BY SARA LOBMAN
"Our book sales have been great," Linda Harris reports from Sydney, Australia, noting that events to celebrate the life and ideas of revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara have been particularly fertile ground for sales of Pathfinder books and pamphlets. "It was common in October to have two, three, four young people in the bookshop," Harris added. "Three people have joined the Young Socialists and they and four other youth have been participating in classes on The Communist Manifesto that are held at the bookshop twice a week.

"The Manifesto has been our best seller, with books by Guevara close behind. In fact, even though we keep reordering, we have sold out of Guevara's Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War and Bolivian Diary once or twice during the month," Harris said.

In Paris, sales of revolutionary literature to industrial workers was a highlight in October. "One of my co-workers at the Renault auto plant bought Dernier discours and Oser inventer l'avenir, the French-language editions of speeches by Malcolm X and Thomas Sankara," says Nat London. "After making a contribution to the Pathfinder Fund, he decided to get Socialism and Man in Cuba by Che Guevara and Che Guevara and the Fight for Socialism Today by Mary-Alice Waters." Pathfinder supporters in Paris sold a total of 119 books in October.

Michel Prairie reports that six books and two memberships to the Pathfinder Readers Club were sold at a November 3 demonstration in Quebec City of several hundred people, most of them high school and college students, against government cuts on social services.

Sales include several books and pamphlets on the Cuban revolution and The Communist Manifesto. Six copies of the Militant were sold to the predominantly French-speaking protesters.

"Our bestsellers this month were Malcolm X Talks to Young People, New International nos. 8 and 10, and February 1965: The Final Speeches by Malcolm X," states Kristin Meriam from Birmingham, Alabama. Pathfinder supporters there sold 49 books, going over their monthly goal of 45.

All told, the nearly 30 Pathfinder bookstores around the world reported sales of more than 2,800 books and pamphlets in October. Michael Baumann, who organizes Pathfinder's editorial work, remarks that Europe and America by Leon Trotsky was the best seller, with 298 copies sold to Pathfinder bookstores and other customers. The pamphlet includes two speeches on imperialism that Trotsky gave in the early 1920s. It was just reissued and is available for the first time in more than a decade. Thirteen of the top 15 titles in October were by Che Guevara or about the Cuban revolution.

In addition to Europe and America, Pathfinder has just reprinted with new type Socialism on Trial, by James P. Cannon, and the third volume of Trotsky's Challenge of the Left Opposition, which covers the years 1928 - 29.  
 
 
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