New Releases/News
November 2015   
 
November News at PM Press 

Hot on the heels of a successful Kickstarter fundraising campaign, we have the full-color book Understanding Jim Crow by David Pilgrim, founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. The book is an accessible resource and teaching tool to understand the historical and current climate of race relations in America.

John King is a UK-based author of seven novels to date, several of which are being republished in the U.S. by PM Press. His first, The Football Factory, was an immediate word-of-mouth success that was subsequently turned into a successful play and high-profile film. His stories reflect his cultural interests ----particularly music, pubs, and youth cultures ----while challenging a range of stereotypes that are often accepted by the established political factions.

Our latest Outspoken Author release, Gypsy, is Carter Scholz's first major work since his 2002 nuclear thriller Radiance. An interstellar adventure grounded in the hard science of accurate physics and biology, Gypsy soars far beyond the heliosphere of conventional science fiction.

From our friends at Reach and Teach comes CIVIO, a strategy card game for all ages. This game explores the relationship of issues, freedoms, laws, and Supreme Court cases that have both strengthened and reduced civil rights and civil liberties.
 
We have a plethora of great news, reviews, and events. We can't list everything happening in one email, but click on the relevant images for more info or check it all out HERE
 
UJC
Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice
David Pilgrim | Foreword by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Paperback | ISBN: 9781629631141 | $19.95

For many people, especially those who came of age after landmark civil rights legislation was passed, it is difficult to understand what it was like to be an African American living under Jim Crow segregation in the United States. A proper understanding of race relations in this country must include a solid knowledge of Jim Crow ----how it emerged, what it was like, how it ended, and its impact on the culture.

Understanding Jim Crow introduces readers to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, a collection housed at Ferris State University of more than ten thousand contemptible collectibles that are used to engage visitors in intense and intelligent discussions about race, race relations, and racism. The items pictured are offensive. They were meant to be offensive. The items in the Jim Crow Museum served to dehumanize blacks and legitimized patterns of prejudice, discrimination, and segregation.

Using racist objects as teaching tools seems counterintuitive ----and, quite frankly, needlessly risky. Many Americans are already apprehensive discussing race relations, especially in settings where their ideas are challenged. The museum and this book exist to help overcome our collective trepidation and reluctance to talk about race. Fully illustrated, and with context provided by the museum's founder and director David Pilgrim, Understanding Jim Crow is both a grisly tour through America's past and an auspicious starting point for racial understanding and healing.
 
"For decades the author has been on a pilgrimage to bring out from our dank closets the racial skeletons of our past. This book allows us to see, even feel the racism of just a generation or two ago----and Pilgrim shows that elements of it continue, even today. See it! Read it! Feel it! Then help us all transcend it!"
----James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me

 
Football
The Football Factory
John King
Paperback | ISBN: 9781629631165 | $16.95     

Set in the UK, The Football Factory is a novel driven by its two main characters ----late-twenties warehouseman Tommy Johnson and retired ex-soldier Bill Farrell. Tommy is angry at his situation in life and those running the country. Outside of work, he is a lively, outspoken character, living for his time with a gang of football hooligans, the excitement of their fights and the comradeship he finds with his friends. He is a violent man, at the same time moral and intelligent.

Bill, meanwhile, is a former Second World War hero who helped liberate a concentration camp and married a survivor. He is a strong, principled character who sees the self-serving political and media classes for what they are. Tommy and Bill have shared feelings, but express their views in different ways. Born at another time, they could have been the other. As the book unfolds both come to their own crossroads and have important decisions to make.

The Football Factory is a book about modern-day pariahs, people reduced to the level of statistics by years of hypocritical, self-serving party politics. It is about the insulted, marginalised, unseen. Graphic and disturbing, at times very funny, The Football Factory is a rush of literary adrenalin.

"Only a phenomenally talented and empathetic writer working from within his own culture can achieve the power and authenticity this book pulses with. Buy, steal or borrow a copy now, because in a short time anyone who hasn't read it won't be worth talking to."
----Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting

 
HumanPunk
Human Punk
John King
Paperback | ISBN: 9781629631158 | $17.95 

For fifteen-year-old Joe Martin, growing up on the outskirts of West London, the summer of 1977 means punk rock, busy pubs, disco girls, stolen cars, social-club lager, cutthroat Teddy Boys, and a job picking cherries with the gypsies. Life is sweet ----until he is attacked by a gang of youths and thrown into the Grand Union Canal with his best friend Smiles.

