August New Releases
The First Five Books Are 25% Off in August:

Talkin’ Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, University of Queensland Press, $28.00
Aileen Moreton-Robinson is a Geonpul woman from Quandamooka (Moreton Bay) whose current research investigates Indigenous social constructions of whiteness. She is a professor of Indigenous and Women’s Studies, President of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association, and has been involved in the struggle for Indigenous rights at local, state and national levels. Talkin’ Up to the White Woman explores the ways in which white Australian feminists have written about Indigenous issues, and how their appropriation of these issues has actively excluded the perspectives of Indigenous women themselves.

What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations, edited by Ruth Rubio-Marin, Social Science Research Council, $31.50
What happens to women whose lives are curtailed and transformed by human rights violations? What Happened to the Women? argues for the necessity of introducing a gender dimension into reparations programs in order to improve the response to female victims and their families. This book features a wide variety of contributors from the fields of human rights, transitional justice and peace building, and is a critical tool for gender advocates and transitional justice practitioners.  

The Butch Cookbook is a fun collection of stories, photos, drawings and most of all, great recipes provided by butches from around the world and from all walks of life. Scattered among the recipes are butch musings and history, cooking experiences and kitchen hints, and quotes from butches, famous and infamous. Novice to gourmet, these chefs have shared their expertise with easy-to-follow, hands-on instructions in a new blend of cooking and culture. Offerings include quick meals for a night on your own, potluck recipes, holiday indulgences, sweet treats, special meals for two, and even goodies for your furry friends.

Chicken, Pig, Cow, Ruth Ohi, Annick Press, $6.95

Girl meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis, Ali Smith, Cannongate Books, $25.00
Girl meets boy. It’s a story as old as time, but in Whitbread winner Ali Smith’s lyrical, funny, mash-up of Ovid’s most joyful gender-bending metamorphosis story, girl meets boy in so many more ways than one. Imogen and Anthea, sisters that are opposites, work together at Pure, a creative agency attempting to “bottle imagination, politics, and nature” in the form of a new Scottish bottled-water business with global aspirations. Anthea, somewhat flighty and bored with the office environment, becomes enamored of an “interventionist protest artist” nicknamed Iphisol, whose billboard-size corporate slurs around town are the bane of Pure’s existence. Girl Meets Boy is a witty, lyrical story of reversals and revelations, girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, and the absurdity of consumerism.

Gender Politics of Development, Shirin M. Rai, Zed Books $30.95
In Gender Politics of Development, Shirin Rai provides a comprehensive assessment of how gender politics has emerged and developed in post-colonial states, offering a unique and compelling synthesis focusing specifically on case studies from India.

Daily Struggles: The Deepening Racialization & Feminization of Poverty in Canada, edited by Maria Wallis and Siu-ming Kwok, Canadian Scholars’ Press, $45.95
Daily Struggles offers a much-needed critical perspective on poverty in Canada by highlighting the ways in which race and gender intersect, and providing clear connections between the relationships that exist between human rights, political economy and citizenship.

Coloniality at Large: Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate, edited by Mabel Morana, Enrique Dussel, and Carlos A. Jauregui, $36.75
This collection analyzes the many ways that Latin Americans have resisted imperialism and sought emancipation and sovereignty over several centuries, delving into topics including violence, identity, otherness, memory, heterogeneity and language. The essays include theoretical reflections, literary criticism, and historical and ethnographic case studies on Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil, the Andes, and the Caribbean.

Sweet Mandarin, Helen Tse, Thomas Dunne Books, $26.95
Sweet Mandarin is a true story of three generations of Chinese women, starting with the journey of the author’s grandmother, Lily Kwok, from mainland China to 1930’s Hong Kong, to the UK, where she opened one of Manchester’s earliest Mandarin restaurants. Triads and gambling activity shut the restaurant down, but she passed on the legacies of her love of cooking and her recipes to her granddaughters, who opened the award-winning restaurant, Sweet Mandarin, in 2004.

My Life with Che, Hilda Gadea, Palgrave Macmillan, $23.95
Hilda Gadea, Che Guevara’s first wife, paints an intimate portrait of the legendary figure, revealing romantic wanderer, philosopher, doting suitor, and father within a firebrand revolutionary.

Disaster and Resistance: Comics and Landscapes for the Twenty First Century, Seth Tobocman, AK Press, $20.00
Disaster and Resistance outlines pressing social and political struggles at the dawn of the twenty-first century—from post 9-11 New York City, to Israel and Palestine, Iraq and New Orleans. Fans of Seth's classic works, You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive, and War in the Neighborhood, will see that his punch has not softened, as his new work skewers the individuals and institutions reaping havoc across the globe today. In his bold comic style, Seth chronicles events as they happen, musing not on the chaos of instability and fear, but on the struggle against it. Includes an introduction by Mumia Abu-Jamal. This book is a call to action, so listen up..

Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion, Danya Ruttenberg, Beacon Press, $27.95
At thirteen, Danya Ruttenberg decided that she was an atheist. Watching the sea of adults standing up and sitting down at Rosh Hashanah services, and apparently giving credence to the patently absurd truth-claims of the prayer book, she came to a conclusion: Marx was right. Surprised by God is a religious coming-of-age story, from the mosh pit to the Mission District and beyond. It's the memoir of a young woman who found, lost, and found again communities of like-minded seekers, all the while taking a winding, semi-reluctant path through traditional Jewish practice that eventually took her to the rabbinate. It's a post-dotcom, third-wave, punk-rock Seven Storey Mountain-the story of integrating life on the edge of the twenty-first century into the discipline of traditional Judaism without sacrificing either. It's also a map through the hostile territory of the inner life, an unflinchingly honest guide to the kind of work that goes into developing a spiritual practice in today's world-and why, perhaps, doing this in today's world requires more work than it ever has.

Home Girls Make Some Noise! Hip Hop Feminism Anthology, edited by Gwendolyn D. Pough, Elaine Richardson, Aisha Durham and Rachel Raimist, Parker Publishing, $21.25
Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology seeks to complicate understandings of Hip Hop as a male space by offering feminist Hip Hop critiques, and by identifying and including the women who were always involved with the culture. The anthology explores Hip Hop as a worldview, as an epistemology grounded in the experiences of communities of color under advanced capitalism, and as a cultural site for rearticulating identity and sexual politics.  The anthology includes critical essays, cultural critiques, interviews, personal narratives, fiction, poetry, and artwork.  The contributors are varied, from women working within the Hip Hop sphere, Hip Hop feminists and activists “on the ground,” as well as scholars, writers, and journalists.

Dance of the Peacock, Cheryl Antao-Xavier, In Our Words Publishing, $15.95
In this beautifully crafted book, the Mississauga, Ontario based poet, writer and playwright captures the trials and angst of people in transition and women in subjugation. In poems ranging from celebration of a life of light and beauty and of passionate existence, to those of lamentation and loss, of disappointment and bitter regret of failed relationships and tragic experience she acknowledges the twin realities of human wisdom.

Atmospheric Disturbances, Rivka Galchen, Harper, $29.95
Atmospheric Disturbances is at once a moving love story, a dark comedy, a psychological thriller, and a deeply disturbing portrait of a fracturing mind. With tremendous compassion and dazzling literary sophistication, Rivka Galchen investigates the moment of crisis when you suddenly realize that the reality you insist upon is no longer one you can accept, and the person you love has become merely the person you live with. This highly inventive debut explores the mysterious nature of human relationships, and how we spend our lives trying to weather the storms of our own making.

Sharing the World, Luce Irigaray, Continuum International Publishing, $24.95
In this important new book, a follow up to The Way of Love, Luce Irigaray, one of France’s most influential contemporary theorists, turns once again to the concept of otherness. We are accustomed to considering the other as an individual without paying sufficient attention to the particular world or specific culture to which the other belongs. “Otherness” is subjected to the same values by which we are ourselves defined and thus we remain in “sameness’. In this age of multiculturalism and in the light of Nietzsche’s criticism of our values and Heidegger’s deconstruction of our interpretation of truth, Irigaray questions the validity of the “sameness” that sits at the root of Western culture.

Biopolitics of Breast Cancer: Changing Cultures of Disease and Activism, Maren Klawiter, University of Minnesota Press, $26.25
Maren Klawiter analyzes the evolution of the breast cancer movement to show the broad social impact of how diseases come to be medically managed and publicly administered.  Examining surgical procedures, early detection campaigns, and the raise in discourses of risk, Klawiter demonstrates that these practices initially inhibited, but later enabled, collective action. Focusing on the emergence of new forms of activism, from grassroots patient empowerment to corporate-funded breast cancer awareness, The Biopolitics of Breast Cancer challenges our understanding of the origins, politics, and future of the breast cancer movement.

Women’s Health in Canada: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Policy, Marina Morrow, University of Toronto Press, $39.95
Women’s Health in Canada brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners from economics, anthropology, sociology, nursing, political studies, women’s studies, and psychology. Contributors draw on the rich history of the Canadian women’s health movement, providing analysis of that history and of the emergent theory, policy, and practice. Aimed at undergraduate and graduate students as well as practitioners, this collection adopts an intersectional approach, looking closely at social factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and gender identity, and analysing how they relate both to each other and to women’s health. Connections between the social, economic, and cultural contexts of women’s lives and their physical, spiritual, and mental well-being are a primary focus.

The Birth Partner: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Doulas, and Other Labor Companions 3rd edition, Penny Simkin, Harvard Common Press, $18.95
Since the original publication of The Birth Partner in 1989, new mothers’ mates, friends, relatives and doulas (professional birth assistants) have relied on Penny Simkin’s guidance in caring for the new mother from the last few weeks of pregnancy through the early postpartum period.  Fully revised in its third edition, The Birth Partner remains the definitive guide for preparing to help a woman through childbirth, and an essential manual to have at hand during the event.

