Truth, Love and Appetite

Last week we shipped off copies of Celia Hart's book to leading academic, and activist, libraries in Britain, Cuba, Ireland and The Netherlands. We're also starting to get powerful feedback from readers who took us up on our pre-publication offers. In particular, comments come under three forms: about truth, love and appetite.

1. Truth is an important aspect of this book. Of course, Celia speaks for herself when she discusses the challenges facing revolutionaries around the world. However, her book is a partial antidote to a lot of the misunderstandings, confusion and propaganda being spread by both the enemies of the Cuban revolution and some of its more critical friends. This book allows a Cuban revolutionary to speak in her own words to an English-speaking audience. That's a powerful contribution for Socialist Resistance to make to the left and that approach is reflected also by our recent dayschool, which allowed comrades from Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela to speak in their own words.
2. Love was also a parent of this book. The care and thoughtfulness put into the translations and design of this book is all the more important because that work is done by volunteers. The translations were done by friends at CubaNews, and checked and reworked by comrades of Socialist Resistance here in Britain and the US. The design and the wonderful cover image of a Cuban flag flying against a blue sky really mark it out as a book that is a real pleasure to read.
   
3. Appettite is also important. Socialist Resistance is produced by a pretty small network of people. It's important, I think, that this is our first book. It says something about priorities. It's a major investment, and we've put in the effort needed to get this book the access it needs. We've produced this book in the Demy Octavo format most widely used by bookshops around the work, rather than the A5 format most commonly used by European socialist books. It's printed on classy cream-coloured paper, which so many mainstream publishers use now, and which makes the book easy and soothing to read. We've also made it available to booksellers around the world through Ingram's book wholesaling system.
   

There are three ways to get the book.

• 1] Use www.paypal.com to send a payment for 8 pounds [that is around 15 US dollars] to resistance at sent dot com. Send an email to that address as well to give your mailing address. The price includes international airmail.
• 2] Send an international money order, or a UK bank cheque, made payable to 'Resistance' for 8 pounds to PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU, Britain. The price includes international airmail.
• 3] Bookshops and libraries can get the book from Ingram, the world's largest wholesale book distributor. You'll need the ISBN number: 978-0-902869-99-8.

Resistance is making the book available at cost to groups and booksellers ordering more than five copies. Six copies cost 30 pounds rather than 46 pounds, also including airmail shipping to a single address. Each extra copy added to the bundle is 5 pounds.