Fathered by a man who "probably would have voted for Reagan," Arthur Naiman was raised in the suburbs of 1950s Chicago hearing many a story "about how the Russians were brainwashing people."
Some 40 years later, Naiman, who has become a well-known figure to the nearly 1 million readers of The Macintosh Bible, now finds himself on the other side of such political rhetoric. In what has become the realization of a 25-year dream, Naiman is now publishing concisely written and visually pleasing political tracts under the series title Real Stories. The series showcases respected, left-leaning authors such as Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky.
In the process of making his dream a reality, Naiman wrote 13 books, most of them computer titles save one that was a humorous dictionary of Jewish slang. The Macintosh Bible was the key source of both the cash and experience he needed to finally evolve Odonian Press - the Berkeley, Calif., company that publishes Real Stories.
Naiman's vision was to make Real Stories accessible: short, distilled, interesting prose for readers who didn't want to wade through "300 pages of little type, narrow margins, and no paragraphs."
Judging by public demand, Naiman has hit a nerve. Of Odonian's first four titles - Who Killed JFK? by Carl Oglesby, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire by Gore Vidal, What Uncle Sam Really Wants by Noam Chomsky, and Burma: The Next Killing Fields? by Alan Clements (all of them published in 1992) - both Vidal and Chomsky's editions have already enjoyed a second printing. Naiman anticipates titles on the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King to be next on Odonian's book list.
Naiman's journey from computer book writer and editor to independent publisher (with a stop to do a few years in advertising) has been one of unclouded focus. He asserts that his mission is to "publish the truth...[since] so many people around the world are being brutalized." And for a man whose personal heroes include Malcolm X, it is no wonder Naiman seeks pointed words for potent ideas. Aside from what he cites as the more bothersome details of publishing, Naiman affirms that he is doing what he loves, and looks forward to the day when he will be writing Real Stories, as well as publishing them.
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