I have worked all my adult life trying to understand the implications of the insight that the economy depends on the environment for all its materials, energy, and assimilation of all its wastes. What began as academic curiosity developed into concern about the urgency of a transition to a post-growth economy, especially in rich countries. Justice requires that those most responsible for ecological overshoot reduce their demands on nature furthest and fastest so that those least responsible but suffering the worst consequences can also flourish. I hope you find the books I have chosen will help you take informed action to bring about the transition to a post-growth society.
It's been said that imagining the end of the world is easier than imagining the end of capitalism. Sadly, I think this is true. The ideology of capitalism, cultivated and promoted by marketing, media, governments, and many international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, makes it difficult to imagine alternatives to capitalism.
I learned much from Wolfgang Streeck, who reminds us of the multiple stresses and strains that, separately and together, could result in capitalism's demise. I found this both worrying and empowering.
If we don't think outside the capitalist box, we will unconsciously limit the scope of change needed to confront capitalism's abject deficiencies. This will frustrate an intentional transition to a post-growth society.
After years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition. Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated.
In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contemporary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues that the world is about to change. The marriage between democracy and capitalism, ill-suited partners brought together in the shadow of World War Two, is coming to an end. The regulatory institutions that once restrained the financial sector's excesses have collapsed and, after the final victory of capitalism at the end…
I have traveled throughout Africa and had the great opportunity to live in West Africa for two years, while I was working for the CIA. That experience was wild and challenging, but also transforming. West Africa became the setting for my first novel, Victor in the Rubble, because I loved the absurdity and adventure I experienced there, where nothing is logical but everything makes sense. I have read a number of novels that take place in different parts of Africa, as well as a wide array of nonfiction books about various African countries, their history, and their leaders. There are so many great stories there that pique my interest and inspire me.
This is a true story that reads like a geopolitical spy thriller, with reckless mercenaries, colorful dictators, and money, money, money.
This is one of the first books I ever read about outsiders looking to take advantage of Africa’s natural resources and the havoc that wreaks.
It revealed to me some of the darkest realities of Africa, the ruthlessness of some leaders, the ubiquitous corruption, and the desire of profiteers to take advantage of it all.
Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country roughly the size of the state of Maryland. Humid, jungle covered, and rife with unpleasant diseases, natives call it Devil Island. Its president in 2004, Obiang Nguema, had been accused of cannibalism, belief in witchcraft, mass murder, billiondollar corruption, and general rule by terror. With so little to recommend it, why in March 2004 was Equatorial Guinea the target of a group of salty British, South African and Zimbabwean mercenaries, travelling on an American-registered ex-National Guard plane specially adapted for military purposes, that was originally flown to Africa by American pilots? The real motive…
I’m a novelist and game designer from Bangalore. I’ve been a lifelong reader of science fiction and fantasy. Growing up, I almost never encountered futures that included people like me—brown women, from a country that isn’t the UK/ US, and yet, who are in sync with the rapidly changing global village we belong to. Over the last decade, though, I've found increasing joy in more recent science fiction, in which the future belongs to everyone.The Ten Percent Thiefis an expression of my experiences living in dynamic urban India, and represents one of our many possible futures.
I’m fascinated by the possibilities presented by post-nation futures. Infomocracy looks at a future where ‘centenals’—groups of 100,000 people without historic nationalist borders—elect an international corporate-affiliated body to govern the world.
High-stakes political intrigue fuels the biggest election in a century as multiple factions battle it out to seize power through the vehicle of futuristic democracy. To me, the highlight of this novel is its exploration of democracy—it’s peppered with paradoxical and intense arguments that are rewarding to engage with, and enhance the richness of its world.
It's been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global microdemocracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line. With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information…
I graduated early from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor to come back to my home country and work in Indian politics. Since then I’ve worked with a Member of Parliament, handled campaign design in states across India, and headed data analytics for India’s largest political party. This experience gave me an inside view of how politics operates and how elections are actually won. The fact that this was at a time when Indian politics was going through massive changes with micro-targeting, digital technologies and disinformation gaining ground made the experience even more unique. Based on this experience, my books detail how power is gained, (mis)used, and lost.
There’s an inexorable nexus between crime and politics in many developing nations around the world. India is no exception. This book presents statistics to show just how much Indian politics are dominated by people with serious criminal cases against them and uses case studies to show why such individuals continue to win elections. For me, the book served as an excellent introduction to understanding voter behaviour and why many developmental projects failed to have the desired impacts. For anyone trying to understand the politics of India, the book serves as an excellent introduction.