Friday Nights, Joanna Trollope, Bloomsbury Publishing, $24.95
British retiree, Eleanor, looks out her window every day and sees two young women with small children, separate, struggling and plainly lonely, and one day she decides to ask them in and see what happens. A Friday night tradition begins, expanding to a group of six different and disparate women who become a circle of friends. All of them value friday nights, but when one of them meets a man, the whole dynamic changes. With wit and warmth, Joanna Trollope explores the complexities, the sabotages, and the shifting currents of modern friendship.

Damaged Goods?: Women Living with Incurable Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Adina Nack, $23.25
How do women living with genital herpes and/or HPV (human papilloma virus) infections see themselves as sexual beings, and what choices do they make about sexual health issues? Adina Nack, a medical sociologist who specializes in sexual health and social psychology, conducted in-depth interviews with 43 women about their identities and sexuality in regards to chronic illness. The result is a fascinating book about an issue that affects over 15 million Americans, but is all too little discussed.

Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, Tarek Fatah, John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. $31.95
The terrorist attack on 9/11 and subsequent attacks in Bali, Madrid, and London were, for much of the non-Muslim world, a brutal introduction to a religion and culture that it had, until then, not thought much about. In the six years since 9/11, Muslims and the motivating principles of their faith have undergone severe scrutiny by writers and opinion makers alike, while still failing to address a key issue: the distinction between Islamists and Muslims. In Chasing a Mirage, Canadian journalist Tarek Fatah analyzes the diverging aspirations that separate the Islamist from the Muslim, and what the implications of an "Islamic State" vs. "state of Islam" have for the world's one billion Muslims and their five billion non-Muslim neighbors.

Nat Turner, Kyle Baker, Kyle Baker Publishing, $14.50
In Nat Turner, acclaimed author and illustrator Kyle Baker depicts the evils of slavery in this moving and historically accurate story of Nat Turner's slave rebellion, which began on August 21, 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia. Told nearly wordlessly, every image resonates with the reader as the brutal story unfolds. This graphic novel collects all four issues of Kyle Baker's critically acclaimed mini-series together for the first time.

Unmaking Race, Remaking Soul: Transformative Aesthetics & the Practice of Freedom, edited by Christa Davis Acampora & Angela L. Cotten, State University of New York Press, $27.25
Unmaking Race, Remaking Soul explores innovative approaches to analyzing cultural productions through which women of color have challenged and undermined social and political forces that work to oppress them. Emphasizing art-making practices that emerge out of and reflect concrete lived experience, leading contributors to the fields of contemporary psychoanalytic literary analysis, Latin American studies, feminist theory, Indigenous Women’s studies, Africana studies, philosophy, and art history examine the relationship between the aesthetic and the political.

Art & Upheaval, William Cleveland, newvillagepress, $24.00
In Art & Upheaval, citizen artists successfully rebuild the social infrastructure in six communities devastated by war, repression and dislocation, illustrating that art can be a powerful agent of personal, institutional and community change. The artists in this book have generated new technologies for advocacy, organizing, peacemaking, healing trauma and the rebuilding of community. This collection demonstrates that creativity is our most powerful capacity, and it can mitigate and heal our most destructive tendencies.

The Summoning: Darkest Powers Series Book 1, Kelley Armstrong, Doubleday, $14.95
After years of frequent moves following her mother’s death, Chloe Saunders’s life is finally settling down. She is attending art school, pursuing her dreams of becoming a director, making friends, and meeting boys. Her biggest concern is that she’s not developing as fast as her friends are, but when puberty does hit, it brings more than hormone surges. Chloe starts seeing ghosts – everywhere, demanding her attention. After she suffers a breakdown, her devoted aunt Lauren gets her into a highly recommended group home. As she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home, Chloe begins to realize that there is something unexpected that binds them all together, and that Lyle House isn’t quite what it seems.

Tribal Alphabet, Claudia Pearson, Umbrage Editions, $22.00
In bold and vibrant colors, artist Claudia Pearson has created a dazzling group portrait of the world of indigenous peoples. Aimed at a young reader audience (ages three to eight), the text is simple, direct, and informative, while the glossary in the back of the book provides valuable in-depth information for parents and older readers. A percentage of the profits of this book will be given to the not-for-profit foundation Cultural Survival, to aid in its efforts to defend the rights of indigenous people around the world.

The Black Book of Colors, Menena Cottin and Rosana Faria, Groundwood Books, $17.95
Living with the use of one's eyes can make imagining blindness difficult, but this innovative title invites readers to imagine living without sight with descriptions of colors based on imagery and illustrations done with raised lines. The text is in Braille and a full Braille alphabet offers sighted readers help in reading along with their fingers. This extraordinary title gives young readers the ability to experience the world in a new way.

Clara and the Bossy, Ruth Ohi, Annick Press, $6.95

Stand Up, God-des & She, Jr Records, $16.00
God-des and She, a lesbian hip-hip duo,  have been featured on the L-Word with  the popular song, "Lick It." Stand Up  also includes the track, "Love You  Better" which was featured on Logo's  click list. They have an amazing ability to tackle a variety of subjects. Their  songs range from tutorials to love  songs and the political ("Hey Mister  President") to the angry ("I Hate Your  Ex Girlfriend.") Either way, even if you don't generally listen to hip-hop you  will find a strong message in God-des  and amazing vocals in She.