Elevate Difference

Reviews of City Lights Books

Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today

I've long been a fan of Paul Krassner's more illustrious friends like Lenny Bruce and Abbie Hoffman, but until now I'd never gotten around to reading Krassner's own work. Who's to Say What's Obscene? appears to be a collection of random essays. I say "appears to be" because for most of the book, I had no idea what was going on. The stories were interesting, but would just go from one to the next with seemingly no connection.

American Romances: Essays

In this bountiful blend of writing, Rebecca Brown discusses the interpretation of words in the past and present. She mixes classic pieces of writing with contemporary history and combines her own coming-of-age anecdotes with other writings. Her commentary is sometimes shocking, sometimes eloquent, and overall, leaves you to wonder what she is thinking. Why does she choose to develop these essays this way?

Smash the Church, Smash the State!: The Early Years of Gay Liberation

Like all good memoirs of the 1960s and early ‘70s, Smash the Church, Smash the State! takes readers back to a time when revolution seemed imminent. Change was in the air and the fifty-one essays comprising Tommi Avicolli Mecca’s important anthology vividly capture the heady exhilaration of queer activists on both U.S. coasts as the possibility of being out-and-proud became increasingly tangible. The book is both a look back and a look forward.

I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody

Sinan Antoon’s novel I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody brilliantly portrays the complex impacts of political repression on humanity. It takes the form of a fictionalized compilation of interpreted handwritten prose of an Iraqi college student as he is held and tortured in a prison during the reign of the Ba’th regime in the 1980s.

Criminal of Poverty: Growing up Homeless in America

We never hear from the poor. They are simply not represented in public life. Perhaps it is because we don't think they deserve to have a say. After all, one of the strongest myths in American society is that any person can succeed as long as she is willing to work hard and never give up. What I like about Criminal of Poverty is that the writer, Tiny, a.k.a.
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