Caitlin’s Pick

Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, by Tricia Hersey

An absolutely captivating read. Tricia Hersey inspires us to reclaim our bodies and minds, and harness the power of rest as a spiritual practice of dissent in the face of capitalism and white supremacy.

Danny’s Pick

Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton

This was a masterfully crafted and paced thriller, that deftly grapples with some of the key issues of our current conjuncture, including resource colonialism and prefigurative politics. The depiction of how capital co-opts, captures, and ultimately controls grassroots organizing was particularly incisive. On a personal note, I loved the little hat-tips the author made towards cultural attitudes in Aotearoa/New Zealand, which I think might have been missed by readers from outside the Antipodes.

Meg’s Pick

One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder, by Brian Doyle

Brian Doyle gives language to the deep, intangible parts of ourselves in this posthumous collection of essays. His writing manages to be both tender and sharp and his observations about the world changed my way of seeing. This is one I have returned to often and will likely be the book I gift more than any other. 

Nick’s Pick

Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital, by Søren Mau 

Mute Compulsion is an in-depth study about how “impersonal” forms of power in our society subject life to the profit imperative. In contrast to direct violence and coercion, the imperatives that compel us to sell our labor for wages in order to avoid homelessness and/or starvation are largely invisibilized and operate as the background conditions of human existence. In essence, we are subject to a human created environment that “naturalizes” everyday forms of domination and conditions access to the means of living.