I love to read and learn more about the world, especially when I'm having a flareup with my chronic illness so can only rest on the sofa or in bed. This is a compilation of the nonfiction books I read and recommend. I'll have a separate post for fiction!
Pedagogy Of The Oppressed by Paulo Freire. I wrote an essay based on it here: https://reshapingreality.org/2022/09/06/ways-of-learning/
Anarcho-Blackness: Notes Toward a Black Anarchism by Marquis Bey digs into the intersection of race and Anarchism. It diagnoses the problems we face and ways to combat injustice as well as supporting Black folks and making sure no one is left behind in our fight for justice.
Anarchic Agreements: A Field Guide to Collective Organizing by Ruth Kinna, Alex Prichard, Thomas Swann, and Seeds for Change. This is a short but fantastic book that goes through how to write an agreement (or constitution), how to organize groups of people - for example, types of organizing strategies one may use, and tips on how to deal with interpersonal (or conflict between organizations) conflicts. Jam-packed with useful tips and examples for such a short book!
The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is by far one of the best science books I've read to date! Explores the beauty of the universe and the science of understanding it, while also digging into identity, race, and the how the current way of doing science is rooted in racism. It spells out a different way we can explore and do science that is based more in equity and justice.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm discusses how the current actions to fight climate change are ineffective and offers alternatives. There's a lot of great tips on how to do direct action as well as how certain types of indirect action can support the more direct forms.
Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work by Akilah S. Richards and Adebayo C. Akomolafe. This digs into the oppressive ways learning is done in modern culture and explores alternatives (much of the book parallels Freire and have great overlap in ideas and more just ways of being).
The Sea is Rising and So Are We: A #ClimateJustice Handbook by Cynthia Kaufman. This book covers various ways to get involved in the Climate Justice fight. It has overlapping ideas with Malm's book, though it doesn't push as far as Malm does.
Overcoming Burnout by Nicole Rose is one of the best books I've read about Burnout from the point of view of a marginalized person doing activism and mutual aid work. Excellent advice.
The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence a culture and community of care to fight against the uncaring and eugenics policies being thrust on us in present times.
Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds by Arturo Escobar. His writing heavily influences me as it unravels and rebuts the idea of a "one world" and how the only way forward is to live in a world in which "Many Worlds are Possible" a.k.a. the pluriverse. It is heavy on theory, but there's a whole chapter devoted to a case study of a valley in Colombia that re-imagines a new way of building community and relationship to the land - how one would go about reversing capitalism's harm to the landscape and people's imagination and how to re-introduce a pluriverse where many worlds are possible.
Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation by Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Radmilla Cody, David Correia, Melanie K. Yazzi, Nick Estes, Brandon Benallie. Absolutely fantastic critique of America's violent colonialist capitalist systems, how they harm Native populations, and ways to fight them.
Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna J. Haraway. Beautiful read that explores Climate Change, how we need to restore relations with one another and our planet, and ways to go about doing that. It's full of gorgeous prose, and some interesting re-imagining of humanity near the end of the book.
Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. One of the most beautiful and engrossing books I read this year. It digs into Nishnaabeg cultural ways and how they are fighting to dismantle colonialism's hold on their way of live and being.
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Wengrow and David Graeber digs into how the way we discuss history as this linear line of growth is wrong and doesn't actually match the data. Humanity is full of creativity and has experimented with many different ways of being in society throughout history. To try to trace this development line from hunter/gatherer to capitalism is to ignore vast stretches of history and evidence of multiple different ways of being in community.
Followups that I read this year which are okay but not as easy to read or get into:
Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx's Lost Theory by Mike Davis discusses Marxism and its application in our current society. It's very dense material.
Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism by Ellen Meiksins Wood digs into how Democracy cannot exist within Capitalism; she draws heavily on a lot of Marxism and Socialist theorists to prove this. It's also very, very dense theory.
So that's it for nonfiction this year! I read a lot more than I realized. Good thing I kept track with storygraph app.