Happy Spring!

Happy Spring everyone!

As some of you might have noticed, this blog has been pretty dead as of late. To be honest, we simply have been too strapped for time & energy as of late and, really, you need both time & energy to create the kind of good writing that makes for a good blog.

So, in the meantime, please visit us at our other online hangouts. If we decide to kick this thing into gear again, we'll let y'all know, OK? OK.

• FFT main website
• FFT on Facebook
• FFT on Flickr
• FFT on Tumblr

Toast & Jam: Celebrating 35 Years at Food For Thought Books!

This upcoming Saturday! Be there!

TRGGR Radio Fridays at FFT!

Come listen to the ever-awesome TRGGR Radio in the company of friends and neighbors as we keep the bookstore open 'til 8:00pm on Fridays in November!

Not Under My Roof: a reading & booksigning with Amy Schalet

Join us for a reading & discussion of Amy Schalet's new book Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex on November 14th at 7:00pm

For American parents, teenage sex is something to be feared and forbidden, and sex is often a source of family conflict. In the Netherlands, where teenage pregnancies are far less frequent than in the United States, parents aim above all for family cohesiveness, often permitting young couples to sleep together and providing them with contraceptives. Probing our child-rearing for what it tells us about our culture, Not Under My Roof offers an unprecedented, intimate account of the different ways that girls and boys in both countries negotiate sex, love, and growing up.

Not Under My Roof features personal stories of parents and teens, a sociologically and historically-informed analysis, and a roadmap for guiding American social policy on adolescent sexual health. Accessible to a general readership, it is especially relevant for parents and those who work in the areas of adolescent development, education, and health care.

Amy Schalet is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a specialist on adolescent sexuality and culture in comparative perspective.

For more information: www.amyschalet.com

Consensus - Direct Democracy @ Occupy Wall Street

This is how we roll... collectivity & consensus for the win!

Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives - Beta Test

Did you know that October is National Cooperative month? What is a cooperative, anyway?

Join us to learn about cooperatives, and play Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives! Drop by and take a peek, stick around and play with your friends.

Co-opoly is a creative and exciting educational game designed for the growing cooperative movement. Co-opoly is more than just a board game. It is an innovative way for aspiring and existing cooperators, as well as other interested parties, to learn about co-ops and to practice cooperation.

People who have played the game call it “fun and engaging” as well as “a great teaching tool about how to build and sustain” cooperatives.

Learn more here: http://coopolygame.com/

Christian Parenti: Tropic of Chaos

We are excited to invite you to a reading and discussion with noted author and journalist Christian Parenti on his new book Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence on November 11, 2011 at 7:00pm.

From Africa to Latin America to Asia to North America, how is climate change fueling conflict? What impacts do rising sea levels, intensifying droughts, increasing floods, and melting glaciers have on access to water and arable land and how will these impacts shape future social dynamics and geopolitics?

As both a scholar and investigative journalist, Parenti will discuss the connection between climate change and increased social and political conflict. Join us as we discuss why climate change is fundamentally a political problem that requires political solutions in order to prevent climate-change driven violence and increased global disparity.

1493: A Reading & Talk with Charles Mann

Join us for a reading and discussion with local author Charles Mann about his new book 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created this upcoming Thursday, October 27th at 7:00pm.

Mann's new book picks up where his previous work, 1491—the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas— left off and presents a deeply engaging new history of the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs: what has come to be known as the Columbian Exchange.

As 1493 shows, the Columbian Exchange underlies much of subsequent human history. Presenting the latest research by ecologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians, Mann shows how the creation of this worldwide network of ecological and economic exchange fostered the rise of Europe, devastated imperial China, convulsed Africa, and for two centuries made Mexico City—where Asia, Europe, and the new frontier of the Americas dynamically interacted—the center of the world. In such encounters, he uncovers the germ of today’s fiercest political disputes, from immigration to trade policy to culture wars.

"A fascinating survey... A lucid historical panorama that’s studded with entertaining studies of Chinese pirate fleets, courtly tobacco rituals, and the bloody feud between Jamestown colonists and the Indians who fed and fought them, to name a few. Brilliantly assembling colorful details into big-picture insights, Mann’s fresh challenge to Eurocentric histories puts interdependence at the origin of modernity." --Starred review, Publishers Weekly

This event is co-sponsored by Food For Thought Books Collective and The Environmental Studies Program of Amherst College.

Happy Birthday VAWC!

Happy Birthday, Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives! We love you!

Volunteer at Food For Thought Books!

Volunteering is a fun and easy way to support Food For Thought Books. It helps keep our costs down, frees up time for staff to work on specific tasks, and builds community around the store.

Volunteers also get a sweet discount on everything in the store (bibliophiles, take note!).

Click here for more details!

Justin Vivian Bond's Tango - A Book Review

A good review of Bond's upcoming memoir: Tango

Problematic coverage of the book aside, I loved Tango. Kate Bornstein said it best when she wrote, “…Tango is like listening to your favorite eccentric cousin or auntie tell you hair-​raising tales…Justin Vivian spins a one-​of-​a-​kind story that you won’t be able to put down.” She nailed it on both accounts: the book feels incredibly conversational, as though it were not a book at all, but a collection of Bond’s famously biting asides between songs at a cabaret. Secondly, I truly could not put the book down. I lied to myself, saying I would just read until I was tired, and then tucked myself into bed some hours later, book complete, in the wee hours of the morning.

Tango is largely the story of Bond’s relationship with v’s childhood lover, who was also v’s greatest tormentor in school. This intersects with the various ways in which the adults in v’s life tried, through various means and with varied success, to regulate v’s clearly emerging queer sexuality and gender. The moments range from the utterly traumatic to the touching to laugh out loud. Justin’s mother forbade v from wearing her frosted pink lipstick to school, v’s pop pop bought v Barbie coloring books without question or issue, and v’s Cub Scout troupe found v the odd boy out who picked Sandy Duncan as the figure in history that v would most like to be.

read more...

Also, thank you, J. Rudy for calling out the NYT's transphobic b.s. - so tiresome and so unwarranted.

Baby's Got Book

You know it's true...



Thanks, Rhymes With Orange & Lily Library! That was a good chuckle :)