News from this week's Communiqué
Disney Junior released their January highlights, and the brand new Octonauts show debuted at #1 in Boys Two to Five. From the press release, "Disney Junior is available on basic cable in more than ninety-nine million US homes (via a daily block on the Disney Channel) and to millions of other viewers on twenty-five Disney Junior channels (formerly known as Playhouse Disney channels) and free-to-air broadcast partners around the world. It is also seen via subscription to video-on-demand and a broadband website, DisneyJunior.com."
Ralph Nader appeared on C-SPAN last weekend talking about his new book Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism. Click here to watch the program. He also appeared on Democracy Now! on January 25 to respond to the State of the Union address by President Barack Obama. Upcoming February media includes Fox Business, NPR, and the Thom Hartmann Show.
The Black Power Mixtape, a film created from forgotten footage from the civil rights movement, will air on PBS on February 9. Click here to see the interactive discussion and playlist created by PBS, as well as to find your local listings, and click here to watch a trailer.
A movie tie-in edition from Haymarket Books is forthcoming this spring.
Tim Wise, author of Dear White America, wrote an opinion piece called "What is post-racial: Reflections on denial and reality," which appeared on CNN.com on January 31, and his essay "White Male Privilege: Flying Beneath the Radar" appeared on TheRoot.com on January 30.
He also appeared on The Tom Joyner Morning Show on January 30. The Tom Joyner Morning Show reaches more than eight million listeners each week in more than 115 markets. You can listen to the episode here.
This weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle will be running a review of The Odditorium, and the Albuquerque Journal will be featuring an interview with author Melissa Pritchard about the collection. Arizona State University also ran a nice interview with Melissa (and a round-up of the praise the book has garnered!) on January 26, saying, "The language of stories ranges from seemingly breathless writing to leisurely descriptions of the landscape."
Enchanted Lion Books' delightful children's book Fish on a Walk will be reviewed by The Wall Street Journal this Saturday.
Go the F**k to Sleep was mentioned on "Weekend Today" on Sunday, January 29, and made the front page of Hulu.com this week in a piece about the proliferation of expletives in popular culture.
On January 13, The Washington Post covered W.S. Merwin's last appearance as poet laureate in an article entitled, "Is Poetry Dead? Or in the age of the Internet, does it offer us what nothing else can?" Saying, "The idea that poetry is the deadest of the dying arts, an airless attic where overwrought metaphors go to dry up and drop their wings, is perennial," the article disproves the rumors by highlighting the modern take on poetry from middle schools to MFA programs.
Rory O'Connor, the author of the forthcoming City Lights Publishers book Friends, Followers and the Future, discussed the role of social media in organizing protestors in the Arab Spring on The Huffington Post on January 25.
Whorled by Ed Bok Lee has been named a finalist in the poetry category for the Minnesota Book Awards. Winners will be announced at the twenty-fourth annual Minnesota Book Awards gala on Saturday, April 14, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in St. Paul, MN.
Whorled | Ed Bok Lee | Coffee House Press | August 2011 | 9781566892780 | $16.00 | Trade Paper
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2012
Little Bird | Germano Zullo; Illustrated by Albertine | Enchanted Lion Books | March 2012 | 9781592701186 | $16.95 | Trade Cloth
"Uplifting in more ways than one, this prize-winning import suggests that little things can change lives—and perhaps even the world."
San Francisco Chronicle, January 29, 2012
The Year of the Dragon: Tales from the Chinese Zodiac | Oliver Chin | Immedium | January 2012 | 9781597020282 | $15.95 | Trade Cloth
"The wildly imaginative original story about a boat race features zodiac animals, the Emperor and Empress, a boy named Bo, and a baby dragon named Dom who ultimately saves the day."
Foreign Affairs, January/February 2012
Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment | Samuel Farber | Haymarket Books | December 2011 | 9781608461394 | $24.00 | Trade Paper
"Readers will be rewarded by his frequent insights, stimulating historical comparisons, and command of the data relating to Cuba's economic and social performance."
Star Tribune (Minneapolis), January 29, 2012
Time Between Trains: Stories by Anthony Bukoski | Anthony Bukoski | Holy Cow! Press | October 2011 | 9780983325413 | $16.95 | Trade Paper
"These stories, with their themes of love, regret, aging, disappointment, and yearning, could be set anywhere, because Anthony Bukoski is a wise enough traveler in the human psyche to know that Superior, Wisconsin, like any place well understood, can become the world."