The first thorough study of the co-existence of crime and democratic processes in Indian politics
In India, the world's largest democracy, the symbiotic relationship between crime and politics raises complex questions. For instance, how can free and fair democratic processes exist alongside rampant criminality? Why do political parties recruit candidates with reputations for wrongdoing? Why are one-third of state and national legislators elected-and often re-elected-in spite of criminal charges pending against them? In this eye-opening study, political scientist Milan Vaishnav mines a rich array of sources, including fieldwork on political campaigns and interviews with candidates, party workers, and voters, large…
I’m
an English teacher, so in addition to reading lots of literature, I read lots
of books about literature. These are
frequently brilliant and important – but they’re also, for the most part,
deathly dull. Academic prose is engineered for analysis, not artistry; it often
strikes deep, but it seldom catches fire.
In
the case of Happy Neighborhood, it
does both. That’s because, in this 2023 book of essays, stories, and poems
about American literature, living in Florida, and adopting a son, Hallock
combines the academic with the personal in surprising and moving ways.
I’ll be
honest: some chapters might seem too specialized for some readers. But taken as
a whole, this book restored my faith in a creative artist’s ability to breathe
new life into tired, overused forms.
Happy Neighborhood explores through poetry and prose the cultivation of contented place. How must men in particular sift through the rewards, and belabored grudges, of their own childhoods in order to move productively forward? These thoughtful, carefully crafted meditations seek to define happiness at home. The poems begin with daily walks, often with a dog, to the waterfront park near the author's house in St. Petersburg, Florida. The essays, in dialog with the verse, explore the personal, literary, cultural, and historical questions that prompted the poems. Hallock's influences and reading are wide ranging, though he draws especially from seventeenth-century devotional…
I’ve always been a voracious reader, and from an early age I was drawn to military, political, and science fiction thrillers because they explored a world of black operations, ruthless cabals, and clandestine government programmes. Later, I discovered that such a world exists, one where the military-industrial complex exerts enormous power and influence, a world of secretive global agendas, of dark actors controlling corrupt politicians, and cold-blooded military contractors, their allegiances no longer tied to any national flag but to mega-wealth cabals, offshore accounts, and vast pension funds. A world of shadows, where the light rarely shines, and the truth remains hidden. A truth often stranger than fiction.
The book that triggered my deeper exploration into the world of political corruption, Dobb’s classic still stands shoulder to shoulder with HBO’s powerhouse TV reimagining of the source material, and ticks all the political thriller boxes—corruption, blackmail, and murderous intent at the highest levels of government. The masterfully crafted Francis Urquhart is one of the most intriguing fictional characters I’ve met, determined, manipulative, and utterly ruthless, and the twisty plot moves along at a cracking pace. Do people like Urquhart really exist? Undoubtedly, although the real versions are infinitely crueler and more corrupt. If you loved the TV show, as I did, the original book will not disappoint.
REVISED AND UPDATED WITH BRAND NEW MATERIAL The acclaimed political thriller that first introduced the unforgettable Francis Urquhart MP and launched Michael Dobbs' No 1 bestselling career - now updated with brand new material.
Michael Dobbs' entertaining tale of skulduggery and intrigue within the Palace of Westminster has been a huge hit with the public. Its scheming hero, Chief Whip Francis Urquhart, who uses fair means and foul to become Prime Minister, is one of the best-known characters of the last decade - the politician we all love to hate.
Acclaimed for its authenticity and insights into a secret world…
Whether it’s campfire tales told with the moon high or bedtime fables told to get children to stay in their beds after lights out, I believe horror fiction is at its purest, most effective form as short prose. These collections of horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and Western tales are all touched by the weird and terrifying. The twin sensations of being unsettled by something you’ve read and of being unable to resist reading on are guiding lights in my own writerly pursuits. These collections and many more played a defining role in shaping my own debut dark fiction collection Pre-Approved for Haunting and Other Stories.
No one writing horror fiction today is better at punching the reader in the guts (or ripping those guts out and showing them to you) like Stephen Graham Jones. While he’s been touted more recently for his novel-length works, I first came to know SGJ’s writing via short stories. This collection is one of several stand-outs from his catalog.
When it comes to horror and weird fiction writing, SGJ’s versatility knows no bounds. Whether it’s the literary strangeness of “Father, Son, Holy Rabbit,” or the freaky folk horror of “Raphael” (elements of which SGJ has revisited in his Indian Lake novel trilogy), there are all kinds of scares in this collection. He even pulls off a shocking jump-scare fright in “Crawlspace” that has to be experienced first-hand.
