This 37^th installment of Books by Friends is a short supplement to the October message offering a few more items to consider for your Holiday Season/Looking-Toward-2026 list.

Norman Solomon’s new book, The Blue Road to Trump Hell: How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy, scrutinizes how the behavior of many Democrats assisted Trump’s electoral triumphs. That scrutiny is important not only for clarity about the past. It also makes possible a focus on ways that such failures can be avoided in the future.

Front Lines: A Lifetime of Drawing Resistance, by Susan Simensky Bietila, is an image-rich memoir and archive chronicling six decades as a movement artist, agitator, and cultural conspirator. The volume includes one hundred images and eleven comics. ranging from underground newspapers of the 1960s to Indigenous-led water protection actions today,

American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism, by Scott Kurashige, is available for pre-order. From the lynching of Asian immigrants during the exclusion era to the U.S. military’s slaughter of Asian civilians, the book connects domestic and global events. Going beyond victimhood, it traces the rise of Asian American community protest and activism and argues that hope lies in grassroots activism for multiracial solidarity.

Diane C. Fujino’s biography of the woman who cradled Malcolm X as he lay dying in the Audubon Ballroom – Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama – isn’t a new book. But I was reminded of its power and relevance when I saw Diane a week ago. The volume is based on extensive archival research and interviews with Kochiyama and her family and friends. tracing her life from an “all-American” childhood to her achievements as a tireless fighter for human rights.

Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital, byJason W. Moore, tackles the way finance, climate, food, and class – the crises and politics of the twenty-first century are connected. Moore’s argument is that capitalism is a “world-ecology” of power, profit, and life.

The film Cockroach, produced by Jordan Flaherty, has as its tagline, “A Black transgender man plans to exchange sex for top surgery money with an older gay man, until his late-night hook up turns into a hunt for a cockroach, who inspires
him to open his heart and conquer his fears.”

The documentary Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? co-produced and directed by Donny Goldmacher, has been re-released with a new website complete with a study guide and list of resources. “The biggest theft in American history wasn’t a crime of passion, but a secret plan launched in the 1970s – funded by a handful of billionaire families – designed to make them richer while robbing you and your family.”

Jerome Scott and Walda Katz-Fishman, authors of the new book Motown and the Making of Working-Class Revolutionaries: The Story of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, flagged in October’s Books by Friends, are on a national book tour. They will discuss their book in Oakland on the evening of Martin Luther King Day, January 19. Register for the gathering here.

Finally, Verso Books is offering all its titles at up to a 50% discount through the end of 2025. Hundreds of books full of radical insights, including the third edition of my own book Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che, are available. Complete information about the Verso sale is here.

Peace on Earth, Good Will to All