Close to the Knives

A Memoir of Disintegration David Wojnarowicz     1991     288p     5 x 8 Written in the ’80s when Wojnarowicz and his friends were sick and dying of AIDS, this is a powerful, tragic — yet beautiful — memoirs. A collection of essays dealing with death, sickness, the sexual freedoms of queer … Continue reading Close to the Knives

Down Below

Leonora Carrington     1944     53p     4.5 x 8 Best known for her dazzling paintings and tales of black humor, Carrington is one of contemporary surrealism’s outstanding spokespersons. Born and raised in England, she joined the international surrealist movement in 1937. Down Below recounts her adventures in Spain ‘on the other … Continue reading Down Below

Jane

Documents From Chicago’s Clandestine Abortion Service, 1968-1973 Firestarter Press ed.     2004     60p     5 x 8 Jane was the abortion counseling service affiliated with the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union (CWLU). Before abortion was legalized in 1973, Jane members, none of whom were physicians, performed over 11,000 illegal abortions. Their philosophy … Continue reading Jane

Woman on the Edge of Time

Marge Piercy     1976     384p     MMPB Connie Ramos, a woman in her mid-thirties, has been declared insane. But Connie is overwhelmingly sane, merely tuned to the future, and able to communicate with the year 2137. As her doctors persuade her to agree to an operation, Connie struggles to force herself … Continue reading Woman on the Edge of Time

Listen, Little Man!

Wilhelm Reich     1946      144p     5 x 8 Written towards the time Reich was beginning to denounce psycho-analysis, Listen, Little Man! is the physician’s quiet, scathing talk to each one of us, the average human being, the Little Man. Written in 1946 after surviving World War II and in answer … Continue reading Listen, Little Man!

The Lathe of Heaven

A Novel Ursula K. Le Guin     1971     192p     5 x 8 In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr. William Haber, a psychiatrist who immediately … Continue reading The Lathe of Heaven

The Damndest Radical

The Life and World of Ben Reitman, Chicago’s Celebrated Social Reformer, Hobo King and Whorehouse Physician Roger A. Burns   2001   368p   6 x 9 Biography of “the hobo doctor” who road the rails and treated the elements of the working class many other physicians refused to, including performing abortions which were illegal … Continue reading The Damndest Radical

Alias Grace

A Novel Margaret Atwood 1996 468p 5.5 x 8 Atwood takes us back in time and into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century. Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and … Continue reading Alias Grace

The Birth of the Clinic

An Archealogy of Medical Perception Michel Foucault 1963 240p 5 x 8 In the eighteenth century, medicine underwent a mutation. For the first time, medical knowledge took on a precision that had formerly belonged only to mathematics. The body became something that could be mapped. Disease became subject to new rules of classification. And doctors … Continue reading The Birth of the Clinic