Fast forward to 1988, and Joe is travelling home on the Trans-Siberian Express after three years away, remembering the highs and lows of the intervening years as he comes to terms with tragedy. Fast forward to 2000, and life is sweet once more. Joe is earning a living selling records and fight tickets, playing his favourite 45s as a punk DJ, but when a face from the past steps out of the mist, he is forced to relive that night in 1977 and deal with the fallout.

Human Punk is the story of punk, a story of friendship, a story of common bonds and a shared culture ----sticking the boot in, sticking together.

"In its ambition and exuberance, Human Punk is a league ahead of much contemporary English fiction."
----New Statesman

 
 
Gypsy
Gypsy
Carter Scholz
Paperback | ISBN: 9781629631189 | $13.00

Proudly debuting in this volume, Gypsy is Carter Scholz's first major work since his 2002 nuclear thriller Radiance. An interstellar adventure grounded in the hard science of accurate physics and biology, Gypsy soars far beyond the heliosphere of conventional science fiction. Jettisoning the easy warp-drives of fantasy and space opera, Scholz chronicles with chilling realism the epic voyage of a team of far-seeing scientists, who crowdsource a secret starship and abandon the doomed Earth for the Alpha Centauri system, our nearest stellar neighbor and last desperate chance. Heartbreak and hope collide in this moving and visionary tale.

Plus, an epistolary story about a story, "The Nine Billion Names of God," uses a classic SF text to deconstruct literary deconstruction itself, with hilarious results. In the wickedly droll "Bad Pennies," a spy tasked with trashing a foreign economy testifies before a complacent Congress. Quietly furious, "The United States of Impunity" is an alarming look under the tent of today's political sideshow. Adults only.

"Scholz's writing crackles with energy, intelligence and dark humor."
----Publishers Weekly

 
 
CIVIO
CIVIO: A Civil Rights Strategy Card Game
Reach and Teach | Illustrated by Innosanto Nagara
Card Game | ISBN: 9781604863444 | $14.95 

CIVIO is a strategy card game that explores the relationship of issues, freedoms, laws, and Supreme Court cases that have both strengthened and reduced civil rights and civil liberties.

Using a handful of cards representing laws, Supreme Court decisions, constitutional amendments, key issues, and freedoms, you are in a race against other players to combine these cards into precedents. The more points you earn, the higher your ranking. In time, you could become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court!

CIVIO comes with a deck of 78 cards, each beautifully and uniquely illustrated, four blank case cards for customizing the game, and instruction booklets for playing two versions of the game. The game is manufactured and assembled by a worker-owned (and union-labor) cooperative using recycled paper and soy-based ink. CIVIO was created by the award-winning team at Reach and Teach and illustrated by bestselling author/illustrator Innosanto Nagara ( A Is for Activist).
 
 
combostransp
PM Combo Packs! 
For frugal PM shoppers, we've teamed up some of our bestselling items in discounted "Combo Packs" of like-minded books, CDs, and DVDs. You can choose from a wide range of groovy Combos that save up to 50% on the list price, including the Autonomous Art Combo, the Outspoken Authors Combo, the Big Noise Dispatches DVD Combo and more.


See the Combo Packs HERE.

 
PbPcropped
Paperback Plus! e-Book Bundles Now Available
Our print books now come with a free downloadable e-Book edition. When you purchase the hardcopy book online from PM Press, you'll receive an email with instructions on how to download the e-Book. For technophiles, paper savers, and those without much shelf space, PM releases are also available separately as instantly downloadable e-Books. We are adding new PDF, ePUB, and MOBI files daily to work with all e-Book readers and personal computers. Read about our e-Books and file formats HERE and see the latest releases HERE .
 

PM Press is on Twitter and Facebook  

PM Press is now Twittering HERE.

Also stay up to date by following us on Facebook.


 

PM Press Catalog  
We have a new PM Press catalog! So take a look, and start working on your wish lists now. Full color, 24 pages, viewable and downloadable online or request a free print copy HERE for yourself, or multiple copies to distribute at your workplace, bookstore, school, or gigs.

