Set the Night on Fire
L.A. in the Sixties
by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener
Verso (April 14, 2020) 800 pages

Los Angeles in the sixties was a hotbed of political and social upheaval. The city was a launchpad for Black Power—where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation. The city was home to the Chicano Blowouts and Chicano Moratorium, as well as being the birthplace of “Asian American” as a political identity. It was a locus of the antiwar movement, gay liberation movement, and women’s movement, and, of course, the capital of California counterculture.

Mike Davis and Jon Wiener provide the first comprehensive movement history of L.A. in the sixties, drawing on extensive archival research and dozens of interviews with principal figures, as well as the authors’ storied personal histories as activists. Following on from Davis’s awardwinning L.A. history, City of Quartz, Set the Night on Fire is a historical tour de force, delivered in scintillating and fiercely beautiful prose. More

How to Be an Antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi
One World (August 13, 2019) 320 pages

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves. More

This Month’s Book and Movie Recommendation
By Marcia Bookstein

Why You Should Be A Socialist
by Nathan J. Robinson
All Points Books (December 10, 2019)336 pages

I finished Capital in the 21st Century on Wednesday the 13th, at 11:03 a.m.  I celebrated in my head–it took three and a half years, and what a slog!  If you’re into equations and minutiae this would be the book for you. Instead I would suggest Why YOU Should Be a Socialist, by Nathan Robinson, founder and editor of Current Affairs. I’ve always loved his articles in The Guardian, and adore his nerdiness and English accent, but his ideas and writing are clear and engaging.  

But why bring up both books in one paragraph? Thomas Piketty makes it a point of saying why growing wealth inequality is bad and may bring on a bloody revolution, and, yes, he does use those words. And wealth inequality has a habit of just keep on growing until it is stopped, and usually it has to be stopped violently as the people with vast wealth are not about to give it up because we ask nicely. Robinson takes a different tack by telling us, first of all, we are probably already socialists, and that society will be better and we will be happier if we just admit this to ourselves and work towards a society that works for everyone. It is more worthwhile to see the destitute among us, get angry, and do something to change it than to pretend that it doesn’t exist or that it can’t be helped.

Right now I’m reading about the exercise he did with his friends and Current Affairs readers on what would make this country a utopia. People came up with the strangest suggestions, but we are invited to think outside the box. For instance, “As many butterflies and parrots in the average city as there currently are pigeons.”  Or, “glass-bottomed airplanes.” He invites us to imagine our own utopia. Mine would be, “The life, thinking, and music of Beethoven would be studied in every high school.” He also tells us what socialism is not: The Soviet Union, China, Venezuela, of course. And he explains why.

But mostly I recommend this book because it is an immensely fun read, highly engaging and entertaining, and you will, as you read, relish your own intelligence by noticing that your thoughts are reinforced and clarified.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Directed by Justin Pemberton
Written by Thomas Piketty (based on the book by), Matthew Metcalfe (adapted by)
1h 43min | Documentary
So the moment I finished the book Capital in the 21st Century they come out with the movie! It’s called, Capital in the 21st Century, and it’s highly recommended. Yes, it’s all there, even some of the graphs!  And Thomas Piketty speaks in French with English subtitles, so he can actually be understood!  There is original footage from both World Wars, plus movie footage that gives you a picture of what wealth looked like through the ages. The movie was released by a New Zealand company and is available for twelve dollars for five days of viewing, since it was expected to be shown in theaters. Well worth it!
https://www.kinolorber.com/film/view/id/3801
Enjoy your sequester!

This Month’s Book Recommendation

Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth
by Margaret Klein Salamon
New Society Publishers (April 21, 2020) 160 pages
Face the truth of climate change, accept your fears, and become the hero that humanity needs.
Facing the Climate Emergency gives people the tools to confront the climate emergency, face their negative emotions, and channel them into protecting humanity and the natural world.
As the climate crisis accelerates toward the collapse of civilization and the natural world, people everywhere are feeling deep pain about ecological destruction and their role in it. Yet we are often paralyzed by fear. Help is at hand. More

This Month’s Book Recommendations
The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America, by Charlotte Alter
Viking (February 18, 2020) 368 pages
A new generation is stepping up. There are now twenty-six millennials in Congress–a fivefold increase gained in the 2018 midterms alone. They are governing Midwestern cities and college towns, running for city councils, and serving in state legislatures. They are acting urgently on climate change (because they are going to live it); they care deeply about student debt (because they have it); they are utilizing big tech but still want to regulate it (because they understand how it works). More

The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Moveby Sonia Shah
Bloomsbury Publishing (June 2, 2020) 400 Pages
A prize-winning journalist upends our centuries-long assumptions about migration through science, history, and reporting–predicting its lifesaving power in the face of climate change.
The news today is full of stories of dislocated people on the move. Wild species, too, are escaping warming seas and desiccated lands, creeping, swimming, and flying in a mass exodus from their past habitats. News media presents this scrambling of the planet’s migration patterns as unprecedented, provoking fears of the spread of disease and conflict and waves of anxiety across the Western world. More