Nerve 24 - Round-up of Recommended Reads

Round-up of Recommended Reads

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!"

James Oppenheim's 1911 appeal for both fair wages and dignified conditions unfortunately has renewed relevance in these days of workfare, bedroom taxes and benefits cuts, and we need all the spaces we can possibly carve out to echo his cry. One little-known, small but perfectly formed space is the Alliance of Radical Booksellers which in 2011 initiated the Bread and Roses Prize for Radical Publishing. This year our Maria was one of the shortlisters whittling down over fifty submitted books to the final seven. From Chile to Afghanistan, from the vilification of travellers to the abjection of whole communities, via police corruption, economic myths and not least the existence of alternatives to global warming & financial meltdown, this year's shortlist provides the ammunition of information, analysis and passion to help us refute the assertion that "there is no alternative". Undercover: the True Story of Britain's Secret Police by Rob Evans & Paul Lewis (Guardian Faber £8.99) is a gripping, breathtaking exposé of forty years of state espionage which used deception and intrusion to ruin people's, and particularly women's, lives. No Place to Call Home: Inside the Real Lives of Gypsies & Travellers by Katharine Quarmby (Oneworld £12.99) tells the shocking story of the fight for a home and eventual Dale Farm eviction, through the eyes of the families. Joe Glenton's autobiographical Soldier Box: Why I Won't Return to the War on Terror (Verso £12.99) is a powerfully written account of his stand against the military establishment by going AWOL from the unjust occupation of Afghanistan. Three books cover the neoliberal project from differing viewpoints: Oscar Guardiola-Rivera's Story of a Death Foretold: The Coup Against Salvador Allende, 11 September 1973 (Bloomsbury HB £20) shows how the US-backed coup in Chile was crucial in the establishing of neoliberalism worldwide; Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain (Zed £16.99) asserts how different groups e.g. asylum seekers are "made abject", their very existence effectively rendered illegal and in turn are at the cutting edge of resistance; while Barry and Saville Kushner's Who Needs the Cuts: Myths of the Economic Crisis (Hesperus £7.99) gives us the facts we need to counter the current austerity agenda. Lastly, in Cancel the Apocalypse: the New Path to Prosperity (Abacus £10.99) Andrew Simms offers us an optimistic vision packed full of alternative economic and political models, proving that we not only have the way, or rather multiple ways, all we need is the will.

In reflecting the amazing breadth and depth of radical publishing in the UK, we radical booksellers are proud to promote such excellent writing to challenge the neoliberalist agenda and urge us on in our quest for freedom and justice. They're also bloody good reads.

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