Purchase copies of 3 works for $30 (35% off retail) and NYC Books Through Bars will be able to send to incarcerated readers: a graphic history of the fight for women's rights, liberation astrology, and fiction from the late, great Anne Rice

January 2022's pick:
Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists; Merrick; Postcolonial Astrology -- $30 for three books 
​We ended the year on a high note and December's drive (featuring the latest World Almanac, a sudoku game book, and the Jesmyn Ward-edited collection, The Fire This Time) allows us to purchase another 700 books for incarcerated readers, tipping the 2021 total to over 6,700 books collected!

We kick off 2022 with another mix of titles in categories frequently requested: graphic fiction, history, astrology, social justice, and horror fiction. We have not really included astrology before in our drives, but it is a commonly asked for subject. What stood out for us about Alice Sparkly Kat's new work--Postcolonial Astrology--is her unique approach: providing a fresh perspective on the art of planet reading that steers away from its use as a tool of oppression. Intersectional and inclusive, it deconstructs the politics of magic and provides a framework for collective healing and liberation. Shifting gears from celestial magick to the paranormal kind, Merrick is a novel of witches and vampires by the incomparable Anne Rice, who died a few weeks ago. And in Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists, Mikki Kendall tells stories (illustrated by A. D'Amico) of the pioneering women who forced change in society, whether in the realms of abolition, suffrage, civil rights, LGBTQ liberation, labor, or reproductive rights. 

Tuesday, April 27 @ 6:30 pm
Join us for a virtual event with Jay Toole, a featured contributor to The Stonewall Reader, a selected pick for April's Books Through Bars book drive. Toole will be in conversation with Bill Goldstein, author of a forthcoming biography of Larry Kramer.

​In support of our ongoing book drive for NYC Books Through Bars, Freebird is hosting another virtual event around a featured book. This month we focus on The Stonewall Reader, an invaluable collection assembled by the New York Public Library's Jason Baumann of firsthand accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers.  

Amongst the voices documenting the riots and the gay liberation movement it sparked is Jay Toole.  A longtime friend of NYC Books Through Bars and a formerly incarcerated reader herself, Toole was 21, openly queer, and homeless when riots broke out at the Stonewall Inn in 1969. 

Outspoken since then in drawing attention to LGBTQ rights, Toole helped found Queers for Economic Justice, a non-profit promoting economic justice in a context of sexual and gender liberation. There she pioneered the Shelter Project, a program to address homelessness within the New York shelter system. 
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Jay Toole will be in conversation with Bill Goldstein, author of a forthcoming biography of Larry Kramer, as well as of The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster and the Year that Changed Literature. He reviews books and interviews authors for NBC's "Weekend Today in New York," and was the books editor of nytimes.com.

APRIL'S BOOK DRIVE PICKS

Following March's drive (Howard Zinn on History, Bloodchild and Other Stories, and Black Sun Rising (La Corazonada) is a bundle that mixes self-improvement with a seminal work on the origins of the gay liberation movement. A frequent request from incarcerated readers are materials on how to write business plans, and to think about employment beyond prison. Mind Your Business is a workbook for aspiring entrepreneurs or anyone re-entering the workforce.  As well, the demand for art instruction (whether of figures, still lifes, or comics) never ceases, and this month we include more selections from the "How to Draw in Simple Steps" series: People, Dogs, and Manga characters. Most importantly, especially for the sizable LGBTQ communities currently incarcerated in state and federal prisons, is The Stonewall Reader: a collection of personal accounts, critical essays, and contemporaneous articles on the 1969 Stonewall uprising and its legacy. It might not be Pride Month, but gay history isn't only for June. Compiled by the New York Public Library, The Stonewall Reader spotlights activists and activism at their most inspiring. 

PURCHASE THE BUNDLE HERE

Many thanks to all of you who have participated in our ongoing drive to benefit NYC Books Through Bars! We truly appreciate your generosity at this time (over 7,000 books purchased on their behalf since June 2020!), when those incarcerated face ever greater obstacles getting access to written material. 

Why it is important to donate to NYC Books Through Bars
While the NYC Books Through Bars program operating out of Freebird's basement is currently limiting in-person volunteering and drop offs due to COVID-19, book requests continue to pour in from prisons around the country: nearly 300 per week. In response to the challenges of accepting those donations during the pandemic, we have started a monthly program in which specific, in-demand titles can be purchased through Freebird at a discount. These books will be sent to incarcerated readers across the country. ​
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Want to buy a copy of this month's featured book for yourself?  Click on the link below.

Book TV will be re-airing our interview with David Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson regarding their new graphic novel history of the Black Panther Party: ​[The Black Panther Party] | C-SPAN.org (c-span.org)

Purchase three works for $30 (35% off retail): Walter Tevis's novel, The Queen's Gambit (recently adapted by Netflix to much acclaim), a classic guide to playing chess, and a history of the Black Panther Party, told in graphic form.

February 2021's pick:
Chess, chess, and Black Panther history--three books for $30 
​Following January's drive (Weight-Free Workout; Cults, Conspiracies & Secret Societies; Backyard Farming: Growing Herbs for Food and Medicine; and Instant Yoga), we focus on three oft requested topics: chess instruction, graphic fiction, and radical history. David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson tell the story of Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Fred Hampton and others through words and images in the recently published The Black Panther Party.  In Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, a YOUNG Fischer--at the height of his talents in 1966 and well before he went off the deep end--collaborated with Stuart Margulies and Don Mosenfelder to impart how to play chess to the best of one's potential. And to complement the more technical aspects of the game, we wanted to include some diversionary reading with the novel The Queen's Gambit, recently adapted into a TV series, and much lauded for its dramatic depiction of competitive chess. 

To learn more about the important work NYC Books Through Bars does, go here. 
Looking for a book for yourself? Check out our page at Bookshop.org, including lists of recommended reads from Piper Kerman, Victoria Law, Albert Woodfox, Victor LaValle, Mat Johnson, and others! 

Want to give a gift card? Freebird has e-gift cards available here for your birthday and holiday needs (and to redeem for future book drives)!