Grief: A Novel
Andrew Holleran

Publishers Weekly Review
An understated, eloquent novel by Holleran (Dancer from the Dance) captures the pain of a generation of gay men who have survived the AIDS epidemic and reached middle age yearning for fidelity, tenderness and intimacy. The unnamed, silver-haired narrator has just relocated from Florida, where he cared for his recently deceased mother for the last 12 years, to Washington, D.C., to "start life over" and teach a college seminar on literature and AIDS. He rents a room in a townhouse near Dupont Circle, his solitude deepened by his awareness that he and his gay, celibate landlord, a "homosexual emeritus," form only a semblance of a household. The narrator spends his days exploring the streets of the capital and his nights engrossed in the letters of Mary Todd Lincoln, who held onto her grief and guilt at her husband's death much like the narrator hordes his guilt for never having come out of the closet to his mother—and for having survived the 1980s and '90s. Holleran makes his coiled reticence speak volumes on attachment, aging, sex and love in small scenes as compelling as they are heartbreaking. Visiting with his friend Frank, whose willful pragmatism throws the narrator's mourning in sharp relief, prove especially revealing. Frank manages to have a steady boyfriend, while for the narrator, his landlord and most of their friends, love and partnership seem impossibly intimate. Until its terse, piercing conclusion, Holleran's elegiac narrative possesses its power in the unsaid.
©2006 Reed Business Information.

How Would A Patriot Act?

Glenn Greenwald

Publisher's Comments
Glenn Greenwald was not a political man. Not liberal, not conservative. Politicians were all the same and it didn’t matter which party was in power. Extremists on both ends canceled each other out, and the United States would essentially remain forever centrist. Or so he thought.

Then came September 11, 2001. Greenwald’s disinterest in politics was replaced by patriotism, and he supported the war in Afghanistan. He also gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt over his decision to invade Iraq. But, as he saw Americans and others being disappeared, jailed and tortured, without charges or legal representation, he began to worry. And when he learned his president had seized the power to spy on American citizens on American soil, without the oversight required by law, he could stand no more. At the heart of these actions, Greenwald saw unprecedented and extremist theories of presidential power, theories that flout the Constitution and make President Bush accountable to no one, and no law.

How Would a Patriot Act? is one man’s story of being galvanized into action to defend America’s founding principles, and a reasoned argument for what must be done. Greenwald’s penetrating words should inspire a nation to defend the Constitution from a president who secretly bestowed upon himself the powers of a monarch. If we are to remain a constitutional republic, Greenwald writes, we cannot abide radical theories of executive power, which are transforming the very core of our national character, and moving us from democracy toward despotism. This is not hyperbole. This is the crisis all Americans—liberals and conservatives--now face.

In the spirit of the colonists who once mustered the strength to denounce a king, Greenwald invites us to consider: How would a patriot act today?

No Holiday: 80 Places You Wouldn't Want to Visit

Martin Cohen

Publisher's Comments
In this disinformation travel guide, Martin Cohen turns the typical travel book on its head, exploring all the best places you would not like to go. On this very different kind of tour we will visit exotic locations (80 of them!), but with an unusual aim: to visit the great sights of the world and also the great sores. In this book, we will line up not at museums and art galleries but at monuments of sinister politics, like the CIA's "Academy of Terror" in Fort Benning, Georgia. We'll tread the no-man's lands of various demilitarized zones, see the dark red waters of "Murdering Creek," and the poisoned shores of the Aral Sea revealing an abandoned biological warfare center. Providing a unique perspective on world travel, No Holiday is a wake-up call for travelers everywhere.

Writing With Intent

Margaret Atwood

Booklist Review
Wit and wisdom are the essay's body and soul, and Atwood--shrewd, mischievous, and compelling--displays both in her masterful nonfiction. This substantial yet effervescent retrospective collection showcases Atwood as a zestful and discerning literary critic as she brilliantly assesses the work of such writers as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, and Elmore Leonard. She is also an insightful and valiant social critic, unflinchingly dissecting the impact of violent pornography, remembering her favorite wild places and tracking the ravages of acid rain, reconsidering a 1978 visit to Afghanistan, and taking issue with the post-9/11 mind-set. Atwood does, indeed, write with intent, that is, with intensity, resolve, and spirit, but for all her seriousness, she has a wickedly good time ferreting out contradictions and toppling shibboleths. And best of all are her pithy, hilarious, and touching personal essays about her family and life as a writer. Atwood has a uniquely enlivening voice and point of view, and this exhilarating volume will bolster her standing as a world-class writer of keen intellect and moxie.
© 2006 American Library Association.

Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism

Amalia Mesa-Bains and bell hooks

Publisher's Comments
Mainstream media has made a concerted effort to polarize African Americans and Latinos, emphasizing differences in culture, religion, and values. In Homegrown, two revolutionary thinkers invite us to reexamine and challenge this popular view of opposition, and consider which differences are manufactured and which are real. As renowned thinker and writer bell hooks and MacArthur Award-winning artist Amalia Mesa-Bains confront the challenges of building cross-cultural and cross-issue coalitions, they also speak to the viability of an oppositional politic shared by African Americans and Latinos. Listen in on the conversation between these two feminist cultural workers as they share the ways their work, families, and cultural experiences have shaped their political activism, teaching, and artistic expression. The timely afterword offers the authors' thoughts on the recent emergence of the immigration rights movement in the US.