Radical reading habits: Books to read from Pluto Press

Books don’t solve societal ills.

There is no reading list to make a person less racist, no set of texts that will re-configure a mind to care more about disabled bodies or the changing planet.

That is perhaps a lie the publishing industry has pushed harder than ever in recent years - if there’s a problem to be solved, there is a book that can do it. It is simply not true. To read, although an active process, results more often in passivity than action. 

Once you close the last pages, it is easy to think the job is done. I have read what the person most informed had to say about the planet that is on fire, I have posted my highlighted, tabbed, copy of the book that everyone said I must read, and now I am informed. I have nothing left to do. 

Non-fiction books have a role, a job to do; they disseminate complex theories and pressing topics to create content that spreads information outside of academic institutions and twenty four hour news cycles. However, once their job is done, it is left to the reader to keep moving those ideas forward and to keep the chain going. 

Pluto press is somewhat of an institution, one of the oldest radical publishers, proudly political unlike other houses that are rapidly depoliticising their content and stances. They pride themselves on publishing a wide range of voices (and not in the tokenistic sense that most others claim) from academics to first time writers sharing lived experience. They regularly host sales multiple times a year and currently offer 50% off until 12th May. But sale or not, Pluto press books are worth a read. Here are five titles to add to your baskets this month: 

Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia by Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

Part of the iconic Outspoken by Pluto collection, Tangled in Terror is the latest in the line of accessible entry-level texts that are the perfect snack sized essays to introduce a social justice topic in an intersectional way. Here, Manzoor-Khan blends personal experience with cutting political prose to create a lyrical yet informed story of the ways Islamophobia penetrates every facet of modern life. 

The British Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution by Dan Hicks

Every so often the newspapers will throw up half hearted attempts to reckon with historical moments, but the context is often missing. Dan Hicks provides that missing piece to the particular story of British museums who have hoarded things that aren’t theirs, acquiring them through violent means. 

After Grenfell: Violence, Resistance and Response Edited by Dan Bulley, Jenny Edkins and Nadine El-Enany

Following similar themes to The Brutish Museums, books can prolong the prescient news moments into a more concrete history. After Grenfell is a culmination of images, poetry and prose that reckon with the tragedy, what it meant and continues to mean for the communities it affected and the fight for radical change within British state housing and care. 

A Decolonial Feminism by Françoise Vergès / Translated by Ashley J. Bohrer

Translated from the French, and a winner of an English PEN Award, A Decolonial Feminism presents a new way to move forward in the fight for gender equality. Vergès pushes for an anti-capitalist, anti-racist and anti-imperialist stance, deconstructing the recent history of eurocentrism and whiteness, alongside nuanced takes on #MeToo and the Women's Strike. Get a taste for Vergès’ style here.

Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined by JJ Bola

To come full circle, Mask Off is the one of the first books released in the Outspoken series, and as the title suggests, discusses the state of modern masculinity. JJ Bola is a young Black British writer who draws on his own experiences to explore how masculinities are constructed and reproduced in different political contexts. 

We can read these books, pass them on to others, start discussions with fellow readers and then take action from the stories these authors have told us, to make a change. Books may not solve societal ills, but they can open our hearts and minds and inspire us to see the world in more radical, progressive ways.