These thirteen stories are our own lives, inside out. A boy's summer
romance doesn't end in that good kind of heartbreak, but in blood. A girl
on a fishing trip makes a friend in the woods who's exactly what she
needs, except then that friend follows her back to the city. A father hears a
voice through his baby monitor that shouldn't be possible, but now he
can't stop listening. A woman finds out that the shipwreck wasn't
the disaster, but who she's shipwrecked with. A big brother learns just
what he will, and won't, trade for one night of…
I was born in the Bronx, New York. I arrived in Paris, France at the age of 32. Thought I would stay for one year. That was thirty years ago. I'm still in Paris, and the author of a memoir, a play, and seven novels. Many of my novels fit the term "social thriller," popularized by Jordan Peele to define his ground-smashing classic film Get Out. Peele identified a genre that has been with us, particularly when it comes to crime fiction, for a long time. I've always been fascinated by dark, suspenseful stories that explore the nature of greed, of racism, of political power. And how the three are so often wrapped around each other.
Hammett is the great-grandaddy of hard-boiled crime fiction and I devoured The Maltese Falconwhen I was still a middle schooler.
Only as a published author myself did I discover The Glass Key, this strange, complex thriller in which private perversity mirrors political corruption in an unnamed American city a brief train ride away from New York.
Ned Beaumont, a gambler and fixer, winds his way through a labyrinth of mixed motives, class conflicts, double crosses, and ambiguous bromance. Hammett's tight storytelling and lean, mean prose were a great inspiration for my book.
Ned Beaumont is a tall, thin, moustache-wearing, TB-ridden, drinking, gambling, hanger-on to the political boss of a corrupt Eastern city. Nevertheless, like every Hammett hero (and like Hammett himself), he has an unbreakable, if idiosyncratic moral code. Ned's boss wants to better himself with a thoroughbred senator's daughter; but does he want it badly enough to commit murder? If he's innocent, who wants him in the frame? Beaumont must find out.
I was born in Washington, D.C., in a hospital not far from the U.S. Capitol. I remember being awestruck walking through its halls on tours as a kid. As a journalist, I covered some hearings and interviewed Congress representatives and staff there. The attack on January 6, 2021, was more than a breach of a landmark, historic building representing the top legislative body in the country; it was an assault on the fabric of democracy itself. A tragic crime occurred there that left several people dead and many injured, both physically and emotionally. We must hold everyone involved, especially those at the top who planned this invasion, accountable for what occurred that day.
Though this book was released a few months before the Capitol attack, it provides important details on key trends and events that many missed leading up to January 6. Seth Abramson, a former criminal defense attorney and journalism professor, shows how Trump not only tried to entice foreign leaders of Ukraine to discredit Joe Biden, but conspired with officials in China, Russia, Hungary, and other nations to help him win re-election. Abramson has continued to write ground-breaking articles on his Substack blog, Proof, such as how Trump allegedly worked with planners of Operation Occupy the Capitol to use the occupation to lobby state legislators to change election results.
USA TODAY BESTSELLER "A searing indictment." --NPR"Careful and exhaustive....a strong case." --Kirkus Reviews This stunning third entry in Seth Abramson's epic, New York Times bestselling Proof series reveals the harrowing scope of Trump bribery schemes involving COVID-19, the 2020 presidential election, and collusion with foreign officials in China, Ukraine, Turkey, Israel, Venezuela, Hungary, and Russia. Proof of Corruption traces in exacting detail the clandestine schemes of Trump and his cadre of agents and advisers from 2015 onward, with a special emphasis on Michael Cohen, Donald Trump Jr., Sean Hannity, Bill Barr, Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, Erik Prince, Michael Flynn, Lev…
I’ve always loved mysteries and puzzles and have been an avid mystery reader since devouring all the Nancy Drew books at our library. There’s such satisfaction that comes from solving a mystery. When I started writing, my faithful golden retriever was always resting at my feet. She was the inspiration and the reason I chose to include dogs in all my books. Having a dog alongside my character allows me to show more depth in the humans in my stories and reveal weaknesses and vulnerabilities they may not be able to show others. I hope you enjoy my top picks as much as I have.
I love this series that features Andy Carpenter, a defense attorney, and his golden retriever Tara. I enjoy the realistic and procedural portions of the book concerning the legal case, this one involving Andy’s father from years ago. Andy’s dad was the District Attorney on Andy’s current death row appeals case, which creates an interesting conflict—the first of many in this exciting case. I think I’m drawn to it because of Andy’s connection to his dad. My dad and I bat around ideas when I’m writing my mysteries, since he’s been in law enforcement for decades.
I also like the subplot of learning more about Andy, his history, and family, since it makes his character feel more realistic and the addition of his golden retriever makes it a must-read for me.
Defense attorney Andy Carpenter manages to sail through any tough situation, whether inside the courtroom or in his personal life. But this all changes when his marriage breaks up and his father suddenly dies, leaving him distraught - and 22 million dollars richer. Andy doesn't know how his father accumulated this fortune or why his father begged him to take on the appeal of a death row prisoner. With the help of his newfound love, P.I. Laurie Collins, and the support of his golden retriever companion, Tara, he discovers a link between three of the most prominent men in New…
