{"id":31857,"date":"2025-07-29T20:25:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/31857\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T20:25:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:25:14","slug":"top-ten-reads-for-days-of-sun-sand-and-subversion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/31857\/","title":{"rendered":"Top ten reads for days of sun, sand and subversion"},"content":{"rendered":"

An eclectic selection for beach reading provided by Mark Perryman<\/p>\n

The summer, a time for the beach, sunshine, sunglasses and, in between, whatever takes our marine fancy for a holiday read. A bit of escapism, something for the fast-approaching start of the new football season, a challenge to prejudices old, and new, and words to inform, and inspire. My selection aims to provide all of this, and more.<\/p>\n

Joe Thomas, Red Menace (Quercus 2025)<\/p>\n

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Joe Thomas was a beach-read discovery last summer via White Riot, a novel that brilliantly weaved its way around the late 1970s growth of the National Front, a resistance led most spectacularly by the Anti-Nazi League and Rock against Racism. And then into the early 1980s, featuring the rising number of young black men dying in police custody. A political thriller with a left-wing bent, the added twist being it is written from the perspective of a spycop. Oh my! Red Menace, the second in a promised trilogy, this time takes us from the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham to the Wapping Picket Line. I\u2019m not sure there\u2019s ever been novels written with such political insight and rollicking plot lines. This writer is top of my pile, second summer running.<\/p>\n

Red Menace is available here<\/a><\/p>\n

Karen Dobres, Pitch Invasion: My story as a feminist on a Football Club board (Cassell 2025)<\/p>\n

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Karen Dobres is the face, brain and unstoppable energy behind the reinvention of non-league Lewes FC as the global trailblazing Equality FC. To declare an interest, I\u2019m a supporter of Lewes FC and don\u2019t always entirely agree with the detail of the direction in which Karen would take the club, or indeed football. But that\u2019s not the point. It\u2019s the direction that is right, arguing over the detail shouldn\u2019t distract from that. Where the two collide is the almost unremarked upon dominance of women\u2019s football by the same \u2018big\u2019 clubs as the men\u2019s game. And in the process, the almost complete extinction of autonomous women\u2019s clubs of the sort of the glorious Doncaster Belles. Pitch Invasion provides the kind of rounded view that, if focussed, could resist both these unwelcome developments.<\/p>\n

Pitch Invasion is available here<\/a><\/p>\n

Beatrix Campbell and Rahila Gupta, Planet Patriarchy: Global Tales of Feminism and Oppression (Hurst 2025)<\/p>\n

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Two long-standing feminists, writer Beatrix Campbell and Chair of Southall Black Sisters Rahila Gupta deliver an outstanding and up-to-date analysis of patriarchy, worldwide. Much has changed in and around feminism since the heady days of the 1970s\u2019 \u2018second wave\u2019. But as this politically spiky duo reveal, much hasn\u2019t. Their survey of the inequality and discrimination women face globally proves that, but also the enduring commitment to change all this of its foe, feminism. This is a movement founded on sisterhood, solidarity and resistance. The authors uncover the sheer variety of expressions of this mix, which is quite breathtaking; the scale of what societies produce to deny women liberation is staggering. A potent mix for a powerful read.<\/p>\n

Planet Patriarchy is available here<\/a><\/p>\n

Dipti Desai and Stephen Duncombe, The Activism of Art: A Decentered Anthology (O\/R books 2025)<\/p>\n

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Stephen Duncombe is one of those rare writers who combines the study of how culture shapes politics with an accessible way of describing how. The often indecipherable\u00a0 language of cultural-studies is academics stripped bare, to produce a new common sense. In his latest book, co-authored with Dipti Desai, these two wonderfully gifted writers chronicle the intersections between art and politics that the sheer scale of the dullness of the conventional versions of \u2018doing politics\u2019 from the parliamentary to the protest ignores, at their and our peril. In this regard, a book not simply to read but also to practice.<\/p>\n

The Activism of Art is available here<\/a><\/p>\n

Dave Randall, Sound System: The Political Power of Music (new edition Pluto 2025)<\/p>\n

