Radical Reading Book Group at Left Bank Leeds

Join the Radical Reading Book Group every six weeks to discuss a book from The Reading Room Library – which you can find at Left Bank Leeds in collaboration with London-based independent radical publishers Pluto Press as part of their initiative The Reading Room.

Join the Radical Reading Book Group every six weeks to discuss a book from The Reading Room Library – which you can find at Left Bank Leeds.

The Reading Room is a collaborative project where people can read, learn, listen to authors and share ideas. Linking up with other spaces across the country (currently in Cardiff, Gateshead/Newcastle, Peterborough and Southend-on-Sea as well as Leeds), The Reading Room has created libraries stocked with thought-provoking books, providing resources and activities to catalyse creativity, collaboration and conversation. The organisations involved share the common goal of supporting and empowering people within their communities. As well as physical library spaces, The Reading Room opens up forums to debate topics that affect everyday lives– such as inequality, the environment and LGBTQ+ issues – and reading groups like the one in Leeds are being established.

The Radical Reading Group is free to be a part of and you can buy the books at a discounted Radical Reading Group rate. The facilitator is Sarah Autumn, a Leeds-based activist and creative community organiser. ALong with her Between The Lines collaborator with Denetta Copeland aka D3, Sarah co-hosts the Chapel FM spoken word radio show Loudspeaker on the first Tuesday of each month at 6.15pm, exploring the topics of our times through spoken word while showcasing talent from Leeds and Yorkshire. Part of the extended Left Bank family, Sarah will work with Pluto Press, Left Book Club and the Radical Reading Group members to select each book ahead of the meet-ups.

The first book for 2023 is Hope in Hopeless Times by John Holloway, which “expertly fuses anti-capitalism and anti-identitarianism”. Also the author of Crack Capitalism, John Holloway has published widely on Marxist theory, on the Zapatista movement and on the new forms of anti-capitalist struggle. His book Change the World without Taking Power has been translated into 11 languages and has stirred an international debate, and he is Professor of Sociology in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico.