Reading with Comrades discussion

I'm going for 30 books this year which I know will be kinda tough for me but we shall see!

Capital Vol. 1-3, Wage Labor and Capital, "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, Reform or Revolution, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

That's my first batch of Theory. Next will be Thomas Sankara, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao Tse-tung.

My biggest goal this year is to get and finish Black Marxism. I’m currently reading “From Marx to Gramsci”, “An Indigenous History of the US”, “The History of White People”, “Prisons are Obsolete”, and hopping back and forth between a few other books. I’d also like to read “Discourses on Colonialism”, “Wretched of the Earth”, “Black Skins, White Masks”, “Blood in My Eye”, some Audre Lorde, and in general more on abolition, climate, fascism, and trying to think through limits of ML (would love any book recs on Russian Rev and Stalinism that engages in good faith without getting into tankie territory). Excited for this group!

Finishing “The Purpose of Power” by Alicia Garza
Finishing second reading of “Black Reconstruction in America” by WEB Dubois
Restarting and finishing “The Populist Moment” by Lawrence Goodwyn
Finishing “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement” by Barbara Ransby

Finishing Zinn's 'The People's History of the US' and then delving into other socialist history books. I'm aiming for 50 books this year so some of mine will have to be a bit shorter/less dense or just quicker reads in general.

What kinds of fiction do y’all read, if any? I love sci-fi, thrillers, and magical realism but I find myself hesitant to pick up a lot of books bc I don’t really wanna read lib shit™ ya know?

My goals for this year are (a) to read more Marxist theory, (b) to read more about the history of the Communist Party of Great Britain, especially its early years, and (c) to read more about the Radical Rising and general strike in Scotland in 1820.

Like lindsi, I love sci-fi and that will probably make up the bulk of the fiction I read this year.

lindsi wrote: "What kinds of fiction do y’all read, if any? I love sci-fi, thrillers, and magical realism but I find myself hesitant to pick up a lot of books bc I don’t really wanna read lib shit™ ya know?"

Hey! I found this list that seems like a pretty good starting point for socialist leaning sci-fi: https://portside.org/2017-11-18/50-sc...

Evan wrote: "lindsi wrote: "What kinds of fiction do y’all read, if any? I love sci-fi, thrillers, and magical realism but I find myself hesitant to pick up a lot of books bc I don’t really wanna read lib shit™..."

Thanks Evan, I appreciate that. I really like China Mieville's list (as well as his books). I've read a number of them, but have just bought a couple from the list which I've never previously heard of. And this year I really need to read his "October".

Lindsi,

How about the group setting ourselves some group reads - maybe a non-fiction month, followed by a fiction month? You could perhaps ask for nominations each month and then put those to a vote (or you just pick one!)

i love that! would you mind starting a post on that topic?
sorry i need to tune out for a few days. obviously a difficult time for the asian american community rn and i’m taking space to process and grieve.

I’m currently reading trade wars are class wars right now. Although, my plan was to continue with reading more contemporary work like Mazzucato, Chanel, Kelton, etc.. especially the latter as I’m very suspicious of MMT as a coherent analysis of how money creation works (i feel MMT is only specific for global reserve issuer), trade wars are class wars made me very interested in financial flows and balance of payments (so back to minsky, schumpeter, keynes, marx and some contemporary analysis of the evolution). I started to think that any socialist movement must tackle the global money system first, or it is bound to fail with how capital moves today. Therefore, i recommend the book to everyone (it offers mainly a keynesian analysis but the observation can be interpreted from a socialist/marxist perspective). I’m almost finishing it and I will write a review for the interested.

Hi Everyone,

We're hoping to have a group "radical read" every month, alternating between fiction and non-fiction, starting with a fiction work in April. These dates might be a bit tight, but if anyone who'd like to participate could post their suggested book on this thread by Monday 22nd March, we'll set up a quick poll so that we can all vote by Friday 26th March, and aim to start our chosen book by the beginning of April. Since access to Libraries or bookshops may be difficult for many of us at the moment, it might be worth considering books that are available on e-readers and are inexpensive. (However, that's just a suggestion - nominate whatever you want.)
For May we'll go for non-fiction, and to give us time to think about our choices - we'll be looking for your nominations by mid-April.
Just let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Finally, fraternal greetings to Lindsi and all Asian American comrades at this difficult time.

Now that our April fiction group read is underway, we should perhaps start thinking about our non-fiction group read for May.

A "Reading with Comrades" challenge that starts on May Day should inspire us to come up with some interesting nominations! If you've got a book that you've been planning to read for some time - nominate it; it may inspire or intrigue more of us. There have already been some great suggestions on this thread - some of those could make worthy nominations.

So....same process as the fiction reads; submit your nominations between now and Friday 9th April We'll then run a poll for a few days and the book with the most votes becomes our May read.