Today in Labor History February 27, 1902: John Steinbeck was born on this date in Salinas, California. He wrote numerous novels from the perspective of farmers and working-class people, including “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Tortilla Flats” “Of Mice and Men,” “Cannery Row,” and “East of Eden.” In 1935, he joined the communist League of American Writers. He faced contempt charges for refusing to cooperate with HUAC. The FBI and the IRS harassed him throughout his career. Yet he wrote glowingly about U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962 and the Pulitzer in 1939.
Archie Hind only published one complete #novel in his lifetime but it was an important one. THE DEAR GREEN PLACE won a string of awards in the 1960s including the Guardian Fiction prize & is regarded as a key work in modern #Scottish#literature.
The #manuscript of his novel was assumed to be lost – but now it, & other papers, photographs & letters, have been donated to Strathclyde University as the basis of an #archive.
Today in Labor History February 26, 1894: In France, Jean Grave was charged and sentenced to two years in prison for publishing the book “La société mourante et l'anarchie.” However, the trial only served to popularize the book, which was quickly translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Yiddish. Voltairine De Cleyre produced an English translation in 1899. Novelist Octave Mirbeau (“Torture Garden” and “Diary of a Chambermaid”) wrote the preface. Grave was born on October 16, 1854 and died in 1939. He was active in the international anarchist communism movement and was editor Le Révolté, La Révolte and Les Temps Nouveaux, and a number of important anarchist books.
INVESTIGATING A SHADY CONGRESSWOMAN leads two journalists into an investigation with life-or-death stakes. Romantic thriller captures both suspense and love within Houston’s Black elite. B PLUS
Looking for stuff to read, especially to nominate for awards this year? Consider these books, short stories, & other works published in 2023 by creators whose works have previously won the Otherwise Award, & past Fellows.
The Otherwise (formerly the Tiptree) Award celebrates science fiction, fantasy, & other forms of speculative narrative that expand and explore our understanding of gender.
SISTERS, CLINGING TOGETHER after a family tragedy leaves one with profound brain injuries and the other with responsibilities she can barely handle, find separate ways through crises. Lovely mix of Trinidadian legends and European fairy tales.
The 28th chapter of my hard #scifi#SpaceOpera is released! More serious and permanent damage to the ship! More worldbuilding, specifically about the origins of the main villains (if unseen ones)-- the dal-ghar. And finally, the entry into the last leg of the journey until Ilsh...
The Woefully Neglected (and Partially Unfilmable) Creations of Alasdair Gray
“Novels narrated in the first-person or in the third- can have those choices rendered cinematically […]. But Gray used endnotes, illustrations, typography, plagiarism, self-reference, and the layout of the page to further his plots, to deepen his diegesis, and to make us laugh.”
Today in Labor History February 23, 1882: B. Traven was born on this date in Poznan, Poland. Traven’s real name was probably Ret Marut. He was active in the Bavarian uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic of 1919. When the German state quashed the Republic and started arresting and executing activists, he fled to Mexico, where he began writing novels. Traven was a brilliant satirist and wrote novels sympathetic to workers and peasants, including the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “The Death Ship,” “The White Rose,” as well as his Jungle Series of novel depicting the plight of Indigenous campesinos in Mexico.
LINKED BY FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP, generations of Black women hold tightly to the things that bind them against forces that threaten to overwhelm them—heartbreak, mortality, racism, misogyny, literal and figurative ghosts. Lovely, stirring writing. B PLUS
Today in Labor History February 20, 1931: An anarchist uprising in Encarnación, Paraguay briefly transformed the city into the revolutionary Encarnación Commune. Students and workers created popular assemblies to run the city. They tried to create communes in other towns, too, but the authorities thwarted their attempts. When the authorities began to retake Encarnacion, many of the insurrectionists stole steamboats and fled to Brazil. Along the way, they attacked yerba mate companies and burned records related to indentured servants. Gabriel Casaccia alluded to the uprising in his novel “Los Herederos.”
Today in Labor History February 19, 1807: The authorities arrested former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr for treason. They alleged that he was behind a plot to create an independent country in the southwest of the U.S., but had to acquit him for lack of evidence. Some believed he intended to take Texas or all of Mexico, but accounts vary as to how many supporters he had (anywhere from 40 to 7,000). In 1808, he traveled to England and attempted to garner support for a revolution in Mexico. The Brits kicked him out of the country. Prior to all this, while still vice president he had killed Alexander Hamilton in an illegal duel. He was never tried and all charges against him were dropped. Gore Vidal wrote an historical novel, “Burr,” written in the form of a memoir by Burr. The novel undoes the traditional hagiographies of America’s founding fathers, portraying them as the greedy, self-serving and often times incompetent men they really were. It was the first in his Narratives of Empire series.
SMART, SIZZLING VAMPIRE novel is a sexy, erudite, witty retelling of the Dracula story with a young Black woman at its center. Contemporary and queer and funny as hell. A MINUS
Ive been trying to track down a book I read and loved as a kid and have searched for, but can't remember the author or title, so thought maybe the fediverse could help me track it down.
I read it in the late 80's / early 90's, but I remember the cover art being a bit "old fashioned" so it technically could have been published the 70's or earlier.
The story revolved around a kid/kids moving to (or just spending the summer at) an old American farmhouse that was haunted by the ghost of a young boy in "wild west" style clothes. The main plot is the kids solving the mystery of the ghost boys death, that involved a train heist 100 years earlier and the boy being killed for betraying the gang who did the heist.
I think. like I say, I read it 30+ years ago, but remember loving it and would now love to read it to my kids.
Any ideas out there? Anyone remember a book like that?
Today in Labor History February 18, 1943: The Nazis arrested the members of the White Rose movement. The activist group called for opposition to the Nazi regime through an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign. The Nazis put on a show trial in which none of the defendants were allowed to speak. They executed Hans and Sophie Schol, and Christoph Probst on February 22, 1943. White Rose leaflets openly denounced the persecution and mass murder of the Jews. They might have taken their name from the poem "Cultivo una rosa blanca," by Cuban revolutionary and poet, Jose Marti. Alternatively, they may have gotten it from the B. Traven novel, “Die Weiße Rose” (The White Rose).” Traven served on the Central Council of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. He escaped the terror that followed the crushing of the Republic and fled to Mexico, where he wrote numerous novels, including “Death Ship” and “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”
Andy Weir wrote a "lost" chapter of The Martian called "Lost Sols" to celebrate its 10th anniversary of the book's availability. https://galactanet.com/lostsols.pdf
"So now, my bed was a pressurized space car on Mars.”
Today in Labor History February 15, 1933: Giuseppe Zangara tried to assassinate President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami. He failed, mostly because he was too short to see over the crowd. However, Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak, who was shot in the attack, later died, in part from his wounds and in part from medical malpractice. Zangara confessed to the crime in jail, stating “I kill kings and presidents first and next all capitalists.” He was executed in Old Sparky, Florida’s electric chair in March, 1933. Philip K. Dick’s novel, “The Man in the High Castle,” is based in part on the premise that Zangara succeeded in killing FDR.
A BARISTA TURNS PODCASTER to re-examine the decades-old cold case of her grandfather’s murder, then finds herself at the center of a modern-day homicide investigation. Charming cozy mystery has a lot of heart. B PLUS