I've been out of the habit of reading for the better part of a decade now, I usually read like 1-2 books a year.
I'm looking to ramp it up. What I've enjoyed lately was parable of the sower/talents and dawn + the sequels by Octavia Butler.
Additionally I'm like super theory illiterate and history as well.
Looking for:
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Theory/commentary (including newer stuff)
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sci fi
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history
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collapse/eco/survival stuff
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mutual aid & organizing
Any recs? Or links to lists of recs? Also open to things outside of what I listed
Dawn of Everything is really cool! I am just 100 pages in though
Not even sure where to start theory wise, I just feel mostly uninformed. I've read a couple of the Lenin essays that are suggested on here and some Mao stuff before but felt a little out of my depth tbh
Culture series is super good, I have read them all but I'm due for a reread
The Trueanon subreddit has a very long reading list that they put together awhile ago in their wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAnon/wiki/index/books/ . You will probably find something interesting in there.
Currently reading Marx's 'Das Kapital' For Beginners by Michael Wayne which has been pretty approachable. I second the rec for Blackshirts and Reds. Parenti has a smooth style. The Jakarta Method is a must read.
o yeah just got the Jakarta method, I need to pick blackshirts and red up, I have it but haven't cracked it open
The two of them together pretty much completely reframes the western narrative around the cold war. Well worth the read.
You can go to c/Marxism and browse through the suggested bookstores for book titles that sound interesting
Becky Chambers' sci fi books were sort of filling the Ursula K. LeGuin shaped hole in my heart last year
on the collapse front, I just finished Dark Age America by John Michael Greer and found a lot in there useful to think about
Theory: As We Have Always Done
Indigenous anti capitalist feminism drawing heavily on Fanon. Good overview of what we're up against and some ways forward.
Scifi: the fifth season
Geomancer slaves end white supremacy with notes from butler and le guine
Organizing: Labor Notes' Secrets of a Successful Organizer
Step by step guide to organizing your workplace
comedy/sci-fi:
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Antkind by Charlie Kaufman
John Dies at the End by David WongFanon's Wretched of the Earth, Lenin's Works vol 22, Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World, The essential Epicurus letters, Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, Hudson's Super Imperialism, Mao's On Contradiction, and On correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, Foster's Marx's Ecology.
Only if you have a ton of time and end up really liking what you read, its usually in 3 volumes, at least for the English translations. Get the Selections version that you usually see when you type that phrase in to find it whether it be your-favorite-bookstore.com or Anna's Archive it should be the first result. All those books should be easy to find there. :party-parrot-science:
Sci Fi:
Ubik (by Philip k dick, my favorite of his)
NecromancerNeuromancer (the original 'cyberpunk' book, but written by a guy who hated cyberpunk)Edit: should have been "Neuromancer"
If we are going by readability and re-readability! My absolute number 1 pick- I have literally read this book more times than probably any other book, and I'm certain that every re-read brought me immense joy and new insights: this isn't just a book...its a friend for life.
full disclosure, yes, I own shares in the 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'
I really enjoyed Blood of Spain, it's an oral history of the Spanish civil war. It's basically as light to read as a novel, but you get the feeling of learning actually important stuff as well.
Again recommending Peter Watts. His Rifters trilogy is good as are Blindsight and Echopraxia. Bleak stuff but crammed with interesting ideas. And all available for free on his website as a fuck you to a publisher that screwed him over
Austerity Ecology and the Collapse Porn Addicts is one of my favs. An exceptional book on ecology, very pro-humanist and actually makes me feel a bit better about the future. The author Leigh Phillips is very well read and it's meticulously researched.
He and another guy also wrote a book on economic planning called The People's Republic of Wal-Mart which is also great (minus the one chapter which slags off Stalin, depending on your views on the subject of course, nevertheless worth reading for sure)
