for lefties who love a gift guide
radical love letter #50.5
Dear ones,
If you are new to the newsletter, please know that I almost never stray from my traditional format, but I am taking a bit of a detour this week. Many of you know that although I am nearly (nearly) as Left as one can be, I am also an unapologetic lover of the holiday season. And despite all the things (capitalist-motivatedconsumerism! unfortunate iterations of Christianity that harm so many of us! family dysfunction!), I will, every year, eagerly decorate the apartment in red and green, bake cookies in the shape of pine trees, and indulge any number of Hallmark movies. And, since my food blogging days in the 2010s, on through the Feminist Killjoys, PhD podcast days, and now here too, I’ve been assembling some version of a gift guide with an aim to support independent makers and artists. This year, the focus is books.
I had to give myself some parameters, otherwise this list would have been its own short book. So what follows are recommendations of books that came out in 2020, that I’ve actually read, and almost all of which are authored by folks I know in real life. (I’m recommending them because they are amazing, though, not because I know the writers.) As a 2020-release author myself, I know how wildly meaningful it would be if folks considered purchasing our books for gifts this year.<3 If you do the gift exchange thing, I think there are some real gems in here. And if you don’t, maybe you’ll be intrigued to purchase for yourself, or reserve from your local library?
I’ll be back next week with a letter/essay. Until then, happy holidays (or happy regular days if you, for very understandable reasons, are not into the holidays <3).
love & solidarity,
raechel
Smart Nonfiction for Lefties, Feminists, & History Buffs
Black in the Middle is a collection of nonfiction and poetry from Black Midwest writers; an illuminating, nuanced look at racism, resistance, and worldmaking in the region, past and present. My Belt Pub Spring release fellow-author, Phil Christman’s Midwest Futures is an incredibly smart reflection on the construction of, reality of, and possibility of the Midwest; complete with history, theory, Lefty politics, beautiful prose, and some laugh-out-loud funny lines. Cindy Milstein’s Deciding for Ourselves is another excellent collection of radical writing, this time dealing with the question of how we might govern ourselves (or, really, become ungovernable, but in community about it). Tacky’s Revolt by Vincent Brown is a fascinating look at a militant rebellion that led to uprisings by enslaved people across the globe. This is definitely an academic text, but it’s compelling history that offers necessary context for anyone committed to the war against white supremacy. In Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today, Rachel Voronoa Cote weaves together Victorian literary criticism, memoir, and contemporary pop culture allusion, to offer relatable insight into the current hegemony of femininity.
Illuminating & Heartbreaking/warming Memoirs for Your BFF
The Last Children of Mill Creek is a touching memoir by another Belt author with whom I got to share a release season, Vivian Gibson. I love what the LA Review of Books says about the balance of the book’s content, which is primarily a tender story about the quotidian happenings of Gibson’s childhood: ”... the confrontation with whiteness arrives. And yet, it does so only as the curtains close; Gibson denies it a place at the center of her story.” Codependenceby Amy Long is an intense read that I walked away from understanding so much more about what it means to live with pain -- I’ve said more than once that this is a book anyone who has lived with chronic pain needs to feel less alone, and a book anyone who hasn’t needs to grow empathy. I raved about Melissa Faliveno’s Tomboyland for months, and I’m not going to stop now: this book is a beautifully written essay collection about gender, sex, violence, friendship, family, tornados (!), and more. This book stole my breath, and it’s truly a gift to share it. Okay, okay, last but not least! One more pitch for Rust Belt Femme, my memoir about growing up with a single mom, coming of age in the 90s with alternative rock and then later punk, and realizing later that my femme gender is ultaimtely a material condition of my class upbringing. I’m proud of this little pink book, and if you already got yourself a copy, maybe you could gift it to someone too? (Also, RBF, and all Belt Pub books are 40% off today only at beltpublishing.com.)
For Witches & Queers Who Love Self-Care-in-the-Service-of-Collective-Care
Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars by Claire Comstock-Gaye is a delightful and unique look at astrological signs through the lens of famous personalities (Susan Sontag! Aretha Franklin! June Jordan!). Queering Your Craftby Cassandra Snow is an incredible resource on queer witch praxis, full of a 101 on spells, how to work with the elements, and so much more, all through a queer, radical lens. Great for novice or veteran queer witches, alike. Fifty Feminist Mantras: A Year Long Practice for Cultivating Feminist Consciousness by Amelia Hruby is my new favorite feminist self-help workbook, full of prompts on community, desire, boundaries, and much more, weaved in with beautiful reflections from feminist literature and theory. Perfect for your feminist friend who likes to journal. Finally, the dreamy, inspiring, dystopian (but also kinda utopian?) novel about intergenerational queers navigating their way through revolution in the not-too-distant future, Dignity, by Otter Lieffe.
Poetry for Your Friend Who Wants to Think or Laugh or Cry (or all three) in Just One Page
Brendan Joyce is one of my favorite contemporary poets, and he put out two collections in 2020: Character Limit, a series of poems that are never longer than a Tweet (here’s one of my favorites: “If it’s a revolution/a lot of people will die./But it’s an election/& they’re dying already”); and Love & Solidarity, which includes longer pieces by Joyce about addiction, Cleveland, work, and more. From the same (independent, Cleveland-based press) is Kevin Latimer’s ZOETROPE which is an evocative, beautiful, and heartbreaking collection of poems about grief, Black death and joy, space, and how rain feels on tongues. It’s a must-read. Equally moving and beautiful is Kay Ulanday Barrett’s More Than Organs, a collection of poetry about race, family, bodies, culture, food, disability, and “the choreography of loss.”
For the Kiddos in Your Life
I’ve been following the sweet, vegan-inspired illustration work of Addy Rivera Sonda for a while now, so when I learned she did the images for Junebug: No Life Too Small by Nicole Daniels, I bought five copies to share with my tiny loved ones. Junebug is a sweet tale about being kind to every living thing, insects included. An absolutely touching book to teach empathy and kindness. Evette Dionne (Bitch editor extraordinaire)’s Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box, is a YA book about the oft-forgotten history of Black women’s role in the suffrage movement; great for both budding and long-time feminists.(And a PS, for the parents of these kiddos: David Wilson’s tender, funny, moving The Everyday Volume 1 is a comic series full of parenting joys and woes. I’m not a parent but I still find myself connecting to the specific emotions David evokes this book.<3)