Monthly Archives: August 2021

The FBI War on Tupac Shakur

Since the first day after the tragedy was announced, controversy has surrounded the death of rap and cultural icon Tupac Shakur. In this work, preeminent researcher on the topic, John Potash, puts forward his own theories of the events leading up to and following the murder in this meticulously researched and exhaustive account of the story. Never before has there been such a detailed and shocking analysis of the untimely death of one of the greatest musicians of the modern era. The FBI War on Tupac Shakur contains a wealth of names, dates, and events detailing the use of unscrupulous tactics by the Federal Bureau of Investigation against a generation of leftist political leaders and musicians. Based on twelve years of research and including extensive footnotes, sources include over 100 interviews, FOIA-released CIA and FBI documents, court transcripts, and mainstream media outlets. 

Please Don’t Feed the Bears

Learn to cook a range of brutally tasty yet simple plant-based dishes, accompanied by heavy metal and punk lyrics, art, and ethos. Make recipes from all over the world while listening to the black metal albums recommended to accompany each one and contemplating death. This vegan cookbook is jam packed with recipes for stews, soups, sauces, noodle & bean dishes, baked entrees, and desserts, interspersed with illustrations of adorable armed animals, meditations on suicide, a crossword puzzle, and instructions for DIY tattoo guns. Based on a series of long-obscure 1990s zines, this underground classic is now in its third edition, bringing you practical, animal-free cooking skills that will soothe your justified despair at the bloodthirstiness and futility of human nature.

Sex From Scratch

Sarah Mirk’s instant classic DIY relationship book is back, updated and expanded with sage advice for folks of all sorts of genders and sexualities. Learn to explore dating and relationships with a strong sense of good boundaries, consent, and self-worth—and without the tired old rules that didn’t work for past generations and really don’t work for us today. Sprinkled with interviews with amazing people about their experiences in polyamorous relationships, with and without kids, exploring their sexuality and asexuality, dating, getting married, breaking up, and having relationships defined on completely different terms. A great guide to throwing out the old, broken relationship templates that don’t serve us and creating our own.

An interview with Women on Wheels author April Streeter

This week on the podcast, we invite a guest into our studio for the first time in almost two years! April Streeter, author of the new feminist bicycle history Women on Wheels, joined us to talk about the untold histories of women cyclists since the 1880s, share fascinating tidbits of archival research and costumery, and revisit a bit of shop talk about what it was like to publish with us (and how we handled all those amazing illustrations).

You can find this and over 100 other episodes of the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast wherever podcasts are served.

How Can Publishers Provide Health Care?

Publishing jobs are real jobs! On this episode of the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly talk about one of Microcosm’s biggest steps towards becoming a grown-up company—providing our workers with health insurance. The healthcare system is not easy to figure out, but the good news is that experience in the publishing industry really sets you up to handle with aplomb the piles of mystifying paperwork, strict schedules and rules, and contracts that need to be read super closely.

Riot Woman

Growing up immersed in the feminist, DIY values of punk, Riot Grrrl, and zine culture of the 1990s and early 2000s gave Eleanor Whitney, like so many other young people who gravitate towards activism and musical subcultures, a sense of power, confidence, community, and social responsibility. As she grew into adulthood she struggled to stay true to those values, and with the gaps left by her punk rock education. 

This insightful, deeply personal history of early-2000s subcultures lovingly explores the difficulty of applying feminist values to real-life dilemmas, and embrace an evolving political and personal consciousness. Whitney traces the sometimes painful clash between her feminist values and everyday, adult realities — and anyone who has worked to integrate their political ideals into their daily life will resonate with the histories and analysis on these pages, such as engaging in anti-domestic violence advocacy while feeling trapped in an unhealthy relationship, envisioning a unified “girl utopia” while lacking racial consciousness, or espousing body positivity while feeling ambivalent towards one’s own body. 

Throughout the book, the words and power of Bikini Kill and other Riot Grrrl bands ground the story and analysis, bringing it back to the raw emotions and experiences that gave this movement its lasting power while offering a complex, contemporary look at the promises and pitfalls of Riot Grrrl-informed feminism.

Unfuck Your Body Workbook

Get good with your body! Calm your vagus nerve, exercise your self-compassion, vanquish shame, and give yourself the deep breaths, tasty nutrition, sound sleep, and healthy movement you need. These worksheets and exercises will help you reconnect with your physical self with love and start to feel better immediately. This workbook companion can be used along with Unfuck Your Body or all on its own.

Should Publishers Try to Compete with Amazon on Price?

This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly answer a reader question from a bookseller wondering if they should try to match the prices in their store to the prices they find online, which are often much lower (but sometimes much higher) than the cover price.

Of course we legally can’t advise any publishers on how to price their books, and we don’t do that here, but we do discuss some strategies and perspectives for managing your business in a market where price is problematic.