Local Matters: A Defence of Dooney's Cafe and Other Non-Globalized Places, People, and Ideas

Literary Nonfiction. Political writing. In his first book of essays since 1991's Unusual Circumstances, Interesting Times, Brian Fawcett expands on the world as he knows it and as he would like it to be, and he's as apt to flay liberals in wooly sweaters as he is tycoons who lavish free computers on libraries. In his own words: "The essays are responses to a world that's losing its particularity." Despair is not, however, an option. "There's a lot of funny stuff in this book," Fawcett says. "I don't think we need to face globalization with a sad face. What the book is filled with is a bunch of near-term strategies for what's good about where you are."

Brian Fawcett is a political writer with a sense of humor and a serious discomfort with conventional modes of thinking and writing. He lives in Toronto and is a founding editor of Dooneyscafe.com.