RADICALISM Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960–1975 by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (City Lights, $17.95). Reminiscent of Emma Goldman’s Living My Life, this second volume of Dunbar-Ortiz’s autobiography describes a feminist scholar’s political coming of age during the turbulent ’60s. A sequel to Red Dirt—which describes growing up poor in Dust Bowl Oklahoma—this book traces the author’s move to California, where the young radical learned hard lessons in the anti-war and anti-apartheid movements.
—Chris Dodge

SPIRITUALITY Turning Toward the Mystery: A Seeker’s Journey by Stephen Levine (HarperSanFrancisco, $25.95). Through decades of writing and teaching, Stephen Levine has brought meditative wisdom to bear on the most painful real-life situations: illness, imminent death, bereavement. Here he tells his own real-life story—how a rebellious Jewish kid from Manhattan went from the ’50s jazz world to jail (Riker’s Island on a drug charge) to psychedelic San Francisco to a unique spiritual perspective that blends the question-everything spirit of Buddhism with the warmth of devotion to a mystery he is willing to call God.
—Jon Spayde

COMICS Roadkill Bill by Ken Avidor
(Car Busters, $10). A run-over rodent, a mutant frog, and motorists fueled by road rage hardly seems to be a recipe for funny-page success. Yet somehow it works. This comic, which appears in the Minneapolis alternative weekly Pulse, handles concerns like sprawl, genetic engineering, and malignant consumerism with a touch that is both thoughtful and humorous. (www.roadkillbill.com)
—Jay Walljasper

NATURAL BUILDING The Art of Natural Building: Design, Construction, Resources