Rockafella Dance Workshop at Food For Thought

man, this was sooo awesome...



there's a few more short vids of this event over at our YouTube channel
(yes, we know the footage quality is lacking - anyone got a spare video camera they'd like to donate? pretty please?)

Food For Thought Books is hiring

We are currently looking to fill a position in our collective. Please see our website for more details.

"Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

some thoughts on this most heinous of holidays...



even more things to think on can be found at...
Resources for Rethinking Columbus

Exploring Queer Radicalism

This monthly study group/book club meets on the last Monday of every month and has recently made Food For Thought Books its new home! Join us this month on October 26th at 7pm for a discussion of From ACT UP to the WTO, an anthology that offers a history of ACT UP with a focus on new social movements, the use of street theater to reclaim public space, queer and sexual politics, new media/electronic civil disobedience, and race and community building.

Education for Liberation - A series of workshops

Check out our exciting new series of workshops happening here at Food For Thought every Thursday night at 5:00pm: Education for Liberation!

The E4L Series is grounded in our commitment to creating spaces for voices that are silenced or overlooked by mainstream corporate media. Including workshops, screenings, lectures and presentations with artists, educators, community organizers and every day folk who are working towards a social justice agenda centered around ending oppression and supporting liberation and self-determination.

This is an intergenerational space, supporting the voices and development of community members of all ages. This series is brought to you by support from our Lead Visionary Partner; Youth Action Coalition–Video Vanguards & through support from our Community Collaborators including: The Western Mass. Media Consortium and The TRGGR Media Group

Click here to see the full schedule. For more info: call tk at 413-253-5432.

For All the People

We just got in a new book here at FFT by John Curl that we're pretty excited about. It looks to tell the "hidden history of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America" -

... Seeking to reclaim a history that has remained largely ignored by most historians, this dramatic and stirring account examines each of the definitive American cooperative movements for social change—farmer, union, consumer, and communalist—that have been all but erased from collective memory. Focusing far beyond one particular era, organization, leader, or form of cooperation, For All the People documents the multigenerational struggle of the American working people for social justice. With an expansive sweep and breathtaking detail, the chronicle follows the American worker from the colonial workshop to the modern mass-assembly line, ultimately painting a vivid panorama of those who built the United States and those who will shape its future. ... read more

Actually, I should say mostly new. Somewhere in the piles of books I have at home there's a copy of the original slim pamphlet that Curl put out something like 10 years(?) ago. I remember enjoying alot then, as I had just started working in my first collective and it was good to feel a connection with history in what we were doing. I'm definitely looking forward to reading this much expanded edition.

(I do find it pretty ironic, though, that this book was published by PM Press, a press the owner founded because he didn't want to work in a collective anymore. Go figure.)
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• Check out this review of the book from the Berkeley Daily Planet
• Here's an interesting interview with Curl at Znet
• Interested it getting a copy? Order it via our website!

Bread & Puppet Theatre is coming to town!

Friday, September 18th at 7:00pm
Amherst Regional High School

The fabulous and amazing Bread & Puppet Theatre is coming to do a concert and fundraiser for the South Amherst Conservation Association. Those of you have seen them before know they are not to be missed - and those of you who have yet to catch one of their shows, get ready for a fantastic night of spectacle, humor, and, of course, puppets!

Tickets are available here at Food For Thought Books ($15 general public, $8 for students, seniors & low-income). You can also get tickets at Broadside Books in Northampton.

Welcome Students!

Fall semester begins this upcoming week & we'd like to welcome all the many students, new & returning. If your instructors have ordered your textbooks with us, please see our Textbook FAQ which will hopefully answer any questions you may have. If not, feel free to call (413-253-5432) or email us at info@foodforthoughtbooks.com.

Don't forget to check out our calendar of upcoming events, which will kick into gear soon, and feel free to stop by for a visit - we have verrry comfy couches :)

Have a great semester!

Legendary Feminist Bookstores Celebrate Big Anniversaries

from Bookselling This Week:

Two stalwarts of the feminist bookstore community are celebrating milestones anniversaries this fall, each with a series of in-store and off-site events, featuring locally known and nationally recognized authors. Chicago's Women & Children First is celebrating its 30th anniversary throughout September and October. And, in Atlanta, Charis Books & More will hold a weeklong party in November to mark its 35th year. read full article

Closed for Construction Work, Monday August 24th & Tuesday August 25th

We will be closed this Monday, August 24th. The DPW is going to be completing the sidewalk construction work & will be paving right in front of our door. As such, we're going to be pretty inaccessible for the day. See you again on Tuesday.

Update: looks like we're going to be closed for most of Tuesday the 25th as well. We may be open later today when the cement dries. Please call ahead before visiting: (413) 253-5432.

Local-washing

The Corporate Co-opt of Local by Stacy Mitchell, author of Big-Box Swindle, is an excellent article concerning the recent attempts by various corporations to appropriate the idea of "buying local".

Corporate local-washing is spreading well beyond food. Barnes & Noble, the world's top seller of books, has launched a video blog site under the banner "All bookselling is local." The site features "local book news" and recommendations from employees of stores in such evocative-sounding locales as Surprise, Ariz., and Wauwatosa, Wis. The vlog seems designed to disguise what Barnes & Noble is—a centralized corporation where decisions about what books to stock and feature are made by a handful of buyers—and to present the chain instead as a collection of independent-minded booksellers.

Across the country, scores of shopping malls, chambers of commerce and economic development agencies are also appropriating the phrase "buy local" to urge consumers to patronize nearby malls and big-box stores. In March, leaders of a campaign in Fresno, Calif., assembled in front of the Fashion Fair Mall for a kickoff press conference. Flanked by storefronts bearing brand names like Anthropologie and The Cheesecake Factory, officials from the Economic Development Corporation serving Fresno County explained that choosing to "buy local" helps the region's economy. For anyone confused by this display, the campaign and its media partners, including Comcast and the McClatchy-owned Fresno Bee, followed the press conference with more than $250,000 worth of radio, TV and print ads that spelled it out: "Just so you know, buying local means any store in your community: mom-and-pop stores, national chains, big-box stores—you name it." . . . read full article

(via metafilter)
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see also: Starbucks Goes Stealth with Unbranded, "Local" Cafes

Farewell Northland Poster Collective!

If you have been to our store you have no doubt seen the colorful posters decorating the walls above our bookshelves. The majority of these came from the vibrant Northland Poster Collective, who have been providing radical and progressive communities with amazing and powerful artworks for the past thirty years. Sadly, they are now closing up shop. While it is easy to identify the failing economy as the direct reason, they also note a larger context that should give one pause:

There's a bigger story that is worth noting that has to do with the way the cultural struggle for a better world is carried out. In short, the right wing is very aware that political power grows out of people's beliefs and hopes and dreams and they support their cultural warriors unstintingly. Our side thinks in terms of "issue campaigns" and leaves its cultural workers to work second jobs or take out mortgages to support their projects. We may wish to rethink this strategy.

There is a lot of painful truth being voiced here.

Food For Thought Books Collective would like to express our deep gratitude and solidarity with the people of Northland Poster Collective. Thank you all so much for all you've given us, for all the creativity you manifested & inspired. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.