved in dairying. CLICK HERE to visit his Instagram. “Trevor Warmedahl’s book is brimming with hard-earned knowledge about locally crafted cheeses and pastoral traditions. I’ve never come across a book that is part adventure travelogue, part methods manual, and part record of ancient foodways while at the same time a wise treatise on how to see our place on this Earth and how to live well.”—Helen Whybrow, author of The Salt Stones
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The Story of Stories: The Million-Year History of a Uniquely Human Art, by Kevin Ashton. Joan Didion told us, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” And yet, the story of stories has never been told until now. MIT technology pioneer Kevin Ashton was at the forefront of the digital revolution that led to the invention of the smartphone, the ultimate storytelling device. This latest technology in the long arc of human storytelling allows anyone, for the first time in history, to tell stories to everyone. In The Story of Stories, Ashton tells the untold story of storytelling. The result is an eye-opening, compelling journey through the eight great revolutions of storytelling, all of which follow a simple pattern: each major new storytelling tool increases the number of people who can share stories and the number of people with whom those stories can be shared.
Our first night-fires created the earliest audiences for spoken stories. Language did not lead us to stories; stories led us to language. In time, the development of rhyme, song, and other mnemonic devices allowed those spoken stories to be preserved for generations; pictures drawn on cave walls turned preservation into permanence, telling stories we still experience thousands of years later; writing enabled storytellers to spread tales to faraway places; the Chinese invented printing with moveable metal type around 700 CE; the Toltecs independently invented it at about the same time; 750 years later Gutenberg independently invented it again, adding a converted wine press to create the mass production of mass communication. Over time, printing presses increased the number of storytellers and the size of their audiences by many orders of magnitude, a trend which led us to great revolutions, and electric, then electronic, then digital storytelling and all our storytelling tools of today—and tomorrow’s. "Ultimately, this is both an explanation and defense of what it means to be human. We need both more than ever. Of particular note is Ashton’s undramatic but strident take on what he calls ‘unstoried newness.' With dozens of exhaustively researched examples, he persuasively redirects our fearfulness of new technologies to a world where we no longer have the power nor ability to tell stories about ourselves. Chilling and empowering.” - Maggie Stiefvater, author of The Listeners
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Cosmic Music: The Life, Art, and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane, by Andy Beta. The first full-length biography of Alice Coltrane, the jazz musician and spiritual leader whose forward-thinking music was overshadowed by her more famous husband, even as she brilliantly laid the groundwork for the new age, ambient, and electronic music that would follow.
Alice Coltrane (1937-2007) was one of the most misunderstood artists of the last sixty years. For most of her life—and even in the decades since her passing—she was primarily known as the widow of the late John Coltrane. John Coltrane is widely seen as being one of the greatest tenor saxophonists and composers of the 20th century, with a fervor and devotion approaching sainthood. Yet ever so slowly, that level of love and appreciation is also being bestowed upon pianist, organist, harpist, and composer Alice Coltrane.
Cosmic Music: The Life, Art and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane is the first full biography of this remarkable, groundbreaking artist, and is an elegant, deeply researched corrective to the historical—and critical—record. It elevates Alice Coltrane to her proper place, both alongside her husband as one of the greatest musical visionaries of the 20th century, and also as a singular artist in Western music, one who became a spiritual leader in her lifetime.
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The Spirit of Ani: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music, and Freedom, by Ani DiFranco and Lauren Coyle Rosen. A captivating journey of intimate reflections with Ani DiFranco, a pathbreaking, highly original artist of our time. In this powerful collaborative work, the legendary folk-rock star and feminist icon is in conversation with author, artist, and cultural anthropologist Lauren Coyle Rosen. In these exchanges, Ani is remarkably open about her creativity, spirituality, personal experiences, and evolving consciousness. She is vulnerable and unapologetic, offering an unprecedented window into her fiercely prolific journeys.
Expanding on themes from her best-selling memoir, Ani also offers fascinating reflections on contemporary popular culture—ranging from gender and queer politics, to the music industry in the virtual age, to climate change. The book includes previously unpublished photographs and journal entries, song-birth sheets, paintings, and the lyrics for some of her most treasured songs. The coauthors explore how Ani’s music and art are profoundly tied to her experiences of the interconnectedness of all consciousness and tuning in to receive creative inspiration.
