Currently I’m reading Nina Burton’s ‘Livets tunna väggar’ which translate to something like Walls of Life. It’s a book by a Swedish writer who inherits her mother’s summer house. When she wants to renovate it, she finds all sort of life around and in the house. She uses said life to teach you something about the intellect of various insects and animals, which goes deeper than humans normally think.
It’s a very interesting book that makes me think about non-human life even more. Creatures that are thousands of times smaller than we are have such complex societal structures. Humans have overcommodified animal life for centuries now, seeing them as property and commodities instead of complex and intelligent life forms.
What are you reading?
very slowly reading Losurdo’s “Stalin”
Damn bro… So many ppl are reading several books at once apparently. I don’t think my brain could manage so much information at once honestly o.O
I’m reading “Blackshirts and Reds” by Parenti. Am on page 119 rn, and I gotta say I still enjoy Parenti’s simpler style of writing as opposed to Marx’. Also I was surprised how Parenti went into detail abt czechoslovakia even. Specifically abt Vaclav Havél’s privatization campaign. Never thought he’d go that direction. I feel like I learned a LOT through this book and I’ll keep recommending it to everyone who hasn’t read it. I think anyone can profit from reading this.
After I’m done with this book, I thought I might pick up Mao’s “On Practice”? I read “Dialectical and Historical Materialism” by Stalin and “How to be a Good Communist” by Liu Shaoqi, so I hope that book might additionally help me understand philosophy more.
If you haven’t yet, read Lenin after this. He’s much more easier to read compared to Marx.
Oh, true. I only read Lenin’s “Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism” as of yet. Do you have any specific book recommendations from him?
State and Revolution is essential for understanding the state and why Anarchists and Socdems are wrong. Imperialism is a good foundation for understanding today’s globalized capitalism. I gotta read Left Wing Communism sometime. I gotta go back and read his writing on dialectics, but I’ve covered my bases with other dialectics works (on contradiction is a total banger). What Is to Be Done is kind of overrated and very specific to Russia’s conditions at the time, though it may be useful to a well read strategist. That’s all I know about Lenin’s works.
So many ppl are reading several books at once apparently. I don’t think my brain could manage so much information at once honestly o.O
I hardly have the attention span to only read one or two. I’m usually reading more. I like to have a break between different chapters of a book in reading something else. It helps me hold the information from each passage rather than blending a whole book together in my mind. It (most of the time) prevents me from getting bored in the middle of books.
If you are gonna do Mao, I’d say grab Five Essays. It’s got On Contradiction and On Practice both, which are always recommended for good reason, but it also has a few other really good works by him.
I’m trying to find it as an epud to add to my collection but I listened to the audiobook version which is on Spotify.
I’m trying to find it as an epud
Hmm… I’ll add it to my list. (assuming you mean epub?)
On practice isn’t really a communist theory book, it’s more like a book about management.
Nonetheless it’s still a good read.
Management? The essay is about the basic worldview of materialism and where knowledge comes from.
I guess you can look at it that way, but this is the kind of stuff you do in management as well.
Currently reading Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media by Parenti :). A great book, but also somewhat depressing. Even though it’s quite old, it definitely still holds up. It kind of seems like nothing has changed.
Have I got a takedown for you: The Mainstream and the Margins: Noam Chomsky vs. Michael Parenti
Edit: Lorenzo’s a funny guy, if you can still find his work, some of which requires elbow grease & the Wayback Machine.
Example: 5 people who deserve as much shit as Banksy for their half-baked politics
Parenti gang, just picked up The Assassination of Julius Caesar
“The East is Still Red”
