Verso Beach Reads

The sun is shining, summer is here, and you know what that means - time to crack open your copy of The Political Writings of Marx.

Whether you’re dreaming of a post-work future, contemplating how to fight in a world on fire, or embracing feral girl summer, we’ve got you!

Don't forget: Verso Book Club members get 50% all book purchases year round, plus other great benefits. Sign up today and get your first month free!

See ALL our Summer Reading here.

Bring a sturdy beach bag and you’re all set!

See all our Theory reading here.

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What kind of world could we build if we fought against our work-obsessed culture and our growth-centered economy? Might it include lots of time well-spent at the beach?

See all our reading on work and labour here.

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What were the aims of the 1997 Masturbation Manifesto? Who are the forgotten-evil twinks of history? And how do we get by and have fun in a world that wants us to do neither?

See all our reading on Love in the Age of Capitalism here.

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How do we fight in a world on fire? How do we stop the beach from going underwater? And which strategies will allow us to build the ark?

See all our essential reading on the climate crisis here.

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Why do asset managers own the world? How do banks create money for the few? And how do we bring about a new era of democratic ownership?

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If you’re embracing feral girl energy, scurrying around places we’re told we have no business being, bring these books with you!

See all our Feral Girl Summer reading recommendations here.

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Critique of Everyday Life

by Henri Lefebvre

The three-volume text by Henri Lefebvre is perhaps the richest, most prescient work about modern capitalism to emerge from one of the twentieth century's greatest philosophers and is now availabl...

The Political Writings

by Karl Marx

Karl Marx was not only the great theorist of capitalism, he was also a superb journalist, politician and historian. For the first time ever, this book brings together all of his essential political...

The Authoritarian Personality

by Theodor Adorno

What makes a fascist? Are there character traits that make someone more likely to vote for the far right? The Authoritarian Personality, written in the shadow of Fascism and the Holocaust, looked t...

The New Spirit of Capitalism

by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello

Translated by Gregory Elliott

In this major work, sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello go to the heart of the changes in contemporary capitalism. Via an unprecedented analysis of the latest management texts that have fo...

A Companion to Marx's Grundrisse

by David Harvey

When leading scholar of Marx, Roman Rosdolsky, first encountered the virtually unknown text of Marx's Grundrisse - his preparatory work for his masterpiece Das Capital - in the 1950s in New York Pu...

Mute Compulsion

by Søren Mau

Despite insoluble contradictions, intense volatility and fierce resistance, the crisis-ridden capitalism of the 21st century lingers on. To understand capital’s paradoxical expansion and entrenchme...

Troublemaking

by Lydia Hughes and Jamie Woodcock

There has been an explosion of organising among workers many assumed to be unorganisable, from delivery drivers in London to tech workers in Silicon Valley. The culmination of years of conversation...

The Future is Degrowth

by Matthias Schmelzer, Aaron Vansintjan and Andrea Vetter

Economic growth isn’t working, and it cannot be made to work. Offering a counter-history of how economic growth emerged in the context of colonialism, fossil-fueled industrialization, and capitalis...

Overtime

by Kyle Lewis and Will Stronge

Overtime is about the politics of time, and specifically the amount of time that we spend labouring within capitalist society. It argues that reactivating the longstanding demand for shorter workin...

Working Girl

by Sophia Giovannitti

Sex and art, we're told, are sacred, two spheres that ought to be kept separate from the ravages of the marketplace. Yet both prop up two incredibly lucrative industries, built on the commodificati...

How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century

by Erik Olin Wright

Capitalism has transformed the world and increased our productivity, but at the cost of enormous human suffering. Our shared values equality and fairness, democracy and freedom, community and solid...

Automation and the Future of Work

by Aaron Benanav

Silicon Valley titans, politicians, techno-futurists and social critics have united in arguing that we are living on the cusp of an era of rapid technological automation, heralding the end of work ...

They Call It Love

by Alva Gotby

They Call It Love investigates the work that makes a haven in a heartless world, examining who performs this labour, how it is organised, and how it might change. Drawing on the thought of the femi...

Deadly and Slick

by Sita Balani

If race is increasingly understood to be socially constructed, why does it continue to seem like a physiological reality? The trickery of race, Sita Balani argues, comes down to how it is embedded ...

Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again

by Katherine Angel

Women are in a bind. In the name of consent and empowerment, they must proclaim their desires clearly and confidently. Yet sex researchers suggest that women’s desire is often slow to emerge. And m...

