Book Club WG

The Origin of the Family: Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels

Engels compares modes of social and economic organizations across several cultures and time periods to draw a conclusive link between the modern conception of the monogamous nuclear family and capitalist property relations. 

What is Social Ecology? by Murray Bookchin

An essay from Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology that explores how ecological problems arise from deep-seated social problems. Murray Bookchin has long been a major figure in anarchist and utopian political theory, theory of technology, urbanism, and the philosophy of nature.

Here is a Rent Strike by Rane Stark-Buhl

From 1918 to 1920 buildings full of New York tenants went on rent strike, forming a diverse, cross-city tenant movement. This essay takes a look at the conditions that made this possible.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm

Offering a counter-history of how mass popular change has occurred, Malm argues that the strategic acceptance of property destruction and violence has been the only route for revolutionary change.

The Free People’s Village by Sim Kern

In an alternate 2020, Al Gore’s victory in the 2000 election leads to a War on Climate Change. Maddie Ryan, a white English teacher in Houston, joins a Black-led movement fighting to save their neighborhood. When police violence erupts, Maddie becomes involved in “The Free People’s Village,” a movement for anti-capitalist revolution, and Maddie must decide if she’s willing to risk everything for justice.

Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) by Dean Spade

Writing for those new to activism as well as those who have been in social movements for a long time, Dean Spade draws on years of organizing to offer a radical vision of community mobilization, social transformation, compassionate activism, and solidarity.

Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

A meditation for social movements and our whole species based on the subversive and transformative guidance of marine mammals. Our aquatic cousins are queer, fierce, protective of each other, complex, shaped by conflict, and struggling to survive the extractive and militarized conditions our species has imposed on the ocean.

Where the Bird Disappeared by Ghassan Zaqtan

Set in the surroundings of the Palestinian village of Zakariyya, this novel tells the story of the relationship between two figures of deep mythical resonance in the region, Yahya and Zakariyya, figures who live in the present but bear the names—and many traits—of two saints.

Note: The Metropolitan Library System does not own this title, but library card holders can request it via Interlibrary Loan.

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life. But when Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother’s paintings and a drop of Jam’s blood, she must reconsider what she’s been told.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

In a near-future dystopia plagued by societal collapse, Lauren Olamina, a young woman with hyper-empathy, escapes her walled community and seeks to build a new society based on her belief system, Earthseed, which emphasizes adaptation and change.