Hi! I’m looking for some good book recommendations! I’m looking for something like Beautiful World, Where are You by Sally Rooney. It’s about 4 friends and they all date each other at different times. However, she injects a bit of political theory in to the story, about how conservative isn’t sustainable because nothing can be conserved. It was a really good part of the book, I though. Any books where they inject political theory like that? Also, political fiction is welcome. I enjoyed reading these books:
It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis Plot Against America by Philip Roth 1984 by George Orwell Brave New World by Aldous Huxley It Happened Here by Richard Dresser
Thank you!
Obligatory Dungeon Crawler Carl recommendation.
Highlights how cheap life is to those with power and influence and how we little people have no choice but to go along with it.
Also has a snarky ass cat.
I haven’t read her myself yet, but Ursula K Le Guin is of note. Lathe of Heaven, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and The Word for World is Forest are worth looking at.
Terry Pratchetts work is very good. Lots of humour and light parody of fantasy tropes, and some occasional commentary. You could probably pick almost anything from the Discworld series and find something enjoyable.
October By China Melville is an account of the Russian revolution of 1917. It’s not written as a perhaps more dry, academic account, but still decently researched and a good introduction that’s easy to read almost as if it was fiction. Apparently his science-fiction is good too, but I have no idea.
I bought Lathe of Heaven 3 weeks ago, and Le Guin seems a very socially conscious writer.
I would recommend Catch 22 or Confederacy of Dunces, as excellent satirical takes on the farcical aspects of war or 60’s US society.
I read left hand of darkness by LeGuinn this year and i’d highly recommend it
some good political stuff, i feel like i learned about myself too, it’s a scifi love story set on an alien planet where the’s only one gender
A couple of mentions so far for Ursula K. Le Guin and I’m here to echo them, and to mention my favourite book of hers that I’ve read (so far): The Dispossessed.
It tells the story of a brilliant physicist from a collectivist, anarchist society who must travel to the hierarchical, individualist, capitalist society that his ancestors split from many years prior. Great story with really interesting politics weaved throughout.
I’ll also add the Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson. A huge, sprawling narrative about the colonisation and terraforming of Mars. The development of eclogy-based politics and economics plays a big part in the story, as does the development of a new government and constitution. The “hard” science fiction of the novel seems to put some people off (at times long scientific descriptions of landscapes, physical/geological processes, etc.) but I love these books.
I just finished Normal People, which was my first Sally Rooney book. I loved it, but I wouldn’t say it had a lot of political theory, just light commentary by the characters. I take it you recommend Beautiful World?
I’m currently reading The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kae Tempest. It might be a good candidate, but I’m not far enough through to really recommend it yet.
Some that come to mind:
- Han Kang - We Do Not Part or Human Acts
- Michael Ondaatje - In the Skin of a Lion or Anil’s Ghost
- James Baldwin - Another Country
I absolutely recommend Beautiful World.
I just read the Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy. Fantasy setting with anarchist and trans themes. Great book couldn’t put it down and wish it was longer.
Thanks for reminding me of this! With having reached my limits with US politics, I’ve dropped all my podcasts for the last few months so I haven’t heard Margaret for a while now.
Margaret is great on every topic she covers, but as someone who isn’t trans, I feel she’s really helped me to have a better understanding about the internal and external pressures surrounding the subject matter. I’m sorry I still can’t really verbalize any of my feelings on it, but I’d say to anyone thinking that writing about trans people is written only for trans people, I don’t find this to be the case with any of Margaret’s work. I’ve never had the physical sensation of someone unlocking parts of my mind so frequently to things it couldn’t grasp before.
I’ve been wanting to find something to break up my power run of reading Discworld for the first time, and I think this would be a great book to do that with.
Every Sunday It Could Happen Here and Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff feeds have Margaret reading a short story, which is great and not focused on the world burning down.
You are right, I completely forgot about Book Club! Shame on me. 😮
The Wave I’d say is pretty good, nothing groundbreaking tho lol.
it’s a dramatized true story of a history teacher in the 1970’s(?) wanting to teach his ignorant students about the rise of fascism, but it goes too far, to not spoil much. to me it’s a bit of a classic tbh and gets fun at times but again nothing you’ve never seen before :) it’s pretty short anyway
There was a movie of it, btw.
oh wow I had no idea, might give it a watch. is it any good?
