This is a curated list of books I personally recommend for readers interested in developing their thinking, writing, and understanding of the world.
The list is updated regularly. I encourage you to revisit this pinned post periodically to discover new books and categories as they are added...
For Critical Thinking Skills
1. Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict by Bruce N. Waller
2. Dance of Dialectics by Bertell Ollman
3. Critical Thinking Unchained (my book)
4. Critical Theory Today by Lois Tyson
To study Capitalism, Neoliberal Economy and Marxism as Theories of Economy
1. Contending Economic Theories by Richard Wolff
2. Karl Marx: Selected Writings Edited by David McLellan
3. Introduction to Marxism by Richard Wolff
For Critique on Capitalism
1. Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin
2. The Capitalist System by Mikhail Bakunin
3. Wars & Capitalism by Kropotkin
4. Expropriation by Kropotkin
5. The Wage System by Kropotkin
6. Capital in Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
7. Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
To Study Marxist Praxis and its Critique
1. Guillotine at Work Volume 1 by Maximoff
2. What was the USSR by Aufheben
3. Means & Ends Anarchist Critique by Zoe Baker
4. 1919: When Bolsheviks Turned Against Workers by CrimethInc
5. The Soviet Union: A Regime of Capitalist Development by Matthew Crossin
6. Hungary 56' by Andy Anderson
7. There is no Communism in Russia by Emma Goldman
8. Russian Revolution & Communist Party by Alexander Berkman
9. Lenin as Philosopher by Anton Pannekoek
For Building a Worldview
1. Mutual Aid a Factor in Evolution by Kropotkin
2. Ethics: Origin and Development by Kropotkin
3. Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin
For Understanding the Hegemony & Control
1. Distinction by Pierre Bourdieu
2. Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class by James Berlin
3. Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky
4. Prison Notebooks by Gramsci
For Making Real Change
1. On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky
2. Jackson Rising Redux by Kali Akuno
3. Sociology of Freedom by Abdullah Ocalan
For Students of English Literature
1. The Literature Book by DK Publishers
2. Literary Movements for Students (Gale)
3. Critical Theory Today by Lois Tyson
For Educators
1. Anarchist Pedagogies by Robert H. Haworth
2. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
To Improve Composition Skills
1. Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.
2. On Writing Well by William Zinsser
3. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph Bizup
4. Craft of Writing: 20 Lessons in Style & Composition by Mason Carter
To Improve Creative Writing Skills
1. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
2. Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin
3. On Writing by Stephen King
4. Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster
5. Body Language in Fiction Writing by Mason Carter
6. Creative Writing Vocabulary Toolkit by Mason Carter
For those Interested in Mentalism
1. Psychological Subtleties by Banachek
2. Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown
3. Sleights of Mind by Sandra Blakeslee et al
4. Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Volume I by Robert Dilts et al
5. The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading by Ian Rowland
6. Hardcore Mentalism by Alain Nu
My All Time Favourite Literary Works
1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
2. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
3. The Madman by Khalil Gibran
4. The Garden of Prophet by Khalil Gibran
5. The Maids by Jean Genet
6. Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare
7. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche
8. Walden by Thoreau
9. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
10. A Piece of String by Guy de Maupassant
My All Time Favourite Poems
1. The World by Henry Vaughan
2. Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
3. Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
4. The Man with Beautiful Eyes by Charles Bukowski
5. Paradise Lost by John Milton
6. When I am Dead My Dearest by Christina Rossetti
7. When all the world is young, lad by Charles Kingsley
8. Canonization by John Donne
9. A Worker Reads History by Bertolt Brecht
10. A Smile to Remember by Charles Bukowski
11. We Are Seven by William Wordsworth
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