City Lights Books

Contrary notions; the Michael Parenti reader.

Prominent leftist public intellectual Parenti has built a reputation for himself as a trenchant, yet engaging and accessible, critic of capitalism, imperialism, and other forms of exploitation and violence and this diverse collection of his writings will not disappoint his fans (nor, probably, convince his detractors). Over the course of the collection he takes on the corporate media, intellectual repression in academia, the stolen presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 (not that he's a fan of Al Gore or John Kerry), right wing judicial activism, free-market orthodoxies and mythologies, racism, sexism, homophobia, postmodern attacks on Marxism, the distortions of dominant history, ill-informed demonizations of the Venezuelan political process, his own life, and many other topics. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Interventions.

It may surprise even long-time American readers of prominent US foreign policy critic Noam Chomsky to learn that since 2002 he has been penning brief 1000-word essays that have been distributed around the world by the New York Times Syndicate as opinion-editorials (although they will be less surprised to find out that not one has ever appeared in the pages of the Times itself). This volume collects 44 of those pieces, in which Chomsky critically analyzes events from September 2002 through March 2007. As might be expected, the bulk of the essays deal with the US invasion of Iraq, but other issues are covered as well, including Hurricane Katrina, threats against Iran, the recent Israeli attack on Lebanon, the Israel- Palestine conflict, and the politically leftward drift of Latin America. Also included is a foreword by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Peter Hart on the dearth of critical voices in the American corporate media. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

You'll be okay; my life with Jack Kerouac.

Over her last few years, Edith Kerouac-Parker (1923-92) wrote vignettes about her marriage to American novelist Kerouac (1922-69) during the 1940s and their subsequent life-long friendship. Moran and Morgan have assembled these into a coherent narrative. They do not provide an index. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)