Reading list

The Year in 10 Books | 2024

In the era of polycrisis, these books will help you understand the past tumultuous year, and how to fight in the face of despair.

18 November 2024

The Year in 10 Books | 2024

While it can be tempting to disengage altogether, these books will allow you to deepen your understanding of our political moment, and galvanise readers to fight back.  

Verso Books End of Year Sale
November 18 - January 1
20% off when you buy two books or more
30% off when you buy three books or more
40% off when you buy four books or more
Discount will be applied in cart.

All print books come with a free edition of the ebook (where available) — meaning that if you buy a book for a friend, you'll be able to download a digital version for yourself!

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Essential for those that are tired of the business-as-usual attitude towards an ever worsening climate crisis.

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As the re-election of Trump demonstrates, unless we understand the deeper forces propelling the far-right resurgence, we have little chance of stopping it.

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Levy's words should be read by anyone who wants to get the heart of this most brutal conflict and see for themselves that silence is no longer possible in the face of such atrocity.

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In the first of the Verso Palestine Pamphlets, Malm unearths the shared roots of colonial adventurism in Palestine and fossil fuelled warfare.

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Hannah Proctor draws on historical resources to find out how revolutionaries and activists of the past kept a grip on hope, and what we might learn from them.

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"The world's leading scholar of oil gives us a majestic account of how it became our daily bread. Read and run for your life." — Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline

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Craig Gent shows how AI isn’t replacing workers, but rather monitoring and controlling them, and advances an alternative politics of resistance in the face of this digital control.

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"Taking Back Control? combines a brilliant diagnosis of the political crisis of neoliberal globalization with a tough-minded case for “small-statism” as our best chance for a democratic-socialist resolution. Left internationalists may not like that conclusion but cannot ignore it. Streeck’s challenging new book raises the scale-of-democracy debate to a new level." — Nancy Fraser, author of Cannibal Capitalism

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"All aboard this ride through the hidden abode of electricity production - it is not to be missed! With his signature knowledge of the financial and economic systems that dominate our lives, Brett Christophers here takes on a central paradox of the moment. How is it that investment in fossil fuels continues relentlessly, even though renewables have become cheaper? Standard theories of the causes of climate breakdown will not survive this book. Readers will be all the wiser." — Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline

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"It is through denial that the climate crisis deepens, but we have hardly begun to get our heads around how it works. In this sweeping survey, Tad DeLay turns and twists the concept and uses it to shine light on a range of aspects of the crisis. It is a leap forward in the study of denial." — Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Overshoot
The world is on the cusp of one and a half degrees of warming – just the rise it has committed itself to avoiding. Heat at such levels would be intolerable. Even before one and a half, seasons of c...
Disaster Nationalism
The rise of the new far right has left the world grappling with a profound misunderstanding. While the spotlight often shines on the actions of charismatic leaders such as Donald Trump and Jair Bol...
The Killing of Gaza

The Killing of Gaza

Gideon Levy is one of the most respected critics of Israel's apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. He is the outspoken award-winning journalist who has been writing on the conflict for...
The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth
Israel’s pulverization of Gaza since October 7, 2023 is not only a humanitarian crisis, but an environmental catastrophe. Far from the first event of its kind, the devastation Israel has inflicted ...
Burnout
In the struggle for a better world, setbacks are inevitable. Defeat can feel overwhelming at times, but it has to be endured. How then do the people on the front line keep going? To answer that que...
Crude Capitalism
This expansive history traces the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current climate crisis. Beyond simplistic narratives that frame oil as 'prize' or 'curse',...
Cyberboss
Across the world, algorithms are changing the nature of work. Nowhere is this clearer than in the logistics and distribution sectors, where workers are instructed, tracked and monitored by increasi...
Taking Back Control?

Taking Back Control?

The era of hyperglobalization once hailed as the 'end of history' was characterised by boundless capitalist expansion. The neoliberal revolution gave rise to a politics of scale aimed at the centra...
The Price is Wrong
What if our understanding of capitalism and climate is back to front? What if the problem is not that transitioning to renewables is too expensive, but that saving the planet is not sufficiently pr...
Future of Denial
The age of denial is over, we are told. Yet emissions continue to rise while gimmicks, graft, and green- washing distract the public from the climate violence suffered by the vulnerable. This timel...

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