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Vol. 77/No. 19      May 20, 2013

 
‘Cuba and Angola,’ other Pathfinder
books placed in stores, libraries
 
BY NICK CASTLE  
Pathfinder’s latest title, Cuba and Angola: Fighting for Africa’s Freedom and Our Own, is getting on the shelves of bookstores and libraries, where along with other books by Pathfinder Press it can reach more workers and others with a growing thirst for revolutionary working-class politics. In early March, volunteers staffing Pathfinder’s booth at the Tucson Festival of Books sold all six copies of the book they had with them. Other orders for the title came from four bookstores in Minneapolis, two in Toronto and San Francisco; 12 libraries in Los Angeles, three in Miami, two in New York and two high school libraries in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Volunteers in the U.S. and Canada have adopted a goal of winning 125 orders of Pathfinder books from bookstores, public and college libraries, professors for their classes, and other institutions over a 19-week effort that began March 8.

Last fall 59 volunteers in 17 cities won 128 orders for Pathfinder. Of special note was the timely placement of the 50th anniversary edition of October 1962: The ‘Missile’ Crisis as Seen from Cuba. Among the highlights, a bookstore chain in Canada stocked the title in 23 stores. Seventeen places ordered copies of The Cuban Five: Who They Are, Why They Were Framed, Why They Should be Free, reflecting growing interest in the international fight to free the framed-up revolutionaries.

In early April, a Black and African history-oriented bookstore in the Toronto area ordered 40 books, including The Cuban Five, Cuba and Angola and Women and Revolution: The Living Example of the Cuban Revolution, another new title from Pathfinder. As Pathfinder volunteer Susie Berman was leaving the store, the owner said, “Oh, and one copy of Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? I want to read that.”

Salespeople in Minneapolis report an independent bookstore representative “has a lot of respect for Pathfinder” and made an order for eight titles. Also in the Twin Cities, a major university bookstore ordered a dozen books — its first order in several years.

The work of Pathfinder sales volunteers also includes expanding sales on the Internet. Orders on Amazon.com continue to grow. The Communist Manifesto led individual sales in 2012, followed by the writings and speeches of Malcolm X, Thomas Sankara and Che Guevara. Recently Pathfinder began to sell through Amazon in Canada.  
 
 
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