alt.lib

International Day of Peace
2025-09-21 15:00 - 19:00 (America/Vancouver) | Structures Brewing, 601 W. Holly St., Bellingham, WA, WA, 98225, United States
The Alternative Library will be popping up with a table full of zines and books from our studio during the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center’s International Day of Peace event:
Sunday, September 21st @ 3 pm
Structures Brewing, 601 W. Holly St.
Whatcom Peace and Justice Center is excited to announce the 2025 International Day of Peace! Recognized by the United Nations since 1982 and the City of Bellingham since 2017, this is a community-focused day of celebration that offers space to support our work in uplifting local organizers and connecting to global movements against violence and oppression.
International Day of Peace is WPJC’s main fundraising and educational event of the year, raising critical funds to support the ever more vital work of the Center in advocating for peace and against wars at home and abroad.
​This year, we’re celebrating with the theme: “We Keep Us Safe: Fostering a Culture of Care”. We believe that fostering a culture of care means creating spaces where people are seen, heard, and supported, especially those most affected by injustice.

TAKAAT in Bellingham
2025-10-13 19:00 - 21:00
Our annual Fall renegade show is here, and this time we’re excited to present the Saharan desert rock band, TAKAAT!
This show will be held at a public outdoor location, which will be announced with an e-mail to ticket holders on the day before the show!
Tickets available via Brown Paper Tickets:
https://takaatbellingham.brownpapertickets.com/
TAKAAT (pronounced tuh-cot), meaning “noise” in the Tuareg language Tamashek, is the trio of Ahmoudou Madassane, Mikey Coltun, and Souleymane Ibrahim, also known as the rhythm section of Mdou Moctar. TAKAAT is sonic chaos, improvisation, freedom of exploration, and the punk styles of bands such as Fugazi and Unwound, all mixed together with the guitar music from the Sahel.
TAKAAT started during soundchecks while on the road with Mdou Moctar when the trio indulged their shared love for amps cranked to 11 and the sound of blown out speakers. Towards the end of 2023, the three started writing music together, inspired by their shared experiences with the sounds and energy of Hausa bar bands, gritty soukous, and 2000s post-punk. The music of TAKAAT is intense, dark, and energetic. Deeply inspired by the DIY ethos of punk, Ahmoudou, Mikey, and Souleymane capture that thrill of the new and the ecstasy of togetherness in these heavy rockers. TAKAAT follows in the spirit of the independent music culture that birthed hardcore basement shows, bedroom tape labels, and generator-powered pick-up wedding bands.
TAKAAT is noise!
https://purplishrecords.bandcamp.com/album/takaat-is-noise-vol-1
We’re happy to be joined by the fantastic local guitarist, John Swanke, who will perform an opening set:
https://johnswanke.bandcamp.com/

Author Talk with Former Political Prisoner Eric King
2025-10-17 19:00 - 20:30
Date: October 17th
Time: 7PM
Location: Duck & Cover (2123 New Street Bellingham 98225)
Eric King comes to Bellingham to present his forthcoming book “A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon” (PM Press).
Eric King is an anarchist who was imprisoned in 2014 for acts of solidarity with the Ferguson, Missouri, uprising. While in federal custody Eric was indicted for a self-defense incident at FCI-Florence. Eric took it to trial and is one of the absolute few people to ever win at Federal Trial. After his victory Eric was sent to the Federal Supermax, ADX, where he spent most of his final two years of his prison bid. During his time in prison Eric coedited the political prisoner anthology Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners. Eric survived years of documented physical and psychological torture and made it out of prison with heart and soul intact.
A Clean Hell is a searing firsthand account from inside the most repressive prison in the United States, a place built not for rehabilitation but for disappearance.
The federal supermax ADX Florence is the most secure facility in the United States, a dungeon of isolation, sensory deprivation, and psychological disintegration. Here, cruelty isn’t accidental; it’s the design. Built in 1995, the “Alcatraz of the Rockies” was made to cage the so-called worst of the worst: bombers, gang leaders, political enemies, and anyone the government deems too rebellious, too inconvenient, or too visible.
Among them was antifascist prisoner Eric King, targeted for his politics, brutally tortured by the Bureau of Prisons, and ultimately entombed at ADX after beating a politically motivated federal prosecution. A Clean Hell tells the story of Eric’s decade behind bars: the years of surveillance and retaliation, the years locked in solitary confinement, the reality of being known as a “race traitor,” and the daily acts of resistance that kept him—and others—alive.
More than just a firsthand survival story and exposé, this is a blistering indictment of the carceral state and the sanitized violence it tries to hide. A Clean Hell is a crucial document of solidarity and struggle inside the belly of the beast and required reading for anyone concerned with mass incarceration, political repression, or the inhumane architecture of the US prison system.

Seattle Anarchist Book Fair
2025-10-18 11:00 - 2025-10-19 17:00 | The VERA Project, 305 Harrison St., Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Anarchy! Books! Zines! Mark Your Calendars For The 2025 Seattle Anarchist Bookfair!
October 18th & 19th, 11am – 5pm
The VERA Project, at the corner of Warren and Republican.
The Seattle Anarchist Bookfair bursts back into the scene, brimming with brilliance and boundless possibilities!
After two amazing years of post-COVID bookfairs, we are excited to welcome you back to the VERA this fall for a weekend of workshops, encounters, arguments, meet-cutes, dialogues, diatribes, books and literature including anarchist theory, historical heresies, activist anthologies, and fictional fables. We hope to gather the anarchist publishers and zinesters you know and love as well as new emerging distros and projects from the PNW and beyond.
Whether you’re a seasoned subversive or a budding beacon of rebellion, this book bonanza beckons to all: the Seattle Anarchist Book Fair is an opportunity for old friends to come together, for new connections be made, and for those new to anarchy to have an opportunity to engage with the many and varied perspectives of what is called the Beautiful Idea. Discover new perspectives, defy dogma, and fuel your fiery fervor for freedom. Entry is always free. Childcare provided while you peruse.
If you are interested in volunteering your time or resources for the event, reach out to us at seattlebookfair at riseup dot net. More info as the event draws closer. See you there!
https://seattleanarchistbookfair.noblogs.org/
