Which books would you take to the ends of the world with you?
A founder of the feminist publisher Virago Press, Ursula Owen, names her most beloved books.
From her children’s photo albums to alternative economic and political systems, Salma Yaqoob picks her favorites.
Heartfelt pleas for mistreated people to the the first literary denunciations of racism, feature on radical lawyer Louise Christian’s reading list
Red Pepper’s new co-editor James O’Nions picks his favourite books
Billy Hayes says music matters, revolution starts in the head and all you need is love
Musician Aki Nawaz on god delusions, the Qur’an and fighting the National Front
Map obsessive Roger Lloyd Pack reckons he could ’probably walk away with the Mastermind prize with Tintin as my subject’
Jill Robinson picks wild swans, joy and animal emotion
Tracy Quan mixes love, lust and Biblical studies
Newsnight’s Paul Mason on red virgins, vines and wrath
Jo Brand finds room for her mum among the Dickens
Peter Tatchell plumps for some Wilde with his de Beauvoir
Comedian Mark Thomas mixes Rushdie and Brecht with the Bible
Fur coat and no knickers
Well, perhaps a fake fur coat but you get the idea. Red Pepper is hanging by a thread financially and we desperately need money to reach a wider readership. If we can do this we know we can flourish and become the success story the independent, non-sectarian left so badly needs. But we can’t do it without you.
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Slavoj Žižek
Clare Woodford reviews Violence by Slavoj Žižek (London, Profile Books 2009)
‘The exemplary figures of evil today are not ordinary consumers who pollute the environment and live in a violent world of disintegrating social links, but those who, while fully engaged in creating conditions for such universal devastation and pollution, buy their way out of their own activity, living in gated communities, eating organic food, taking holidays in wildlife preserves, and so on’ [23].
Whilst such controversial statements may be the reason why many people have slated Žižek’s little book on a big topic ...
What’s Going On?
Now in his forties, and questioning the meaning of life, relationships and socialist politics, Mark Steel subtitles his latest book ‘the meanderings of a comic mind in confusion’. In these two extracts, he writes about teenagers and protest
Is the future Conservative?
The New Conservatives pose a significant challenge not only to a demoralised Labour Party but to the wider progressive movement as a whole. Edited by Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford, this free e-book offers a serious critical engagement with the ideas behind the resurgent Tory Party.
In this extract from his book, The Credit Crunch: Housing Bubbles, Globalisation and the Worldwide Economic Crisis, economist Graham Turner argues that in the current financial turmoil, the omens are not encouraging for remedying the inherent flaws that will tip us into debt deflation
Thanks But No Thanks
In this extract from her book, Thanks But No Thanks : The Voter’s Guide to Sarah Palin, Sue Katz examines the critical response from Alaskan women to the woman being touted as the next Republican presidential candidate
George Bush’s joint
In this extract from her new book, Commie Girl in the OC, Rebecca Schoenkopf, the ‘queen bee/black widow of alternative journalism’, goes inside the federal propaganda machine against marijuana
Waiting for the barbarians
The so-called ‘war on terror’ has created a global bonanza for commercial military suppliers, writes Red Pepper correspondent Solomon Hughes in this exclusive extract from his new book War on Terror, Inc
Anti-semitism and the Israel lobby
In this extract from his book, If I Am Not for Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew, Mike Marqusee says that no one should be deterred from criticising the Israel lobby by charges of anti-semitism
Reviews
Skipping Steps
Ben Trott reviews The Coming Insurrection.
Picturing energy
Kevin Blowe reviews Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration.
Spirits of rebellion
Steve Platt reviews Voices Against War: A Century of Protest and The English Rebel.
Distotred Voices
Amanda Sebestyn reviews a new book by Hester Eisenstein regarding some current struggles issues for feminism.
A brick of a book
Bertie Russell and Andre Pussy review Commonwealth by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.
An alien gaze
Herta Müller’s work casts experiences of oppressive authoritarian regimes in strikingly poetic language, writes Lyn Marven
Objective fiction
Nathaniel Mehr reviews Newspeak in the 21st Century by David Edwards and David Cromwell (Pluto Press, 2009)
Cartoon history
Red Pepper cartoonist Tim Sanders reviews Speechless: World History Without Words by Polyp (New Internationalist and Friends of the Earth International, 2009)
Casement’s quest
The Devil and Mr Casement: One Man’s Struggle for Human Rights in South America’s Heart of Darkness by Jordan Goodman (Verso, 2009). Andy Higginbottom reviews
Comprehensive health check
Dr Wendy Savage reviews Socialist Register 2010: Morbid Symptoms – Health under Capitalism
Nuclear exposure
Lesley Doyal reviews Under the Radar: Cancer and the Cold War by Ellen Leopold (Rutgers University Press, 2009)
The critical struggle of our time
Maddy Power reviews People First Economics by David Ransom and Vanessa Baird (eds) New Internationalist, 2009
Being Tamsin
Kevin Blowe reviews Rush! The Making of a Climate Activist
The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World
Nick Dearden review’s Vijay Prashad’s The Darker Nations
An ecological manifesto
Reclaiming Marx and Engels for environmentalism, John Bellamy Foster sees capitalism as the ultimate cause of climate change – and an ecological revolution as essential to any solution. Derek Wall reviews his ecological manifesto
Enlightened fundamentalism
Liberal and conservative Europe alike are guilty of a new ‘xeno-racism’ against Muslims, according to veteran anti-racism campaigner Liz Fekete. Review by Matt Carr
Inspirational history, practical handbook
Laurie Penny reviews Ireland’s Hidden Diaspora, Ann Rossiter’s new book about the struggle of these women
Grievable and ungrievable lives
Nathaniel Mehr reviews Judith Butler’s Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?