Bad Gays

by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller

Too many popular histories seek to establish heroes, pioneers and martyrs but as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and/or dastardly deeds have ...

Burn It Down!

by Breanne Fahs

Burn It Down! is a testament to what is possible when women are driven to the edge. Collecting over seventy-five manifestos from around the world, Burn It Down! is a rallying cry and a call to acti...

The Verso Book of Feminism

Edited by Jessie Kindig

Throughout written history and across the world, women have protested the restrictions of gender and the limitations placed on women’s bodies and women’s lives. People—of any and no gender—have pro...

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

by Andreas Malm

The science on climate change has been clear for a very long time now. Yet despite decades of appeals, mass street protests, petition campaigns, and peaceful demonstrations, we are still facing a...

Fighting in a World on Fire

by Andreas Malm

Young people are inheriting a world of climate catastrophe. Young people are also one of the strongest forces leading movements for climate justice, and to halt the fossil fuel emissions that are m...

Planet on Fire

by Mathew Lawrence and Laurie Laybourn-Langton

As we rebuild our lives in the wake of Covid-19 and face the challenges of ecological disaster, how can the left win a world fit for life? Planet on Fire is an urgent manifesto for a fundamental ...

Half-Earth Socialism

by Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese

‘Building a society that operates within ecological constraints requires an unleashing of our political imaginations, and this book helps us do just that’—Astra Taylor, author of The Age of Insecur...

Who Will Build the Ark?

Edited by Benjamin Kunkel and Lola Seaton

In Who Will Build the Ark?, leading radical thinkers debate left alternatives to runaway global heating, capitalist crisis and wider environmental breakdown, clarifying the stakes in today's key di...

Climate Change as Class War

by Matthew T. Huber

The climate crisis is not primarily a problem of ‘believing science’ or individual ‘carbon footprints’ – it is a class problem rooted in who owns, controls and profits from material production. As ...

Owning the Future

by Adrienne Buller and Mathew Lawrence

The question of ownership is the critical fault line of our times. During the pandemic this issue has only become more divisive. Since March 2020 we have witnessed the extraordinary growth of asset...

Our Lives in Their Portfolios

by Brett Christophers

Banks have taken a backseat since the global financial crisis over a decade ago. Today, our new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone and BlackRock. And they don't just own financia...

The Origin of Capitalism

by Ellen Meiksins Wood

In The Origin of Capitalism, a now-classic work of history, Ellen Meiksins Wood offers readers a clear and accessible introduction to the theories and debates concerning the birth of capitalism, im...

Democratizing Finance

Edited by Fred Block and Robert Hockett

What if our financial system were organized to the benefit of the many rather than simply empowering the few? Robert Hockett and Fred Block argue that an entirely different financial system is both...

Keystroke Capitalism

by Aaron Sahr

Translated by Sharon Howe

Contemporary capitalism produces more and more money, debt, and inequality. These three trends have a common cause: the privilege of private banks to create money by means of accounting - by the st...

The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems

by Nancy Folbre

Why do patriarchal systems survive? In this groundbreaking work of feminist theory, Nancy Folbre examines the contradictory effects of capitalist development. She explains why the work of caring fo...

I Fear My Pain Interests You

by Stephanie LaCava

Margot is the child of renowned musicians and the product of a particularly punky upbringing. Burnt-out from the burden of expectation and the bad end of the worst relationship yet, she leaves New ...

Paradise Rot

by Jenny Hval

Translated by Marjam Idriss

"As intriguing and impressive a novelist as she is a musician, Hval is a master of quiet horror and wonder."Chris Kraus, author of I Love DickJo is in a strange new country for university and havi...

Abolish the Family

by Sophie Lewis

What if we could do better than the family?We need to talk about the family. For those who are lucky, families can be filled with love and care, but for many they are sites of pain: from abandonmen...

Happy Hour

by Marlowe Granados

With the verve and bite of Ottessa Moshfegh and the barbed charm of Nancy Mitford, Marlowe Granados’s stunning début brilliantly captures a summer of striving in New York CityRefreshing and wry in ...

Hit Parade of Tears

by Izumi Suzuki

Translated by Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph and Helen O'Horan

A new collection of stories from the cult author of Terminal Boredom.Izumi Suzuki had ideas about doing things differently, ideas that paid little attention to the laws of physics, or the laws of t...

Bad Gays

by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller

Too many popular histories seek to establish heroes, pioneers and martyrs but as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and/or dastardly deeds have ...

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