The Revolution Will Be Well-Read

Friend of the library Samwise tweeted out a call for #ActivistNovels this morning.  We think we can help.

Below is a list of fiction either dealing with a revolution or with themes of social injustice, war, and repression.  It’s not definitive by any means – leave us your comments with any additions you have.

List is organized alphabetically by author’s last name.  Because we’re book snobs.

Baum, L. Frank – The Wizard of Oz

Bradbury, Ray – Fahrenheit 451

Card, Orson Scott – Ender’s Game

Dickens, Charles – A Tale of Two Cities

Doctorow, Cory – Little Brother

Doctorow, E. L. – Ragtime

Eliot, George – Felix Holt, the Radical

Ellison, Ralph – Invisible Man

Finney, Jack – Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Hansberry, Lorraine – A Raisin in the Sun

Heinlein, Robert A. – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Heinlein, Robert A. – Stranger in a Strange Land

Hugo, Victor – Les Miserables

Huxley, Aldous – Brave New World

Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird

Le Guin, Ursula K. – The Left Hand of Darkness

Levin, Ira – The Stepford Wives

O’Brien, Tim – The Things They Carried

Orwell, George – 1984

Orwell, George – Animal Farm

Remarque, Erich Maria – All Quiet on the Western Front

Sinclair, Upton – The Jungle

Steinbeck, John – Grapes of Wrath

Stowe, Harriet Beecher – Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Vonnegut, Kurt – Cat’s Cradle

Vonnegut, Kurt – Sirens of Titan

Wolfe, Tom – Bonfire of the Vanities

First Occupy Your Local Bookstore event announced!

Thanks for the overwhelming enthusiasm and positive feedback on our launch of Occupy Your Local Bookstore last night!  It’s exciting to see so many people on board with this idea.

We have just created a Facebook event to announce our first of many such events/actions.  Please RSVP on Facebook or in the comments section below to let us know if you will be able to make it.

Details:

When: Monday, April 16th at noon

Where: Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore

7419 Madison St, Forest Park, Illinois

What:

Our first event will be to visit Atria’s Great Mystery Bus Tour when it stops at Centuries & Sleuths in Forest Park next week. This event features not one but FOUR top-notch mystery authors (John Connolly, William Kent Krueger, Liza Marklund, and M. J. Rose) signing books and meeting readers.

To learn more about Atria’s Great Mystery Bus Tour, visit their Tumblr: http://mysterybustour.tumblr.com/

Centuries & Sleuths is easily accessible from the Forest Park stop on the blue line. Learn more at their website: http://centuriesandsleuths.com/

Please stop by, meet some authors, and buy a book from one of our favorite local indie booksellers!

Occupy Your Local Bookstore

Today we are proud to announce an ongoing initiative we call Occupy Your Local Bookstore.

Bookstores do more than sell a product.  They are community centers where people meet, ideas are exchanged, and knowledge is gained.  But they are threatened by businesses who sell books at a deep discount, hoping you will buy other products to make up for the money they lose on book sales.  These businesses do not cultivate community experiences or host events where you can meet authors and fellow readers; they just sell you cheap books – and often only the most popular titles.  Plus, according to IndieBound: “Spend $100 at a local [bookstore] and $68 of that stays in your community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain, and your community only sees $43.”

We at The People’s Library of Occupy Chicago have a great fondness for local bookstores, and many of us have worked as booksellers in the past.  As such we would like to encourage the 99% to occupy local bookstores and show them how important they are to our city and all its communities.  As an added bonus, we hope to highlight what physical bookstores have to offer and the value of interacting with knowledgeable booksellers, authors,  and other readers.

Here’s how it works:

• Once a month or so, we will choose an event at a bookstore in the Chicago area.
• We will put out a call on this blog, our Facebook page, and our Twitter account to “occupy” the event.
• All you have to do is show up for the event – it might be a poetry slam, an author signing, or some other community gathering.  (Extra points if you bring your friends!)
• Relax! Learn something! Enjoy!
• Before you leave, please consider purchasing at least one book – even just a paperback – to help support a local business that promotes literacy.  If you need a recommendation, ask a bookseller!

That’s all there is to it.

A few notes:

• We will choose events that seem interesting, not necessarily thematically connected to the Occupy movement.
• The goal of this action is simply to highlight existing community resources and put our money into businesses that serve the 99%.
• If you are an author or bookstore planning an event in the Chicago area that you’d like us to consider as part of this action, please email OChiLibrary [at] gmail [dot] com.

Hope to see you out occupying local bookstore events!  Our first action will be announced tomorrow, April 11th.  See you back here then!