The message is not the medium
Radical poetry just sloganises, argues BRIGG57. Good poetry is about much more than its politics
A tale of three Michaels
Until his murder conviction and hanging in Trinidad in 1975, Michael X was one of the best-known figures of 1960s radicalism. Michael Horovitz reviews a new account of the life of this self-styled black Muslim revolutionary
Hope in the face of an impossible peace
Mark LeVine’s new book Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine since 1989 is essential reading for anyone seeking a new way forward for peace in the Middle East, says Clare Woodford
American interest
John Mersheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy offers a brilliant account of US economic and military support to Israel, writes Richard Kuper. Its flaws lie not in an alleged anti-semitism, but in overstating the influence of the lobby over a US administration that is out of step on a broad range of foreign policy issues
Comrade or brother?
A timely overview of two centuries of British labour history carries hope for the future as well as insights on the past, writes Nathaniel Mehr
The patron saint of sandal-wearers Matthew Beaumont welcomes Sheila Rowbotham’s biography of Edward Carpenter and reflects on the political counter-culture that emerged at the end of the 19th century as the economy plunged into depression
Out of the shadows The reader feels the injustice of Gerda Taro’s exclusion from history, says Jess Vyvyan-Robinson in her review of Francois Maspero’s biography. Taro is all but forgotten, only mentioned in conjunction with Robert Capa
Grist to the radical Mill
Is it worth reading or rereading John Stuart Mill? Anthony Arblaster explains his importance for socialists and radical liberals in this discussion of a recent political biography
This is what you do
This piece began as a review of Eyal Weizman’s book Hollow Land, commissioned – but then not published – by the Jewish Quarterly, the leading Anglo-Jewish review of new writing and ideas, writes Michael Kustow
Planetary mythology
Soundbite science and self-help manuals would have you believe that men and women can’t communicate. Deborah Cameron’s new book shows that the real issues are to do with power, writes Romy Clark
You’re booked
Sports books fill the bestseller lists every Christmas. Anne Coddington and Mark Perryman examine the rise and rise of the new sports writing
Racism today
Hostility towards migrants is on the increase. David Renton reviews a new book by Arun Kundani that puts contemporary racism in perspective
Terra Nullius: A Journey Through No One’s Land
Ever felt like you couldn’t finish a book, not because it was badly written or researched, but because it made you squirm with shame about your ignorance and complicity? Readers of two of Swedish writer Sven Lindqvist’s recent books, Exterminate All the Brutes and A History of Bombing, will know the feeling
Alternate realities
China Mieville has turned the traditionally reactionary world of adult heroic fantasy upside down. Can he do the same trick with the increasingly popular (and sometimes equally hidebound) world of children’s fiction?
God is Not Great
Matthew Gray reviews Christopher Hitchens’ audiobook version of God is Not Great
Poetry and Politics
Something worth fighting for
A poem by Carol Ann Duffy has been removed by a school exam board. Michael Rosen thinks poets may have a battle on their hands
A cultural revolution
Poet and writer Andy Croft talks to Neil Astley, the founder and editor of Britain’s most important poetry publisher, Bloodaxe Books, about putting the politics into poetry
Carrying on from the Chartists
Can poetry provide a means for change? Dave Toomer, Christina McAlpine and John G Hall, the editors of Citizen 32 magazine, explain the importance of combining poetry and activism
Interviews and news
Everyone does everything
James O’Nions meets two members of the Italian novel-writing collective Wu Ming as they publish Manituana, their ‘story from the wrong side of history’
Equality of life
While it is commonplace for the left to argue that greater equality is desirable, it is less common to see a huge evidence base used to make the case. Matt Sellwood spoke to Richard Wilkinson, who has done just that in his book The Spirit Level
Commie Girl in the OC
Laurie Penny interviews Rebecca Schoenkopf about politics, life, feminism and getting ‘finger-fucked’ by Hillary Clinton
Selfish capitalism is making us ill
Mat Little interviews psychologist and writer Oliver James about his book, The Selfish Capitalist
Disturbing family order
Laurie Penny interviews the Turkish feminist and author Meltem Arikan
After shock
From Poland to Iraq and from China to New Orleans, neoliberalism has risen on the back of what Naomi Klein calls ‘disaster capitalism’. She spoke to Oscar Reyes about her book, The Shock Doctrine, and new forms of resistance
Reclaiming our past
Newsnight correspondent Paul Mason’s Live Working or Die Fighting sets the experience of modern factory workers in the global South alongside some of the classic narratives of labour history. He spoke to Hilary Wainwright about the insights he gained in examining a neglected part of our heritage
Murder in Samarkand
In 2002, while political attention was focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, a troubled British diplomat was exposing the UK’s casual attitude to human rights abuses in Uzbekistan. Marcus Williams talks to Craig Murray about trying to tell the truth about torture and being branded mad by the Foreign Office
Adrian Mitchell
Red Pepper’s Shadow Poet Laureate
October 1932 - December 2008
Shadow on the sun
Red Pepper looks back at the life of Adrian Mitchell, our shadow poet laureate
On Adrian Mitchell’s Answerphone
by Keith Armstrong
Steve Platt on Adrian Mitchell
‘Adrian’s pages – like the man himself – sparkled with enthusiasm, commitment and verve’
You should visit Faslane
‘Long live the earth, deeper than all our thinking’
Thank you, Adrian
Harold Pinter
Playwright, poet, actor, director and Red Pepper advisor
October 1930 - December 2008
In words and silences
Hilary Wainwright reflects on Harold Pinter and Red Pepper
Thank you, Harold
A short note about Harold Pinter
Pinter moments
Michael Kustow remembers three moments with Harold Pinter
Pinter on war
Four poems about war ...
The war against reason
There’s an old story about Oliver Cromwell ...
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