More than Just Food for Thought

Finding good food that is worth eating is sometimes difficult. There is a McDonalds on the corner of every block with a Starbucks placed strategically in the middle. It's hard to get a fresh perspective on food when your options are limited to what is available, convenient, and mass-produced.

Although living one's life in the "gastronomic doldrums" is less than desirable, it is far more tragic to be deprived of intellectual stimuli from a wide variety of views and sources. There is no doubt that the mega-bookstores that have become dominant in the past decade have contributed to the limited options available to readers.

Luckily, Washington area residents have an alternative: the Busboys and Poets Bookstore. This nonconformist bookstore happily offers nontraditional books, such as those published by AK Press. The Oakland, California-based publisher/distributor was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1990 and opened their U.S. branch in 1994. During their eighteen years in the publishing business, AK Press has become an ultimate authority on all anarchist books, CDs, and DVDs. Does that last sentence sound like an oxymoron?

Regardless, if you're craving something different, you can find many AK Press items at both the DC and the Virginia locations of the Busboys and Poets Bookstores. In a recent interview with Publishers Weekly, Don Allen, General Manager of the DC Busboys and Poets, noted that some of the best sellers from AK Press include a three-DVD set on the Black Panthers, What We Want, What We Believe and several of AK Press's vegan cookbooks.