Right now I'm reading:
Bullshit Jobs (2018) by David Graeber - I loved Debt but had low expectations for this one and was reluctant to read it (I expected it would just be an extremely padded out version of the essay, which I liked). I'm enjoying it a lot more than I expected, and I'm reminded how skillful was at gently taking a reader along and path that is unambiguously radical, yet each individual step on the path seems casual and reasonable.
Western Marxism (2017) by Domenico Losurdo - it's good. It's Losurdo, if you've read him before this is about the same - very rigorous and orderly arguments that lead to some very powerful insights. I'm only 100 pages in so far but liking it and feel that this new English text might become a vital text once it gets read more widely
Exhalation (2019) by Ted Chiang. Science fiction short stories by one of the best to do it rn. I'm about halfway through, so far I enjoyed his first collection more (Story of Your Life and Others). I liked the first story quite a lot (The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate) but most of the rest of what I've read so has been dominated by one 100 page novella that felt kind of weak for the amount of real estate it takes up. I've heard a few of the later stories are real bangers though so maybe it will balance out.
As for what I'm excited to read next, I'm kind of spinning my wheels a bit. Might do Washington Bullets by Vijay Prishad, or maybe some Strugatsky Brothers. Open to suggestions!
Origins of the family, the state and private property by Engels. Really great read, many things make a lot more sense when analyzed dialectically.
TankieTube has this in audiobook format tucked away in the Friedrich Engels Box Set, it includes:
Revolution and Counter-Revolution
Manifesto of the Communist Party
The Origin of the Family
Private Property and the State
Engels' Speech at the Grave of Karl Marx
I should chapterise these or split them but that's a job for future me.
I really would love to read an updated version of this book. So much of the book is ultimately a summary of the state of the art of 19th century anthropology, but I'm not really educated enough to know how much of this theory holds water.
But that last chapter was such a banger lol. I highlighted so much I might as well have photocopied the pages onto neon paper.
Exactly my thoughts, there was an interesting note in the marxists.org version in the first chapter but you could really write a whole new book to adjust it to modern data. It's impressive how much Engels can make from sources written by white colonizing racists.
Updated version that explores what post-patriarchal, post-capitlaost coupling and group marriage/other arrangement relationships would be really interesting. Gimme Engels waxing poetic about polycules.
This is sort of my hidden gem rec since I don't see it suggested as much as others.