New York Journal of Books, May 1, 2012
Boarded Windows | Dylan Hicks | Coffee House Press | May 2012 | 9781566892971 | $16.00 | Trade Paper
"Sophisticated. . . . The great strength of Boarded Windows is Hicks's subtlety and droll wit. . . . Boarded Windows could be that once-in-a-generation revelatory depiction of an under-explored subculture."
ForeWord Magazine, Spring 2012
"Hicks' love and knowledge of music resonate throughout the book. . . . This novel calls into question the notion of truth, and asks to whom one's story really belongs. . . . Amidst the half-truths and 'bullshit artistry' are people who need each other in undignified but vital ways, and this is what makes the book relatable—it is rife with humans desperate for connection, for finding their place in this enigmatic world."
Photo-Eye Blog, A Girl and Her Room | Rania Matar; Essays by Susan Minot and Anne Tucker | Umbrage Editions | May 2012 | 9781884167768 | $40.00 | Trade Cloth
"Matar . . . [is] a keen and sympathetic observer of young women, producing images that depict girls at an age of transition into adulthood in the one space they control themselves."
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2012
Country of the Bad Wolfes | John Carlos Blake | Cinco Puntos Press | January 2012 | 9781935955030 | $16.95 | Trade Paper
Country of the Bad Wolfes | John Carlos Blake | Cinco Puntos Press | January 2012 | 9781935955122 | $16.95 | eBook
"A rollicking tale . . . that acquires depth as it moves across generations and national boundaries. . . . Blake doesn't mind a boudoir but his real strengths come in describing manly mayhem, which he portrays with uncommon poetry. . . . [With] Cormac McCarthy's tutelary spirit [and] soupçons of Gabriel Garcia Marquez . . . the book keeps good company. . . . Full of wry humor and thoughtful writing."
Publishers Weekly, January 26, 2012
Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America | Edited by Joanne Griffith | City Lights Publishers | February 2012 | 9780872865464 | $16.95 | Trade Paper
"This slim volume packs a punch as it unpacks uncomfortable truths, and the provocative voices here do not mince words."
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2012
Half in Shade: Family, Photography and Fate | Judith Kitchen | Coffee House Press | April 2012 | 9781566892964 | $16.00 | Trade Paper
"Intriguing. . . . Elegantly written."
Hyperallergenic (Online), January 15, 2012
Leaving the Atocha Station | Ben Lerner | Coffee House Press | August 2011 | 9781566892742 | $15.00 | Trade Paper
"Without being escapist and retreating into a world without terrorism or inequality, and without making outlandish claims regarding significance, Leaving the Atocha Station is fresh, funny, disturbing, and, perhaps best of all, a pleasure to read as it meditates on language, poetry, the internet, and the unavoidable dislocations, which is to say our shared but deeply isolating experience of everyday life."
CHOICE Magazine, February 2012
The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America | Jonathan D. Moreno | Bellevue Literary Press | October 2011 | 9781934137383 | $18.95 | Trade Paper
"A concise but nuanced account of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment debates about the role of science in American life."
St. Louis American, January 12, 2012
Errançities | Quincy Troupe | Coffee House Press | January 2012 | 9781566892766 | $16.00 | Trade Paper
Errançities | Quincy Troupe | Coffee House Press | January 2012 | 9781566892834 | $30.00 | Trade Cloth
"Quincy Troupe is a man of the world—he lives in New York, has a home on Guadalupe, and travels the country and globe as a performing poet. Yet in his lively new book of poetry . . . more than ever he is a black man from St. Louis."
Hyphen, January 18, 2012
Sông I Sing | Bao Phi | Coffee House Press | September 2011 | 9781566892797 | $16.00 | Trade Paper
"The poems in Sông I Sing unite beauty of phrase with intent of message, and the intimate exchange between the two is stirring. That Phi is an accomplished spoken word artist makes this feat no less impressive. . . . It may seem trite to call a poet a warrior. It may edge too close to that over-used adage, "The pen is mightier than the sword." But in the case of Bao Phi, with his wrestling words and his implacable convictions, this appellation would be true."