Rocket-Free Books
Rocket-Free Books is an unabashedly small-time book retailer based in Peterborough/Nogojiwanong. Run by Sarah Cullingham out of her home office (for now), Rocket-Free Books offers a limited collection of contemporary titles from (mostly) Canadian publishers, including works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, young adult & children’s literature. The collection draws from (mostly) small, independent, and radical presses.
Rocket-Free Books is driven by a desire to cultivate space for diverse expression, bold discussion and local community building around books. It's bookselling that departs from the culture of corporate online retail and best seller lists.
This is a project still very much in development. An assortment of 'Books on Hand' are available for delivery or pick-up in and around the City of Peterborough. Special orders from a limited number of publishers are also available. Dreams for the future include book markets, tabling at events, discussion forums, gathering space...
instagram: @rocket_freebooksptbo
Crip Kinship The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid By Shayda Kafai
From the Publisher, Arsenal Pulp:
The remarkable story of Sins Invalid, a performance project that centres queer disability justice.
In recent years, disability activism has come into its own as a vital and necessary means to acknowledge the power and resilience of the disabled community, and to call out ableist culture wherever it appears.
Crip Kinship explores the art activism of Sins Invalid, a San Francisco Bay Area-based performance project, and its radical imaginings of what disabled, queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming bodyminds of colour can do: how they can rewrite oppression, and how they can gift us with transformational lessons for our collective survival.
Grounded in the disability justice framework, Crip Kinship investigates the revolutionary survival teachings that disabled, queer of colour community offers to all our bodyminds. From their focus on crip beauty and sexuality to manifesting digital kinship networks and crip-centric liberated zones, Sins Invalid empowers and moves us toward generating our collective liberation from our bodyminds outward.
Includes a foreword by Patty Berne, co-founder, and executive and artistic director of Sins Invalid.
Suture By Nic Brewer
From the publisher, Book*hug Press:
To make her films, Eva must take out her eyes and use them as batteries. To make her art, Finn must cut open her chest and remove her lungs and heart. To write her novels, Grace must use her blood to power the word processor.
Suture shares three interweaving stories of artists tearing themselves open to make art. Each artist baffles their family, or harms their loved ones, with their necessary sacrifices. Eva’s wife worries about her mental health; Finn’s teenager follows in her footsteps, using forearm bones for drumsticks; Grace’s network constantly worries about the prolific writer’s penchant for self-harm, and the over-use of her vitals for art.
The result is a hyper-real exploration of the cruelties we commit and forgive in ourselves and others. Brewer brings a unique perspective to mental illness while exploring how support systems in relationships—spousal, parental, familial—can be both helpful and damaging.
This exciting debut novel is a highly original meditation on the fractures within us, and the importance of empathy as medicine and glue.
Special Topics in Being a Human A Queer and Tender Guide to Things I've Learned the Hard Way about Caring For People, Including Myself By S. Bear Bergman Illustrated by Saul Freedman-Lawson
From the publisher, Arsenal Pulp: S. Bear Bergman's illustrated guide to practical advice for the modern age, filtered through a queer lens.
As an author, educator, and public speaker, S. Bear Bergman has documented his experience as, among other things, a trans parent, with wit and aplomb. He also writes the advice column "Asking Bear," in which he answers crucial questions about how best to make our collective way through the world.
Featuring disarming illustrations by Saul Freedman-Lawson, Special Topics in Being a Human elaborates on "Asking Bear"'s premise: a gentle, witty, and insightful book of practical advice for the modern age. It offers Dad advice and Jewish bubbe wisdom, all filtered through a queer lens, to help you navigate some of the complexities of life - from how to make big decisions or make a good apology, to how to get someone's new name and pronouns right as quickly as possible, to how to gracefully navigate a breakup. With warmth and candor, Special Topics in Being a Human calls out social inequities and injustices in traditional advice-giving, validates your feelings, asks a lot of questions, and tries to help you be your best possible self with kindness, compassion, and humour.
