As Told to Alex Haley Malcolm X & Alex Haley 1965 460p MMPB From his childhood in Michigan to hustling on the streets of Boston and Harlem to prison where he finds allah and back to Harlem to preach for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm was eventually betrayed by the Nation of Islam, and left, … Continue reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Sakae Ōsugi 1921 192p 6 x 9 In the Japanese labor movement of the early twentieth century, no one captured the public imagination as vividly as Osugi Sakae (1885-1923): rebel, anarchist, and martyr. Flamboyant in life, dramatic in death, Osugi came to be seen as a romantic hero fighting … Continue reading The Autobiography of Ōsugi Sakae
Actor and Martyr Jean-Paul Sarte 1952 640p 6 x 9 Saint Genet is Jean-Paul Sartre’s classic biography of Jean Genet—thief, convict, queer—a character of almost legendary proportions whose influence grows stronger with time. Saint Genet is at once a compelling psychological portrait, literary criticism, and one of Sartre’s most … Continue reading Saint Genet
Italo Calvino 1990 160p 5 x 8 Composed of five strikingly elegant ‘memory exercises’ about his life and work. With visionary passion, the author traces pieces of his childhood and adolescence, his experiences during WWII, and more. $4-10 Other works involving italo calvino, memoirs, fiction
Growing Up Okie Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz 1997 248p 5.5 x 8 A classic in contemporary Oklahoma literature, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Red Dirt unearths the joys and ordeals of growing up poor during the 1940s and 1950s. In this exquisite rendering of her childhood in rural Oklahoma, from the Dust Bowl days … Continue reading Red Dirt
Douglas Day 1991 270p 6 x 9 Part biography and part polemic directed against the failed opportunities of the Revolution, the book takes the form of notebooks scribbled by Flores Magon in the Leavenworth (Kansas) penitentiary where he is imprisoned for having violated United States neutrality laws. Flashbacks cover … Continue reading The Prison Notebooks of Ricardo Flores Magon
Vol. II: The Story of a Return Marjane Satrapi 2003 160p 6 x 9 In 1984, Marjane flees fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in Vienna. Once there, she faces the trials of adolescence far from her friends and family, and while she soon … Continue reading Persepolis
Vol. I: The Story of a Childhood Marjane Satrapi 2000 160p 6 x 9 Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages … Continue reading Persepolis
My Life is My Sundance Leonard Peltier 2000 272p 5 x 9 In 1977, Leonard Peltier received a life sentence for the murder of two FBI agents. Prison Writings is a wise and unsettling book, both memoir and manifesto, chronicling his life in Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. Invoking the … Continue reading Prison Writings
Peter Kropotkin 1899 504p 5 x 8 Born into a wealthy family of landowners, Prince Peter Alexeivich Kropotkin (1842-1921) held prestigious diplomatic posts. But the prince renounced his life of privilege to embrace anarchism, a revolutionary alternative to Marxism. A leading theoretician of his day, Kropotkin wrote the basic … Continue reading Memoirs of a Revolutionist