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 →
Vera Figner 1920 336p 6 x 9 In this classic memoir, Figner recounts her journey from aristocrat to revolutionary, candidly relating the experiences that shaped her ideas and provoked her to political action and violence. As she reflects on her own lifelong commitment to improving the lives of ordinary … Continue reading Memoirs of a Revolutionist →
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 →
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 →
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 1887 387p 5 x 8 Nearly a century has passed since Kropotkin wrote In Russian and French Prisons, yet his criticisms of the penal system have lost none of their relevance. Prisons—far from reforming the offender, or deterring crime—are, in themselves, ‘schools of crime’. Every year, thousands of prisoners are … Continue reading In Russian and French Prisons →
General Franco, The Angry Brigade, and Me Stuart Christie 2004 400p 5.5 x 8 In 1964, a fresh-faced, eighteen-year-old Glaswegian named Stuart Christie became the most famous anarchist in Britain. He was arrested delivering dynamite to Madrid to be used in the assassination of Spanish dictator General Franco. After serving three of his twenty-year sentence, … Continue reading Granny Made Me An Anarchist →