To view upcoming releases, including Spring and Fall 2016, please visit the  "Upcoming" section of our webstore HERE.

 
Recent News/Reviews 
Sisters of the Revolution in The Guardian
Review by Keith Brooke
As a selection of fiction with an explicit political slant, Sisters of the Revolution runs the risk of being straitjacketed by its agenda. Fortunately, the editors (Ann and Jeff VanderMeer) have searched far and wide for source material, turning a collection that might have been worthy but dull into a diverse celebration of speculative fiction. The stories here were written between the 1970s and the present day, with emerging authors such as Nnedi Okorafor side by side with established voices including Angela Carter and Octavia Butler.
 
Read the full review HERE.
JNoir
Jewish Noir in Library Journal
Review by Andrea Kempf
Short story collections of noir fiction have become extremely popular, particularly those published by Akashic. With contributions from Marge Piercy, S.J. Rozan, Stephen Jay Schwartz, and others, this compilation (edited by Kenneth Wishnia) examines the noir side of Jewish ethnicity, primarily in the United States. Every reader will have his or her favorites, but this anthology is heartrending and spine-chilling in its entirety.
  
Read the full review HERE .

Clandestine Occupations on Truthout
Review by Dan Berger
The book beautifully, painfully illustrates the dangers of dogma and ego. It also shows the severity of clandestine politics. Whereas Arm the Spirit chronicled author Diana Block's journey underground, Clandestine Occupations takes up subterranean politics from the perspectives of those left behind. It is a powerful way to tell the story of the underground, depicting the pain of not being able to account for one's comrades and loved ones. It puts the emphasis on social relationships rather than spy-movie tricks.

Read the full review HERE .
To Defend the Revolution Is to Defend Culture in Publishers Weekly
In this thorough study based on years of meticulous research, Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt comprehensively examines policies related to art, film, literature, and other cultural spheres during the Cuban revolution. Gordon-Nesbitt argues that after decades of "cultural dependency," the creation of original cultural institutions was considered by Cuba's revolutionary leaders to be as crucial to the country's transformation as political and economic changes. This immensely detailed and extensively documented academic work will be much appreciated by Cuba specialists and scholars of art and culture.

Read the full review HERE.
Stealing
Stealing All Transmissions on Louder Than War
Review by Dave Jennings
Randal Doane has produced a superb account from an American viewpoint of the development of one of the iconic punk bands and placed their career and legacy firmly in context, not just of their time, but in the wider picture of the history of Rock. Throughout this riveting narrative, we learn not just about the rise of The Clash from the cradle of UK Punk, but also the development and relevance of the phenomenon of 'free-form radio'...

Read the full review HERE.  
AnaNever
Anarchists Never Surrender on CounterPunch
Review by Staughton Lynd
Anarchists Never Surrender offers precious documentation of Victor Serge's early career as an anarchist. Initially, it seems, he considered himself a "socialist." Predictably disgusted with the tepid parliamentary activity of European Social Democrats, he became an anarchist of a more and more individualist variety. At this early point in his trajectory, Serge thought that workers were hopelessly caught up in immediate materialistic objectives, hence a revolution requiring mass participation and support was impossible.

Read the full article HERE.  
 PM Recommends
Fundraiser for Bluestockings Bookstore
Bluestockings Bookstore and Activist Center, a vital space in NYC for sharing feminist and radical political thought, is asking for your help to make our space more welcoming and comfortable for our community. Remodeling our storefront and upgrading our equipment are essential for ensuring Bluestockings will stay open for another five years. Bluestockings Bookstore and Activist Center is a 100% volunteer-powered and collectively owned radical bookstore, fair trade cafe, and activist center.
 
See the online fundraiser HERE.
 
 Join the Friends of PM Press
fopmcover
Friends of PM allows you to directly help impact, amplify, and revitalize the discourse and actions of radical writers, filmmakers, and artists. It provides us with a stable foundation from which we can build upon our early successes and provides a much-needed subsidy for the materials that can't necessarily pay their own way.

To join the Friends of PM click here.


PM Press | PO Box 23912 | Oakland, CA 94623 | 510-658-3906 | info@pmpress.org