Paper Radio is a collection of short bursts of anxious moments, capturing intimate details in an evocative and economic fashion. Full of tension and introspection, and alternately tender and tough, the poems in Paper Radio call back to vivid and familiar experiences. It’s definitely the sort of writing that makes you feel as if you’re there, in memory or in the moment.

So far, Paper Radio is the only book Rogers has written. Here’s hoping another is on the way.

Although he’s the son of poet Irving Layton – and no relation to Jack or Mike, of course – it ought to be noted that David is a wry, insightful and evocative writer in his own right. I went out of my way not to read any of his work during the course, just because I didn’t want to run the risk of aping his style in any of my assignments. But shortly after the course ended, I got my hands on a copy of The Bird Factory, his first novel, and I’m quite glad I did.

Told through the eyes of Luke Gray, an artist and entrepreneur in his thirties living in Toronto with his wife Julia, The Bird Factory is a a flowing but frantic account of a man transitioning from a happily predictable marriage into the uncertain future of a family. Balancing dark humour with warm wisdom, and written with a keen eye for character and human relationships, it’s a hell of a read to say the least.

To tell you much more would give too much of the game away, so I’ll simply recommend the book and leave it at that. If you need me in the meantime, I’ll be reading Motion Sickness.

First published in 1994, the book and its subsequent promotional tour generated a cult following around Wimsatt, which in turn led to future books and left-leaning political projects. The book itself deals with issues like hip hop culture, race, suburban sprawl, graffiti and youth activism. It’s a witty, well-informed and engaging book; I work my way through it every two or three years, and I think I’m about due for another reading.

Wimsatt’s latest is a follow-up called Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs, in which he looks back on twenty-five years of politics and culture in America, and offers a vision for the twenty-five years ahead. I haven’t read it yet, because I just found out about it, but you can bet it’s in the queue.

I’m reading it at the moment, and although I’m not gay and I’m certainly no teenager, I have to admit that I’m quite impressed with the book, its message and its execution. Savage and Miller have tapped into a wide range of encouraging voices, from ordinary people in the LGBT community to celebrities and politicians, including Barack Obama himself. Each of the book’s many contributors reaches out to young readers, shares his or her own experiences, and emphasizes the simple but important fact that “it gets better.”

In addition, the book and the project as a whole are actually pretty fascinating examples of the potential to organize for change in the age of new media. If you’re like me, and you’re really into that sort of thing, then you’ll want to read this book as a case study.

“The culture used to offer this deal to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people,” Savage writes in his introduction. “You’re ours to torture until you’re eighteen. You will be bullied and tormented at school, at home, at church – until you’re eighteen. Then, you can do what you want. You can come out, you can move away, and maybe, if the damage we’ve done to you isn’t too severe, you can recover and build a life for yourself.

“There’s just one thing you can’t do after you turn eighteen: You can’t talk to the kids we’re still torturing, the LGBT teenagers being assaulted emotionally, physically, and spiritually in the same cities, schools, and churches you escaped from. And, if you do attempt to talk to the kids we’re still torturing, we’ll impugn your motives, we’ll accuse you of being a pedophile or pederast, we’ll claim you’re trying to recruit children into ‘the gay lifestyle.’”

The It Gets Better Project as a whole is the result of using new media to reject that deal and reach out to young people. “We weren’t waiting for anyone’s permission anymore,” Savage writes. “We found our voices.” The results, as the book illustrates, are very compelling indeed.

You may have seen the movie, but if you’ve read the book as well, then I don’t have to tell you that the movie’s a loose adaptation at best. King himself noted that the version of protagonist Ben Richards found in the novel is “as far away from the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in the movie as you can get.”

According to On Writing, which is another book I really ought to get around to reading, The Running Man was written in a single week. King describes it as “a book written by a young man who was angry, energetic, and infatuated with the art and the craft of writing.”

The frantically paced and ultimately grim product of that week in the early eighties is definitely in keeping with King’s description, and certainly more compelling and provocative than the film. Do check it out.

Using a wide range of case studies, and highlighting a number of policy victories, Clark and Van Slyke reveal the secrets of the progressive media landscape’s growing success. Not only that, but in mapping the journey up to this point in a practical and engaging way, they chart a course toward future successes and victories.

Even for Canadian organizers, journalists, activists and bloggers, it’s an impressive read providing a wealth of information on contemporary history and communication. I’ve cited it in a number of posts over at democracy101.ca, and I’m glad to recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about working together to build a more progressive world.

“The Israeli-Palestine conflict is not a Wild West movie,” Oz argues. “It is not a struggle between good and evil, rather it is a tragedy in the ancient and most precise sense of the word: a clash between right and right, a clash between one very powerful, deep, and convincing claim, and another very different but no less convincing, no less powerful, no less humane claim.”

The book opens with a brief but terrific essay called “Between Right and Right,” from which the above quote was taken. The title essay follows, and a 2005 interview with the author rounds it all out by illuminating a number of Oz’s points, particularly in light of the many social and political changes in the region since the first publication of the essays in 2002.

It’s a heavy subject, and although Oz treats it with a certain irreverence, he doesn’t downplay the severity of the conflict, much less the painful nature of the compromise he believes is required to resolve it. Not only is the book an illuminating read, but it’s also a great introduction to a writer who’s as personable as he is political.

Subtitled “How to Smuggle Cocaine by the Ton and Live Happily,” I Am the Market is essentially an account of one anonymous smuggler’s lengthy career in the drug trade, as told to Rastello himself. The writing is witty and personable, and the subject matter is treated with a demystifying candor. Myths are shattered, perspectives are altered, and although the drug trade isn’t generally rationalized or defended, it’s humanized in a certain sense.

Fans of Gomorrah, for example, are bound to take a lot away from I Am the Market. It’s hardly a “how to” manual, despite its wry title, and it certainly doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the trade. But it does offer a new perspective on a highly mythologized economy, and in that respect alone it’s worth a read.