Back to the Future: Launching the Left Book Club

BACK TO THE FUTURE: LAUNCHING THE LEFT BOOK CLUB

November 17^th

Conway Hall

25 Red Lion Square

London, WC1R 4RL

7.00pm

With: Ken Livingstone, Kevin Ovenden, Natalie Bennett, Kate Osamor MP and others

Suggested donations, £5, concessions £3

To book your place email: admin@leftbookclub.com

The original Left Book Club was founded in 1936 as a means of promoting radical debate in Britain. It swiftly became a phenomenon, distributing over 2 million books and forming 1,200 reading and discussion groups across the country. It engaged in political activity, including solidarity work (e.g. with Spain), political agitation and much else. The LBC is considered a factor in the creation of the Welfare State and in Labour’s landslide election victory of 1945. It closed in 1948.

Today we face a similar crisis to that of the 1930s, with capitalism breeding inequality, suffering and violence around the world. As then, however, the global left remains mobilised and committed to the creation of a fairer society, free of the repression and austerity that has defined the modern era.

The re-launch of the Left Book Club will help us rise to the challenge posed by the global crisis. The LBC will publish four books a year covering a range of progressive traditions, perspectives and ideas focused on the UK, Europe and the rest of the world.

Our aim is for these books to form the basis of a wide network of reading circles, discussion groups and other educational and cultural activities relevant to constructing the conditions for progressive social change in the interests of working people.

Jeremy Corbyn:

The relaunch of the Left Book Club is a terrific and timely idea, and will give intellectual ballast to the wave of political change sweeping Britain and beyond, encouraging informed and compassionate debate.

The work will open minds and inspire. I have a large collection of Left Book Club publications collected by my parents and me.

I support the LBC wholeheartedly.

The Left Book Club: http://www.leftbookclub.com/

***END***

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Some Good Quotes About Books

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” (Toni Morrison)

“So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall.” (Roald Dahl)

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” (Jane Austen)

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” (Stephen King)

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”  (Cicero)

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.” (Charles William Eliot)

“I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.” (J. K. Rowling)

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” (Ernest Hemingway)

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” (Anna Quindlen)

“A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” (George R. R. Martin)

“A house without books is like a room without windows.” (Horace Mann)

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives whilst reading.” (William Styron)

“So many books, so little time.” (Frank Zappa)

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” (Groucho Marx)

“I cannot live without books.” (Thomas Jefferson)

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” (Stephen King)