Books & music

book cover and sample page

Combining the distilled wisdom of socialist writer Jeff Sparrow and the graphic ingenuity of comic artist Sam Wallman, 12 Rules for Strife is a handbook for changing everything, writes Andrew Chuter.

Protest albums from April 2024

Mat Ward looks back at April's political news and the best new protest music that related to it.

Ecosocialist Bookshelf

Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus presents seven important new books on slavery, capitalism, rebellion and ecological revolution.

book cover with background of First Nations protest

AFL legend Nicky Winmar, in collaboration with St Kilda supporter Mathew Hardy, author of the 2004 memoir Saturday Afternoon Fever, describes the racism that Indigenous and other non-white people face both on and off the field in his autobiography My story: From bush kid to AFL legend. Alex Salmon reviews.

book cover, loaf of processed bread

Coral Wynter reviews Ultra-Processed People, by Chris van Tulleken, which looks at the industrialised chemicals and processed components that make up the ultra-processed food we buy in supermarkets.

book cover, historical protest

Alex Salmon reviews Janey Stone and Donny Gluckstein’s new book, The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, resistance and firebrands, which uncovers the hidden history of Jewish radicalism and solidarity between Jewish and non-Jewish communities.

Book covers

Four years on from the outbreak of COVID-19, Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus introduces new reads for reds and greens, including four important new books on capitalism and the pandemic.

DJ deck with dove of peace

With the escalating conflict in Gaza, the disproportionate violence and ongoing occupation of Palestine, a group of DJs, and performers in Sydney started talking about ways they could demonstrate their solidarity with people feeling the pain of war, reports Kerry Smith.

book cover

John Tully reviews Boris Frankel's memoir, which recounts his family's eye-opening experience emigrating from Australia to the Soviet Union in 1956.

two book covers

February 24 marks the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ever since the war began it has generated debate on the left, which is why these two new works reflecting on the conflict are essential reading, writes Federico Fuentes.

book cover, man's face

Derek Wall reviews Hall Greenland’s biography of Michel Pablo, an Egyptian-born Greek revolutionary leader.

book cover, refugees fleeing in 1948

Lenni Brenner's edited volume, 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration With the Nazis is important reading today in the context of the United States-backed Israeli genocidal war in Gaza, writes Barry Sheppard.