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If there\u2019s one space where the fusion of the cultural and the political has revealed the popular potential of the mix, it is music. Dave Randall is both a professional musician and a skilled interpreter of this. In Sound System, sub-titled \u2018the political power of music\u2019 he has written an intellectual how-to guide for a movement of change in which a soundtrack is every bit as vital as the more customary baggage of worthy texts. Historical, international and practical, the three ingredients of not only this very fine book but the reasons for the huge impact of the current most obvious example of what the book might aspire to, Kneecap.<\/p>\n

Sound System is available here<\/a><\/p>\n

Alex Fernandes, The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal\u2019s Dictatorship Fell (One World 2025)<\/p>\n

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The kind of political fusions in their different ways Dipti Desai, Stephen Duncombe and Dave Randall describe take their most vibrant forms in revolutionary moments. The trouble is that despite the worst efforts of Saturday morning Socialist Worker paper sellers, those moments for most of us are either few and far between, or faraway, or both. Yet for those heading to the Algarve coast for the beaches and sunshine, or Lisbon for a summer city break, Portugal was the setting of a revolution just a generation ago. The Carnation Revolution by Alex Fernandes records in thrilling detail how, in 1974, Europe\u2019s last remaining fascist regime was brought to an end by daring deeds, the courage of crowds and the rebellion of young army officers. Those were the days, a regime and its empire ended by R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-ON.<\/p>\n

The Carnation Revolution is available here<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Rees, The Fiery Spirits: Popular Protest, Parliament and the English Revolution (Verso 2025)<\/p>\n

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Detailing the leadership and ideas that would lead to the deposing of King Charles (no not that one) and his eventual execution in 1649 (ditto), The Fiery Spirits is a hugely readable account in the tradition of a \u2018people\u2019s history\u2019 of Christopher Hill and others. This was English republicanism on the march, at war with all things regal. Yet, as John Rees details, this was a movement that knew it needed to make allies, to use the inspiration of their republican, revolutionary ideals to inspire others. No, despite the execution, it didn\u2019t end the monarchy but it did strip it of almost all its powers, if not riches. This left me asking after reading this very fine book, time (minus the execution) to finish the job?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fiery Spirits is available here<\/a><\/p>\n

Geoff Brown, A People\u2019s History of the Anti Nazi League 1977-1981, (Bookmarks 2025)<\/p>\n

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If English revolutions are in historically short supply, the same, thankfully, cannot be said of mass movements on these shores that effect social change. In the 1930s, there was the popular front against Moseley and his black-shirted British Union of Fascists, and the International Brigades who went to Spain to defend the republic against Franco\u2019s fascists.\u00a0 In the 1950s, there was the rise of CND, in the 1960s, the Vietnam War, and in the 1970s the anti-Apartheid in South Africa movement via stopping their cricket and rugby tours. The Anti-Nazi League absolutely stands in this tradition as detailed by Geoff Brown in his \u2018people\u2019s history\u2019. Unselfishly galvanised by the organisational skills of the Socialist Workers Party, the ANL worked because it was unimaginably bigger and broader than the self-styled \u2018revolutionary left\u2019. And everyone could be a part of it, from wearing a \u2018School Kids Against the Nazis\u2019 badge, pogoing at a Rock against Racism gig, dishing out leaflets, going on marches and if push came to shove, stopping the fascists, the National Front, in their tracks. Geoff Brown chronicles this rich variety which not only makes a very good read but powerfully illustrates all kinds of lessons for how we resist today the rise of the populist right and the attendant far right too.<\/p>\n

A People\u2019s History of the Anti Nazi League is available here<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kate Thompson, Palestine A-Z (Liminal Books 2024)<\/p>\n

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If the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism were the movements that provided a generational moment in the late 1970s, the Miners\u2019 Strike did the same for 1984-85. Major movements which followed included those against the Iraq War, 2001- 2005, the student tuition-fees protests of 2010, #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo (fill the gaps with your own memories and experiences) and now without any doubt, Gaza. This last has by no means ended and the abject betrayal of Palestine by the political and wider establishment, most notoriously by this Labour government, has created a cleavage which (quite rightly) won\u2019t be closed in a hurry. This cannot be an excuse for narrowing the cause to the fully signed-up left. Palestine is absolutely not a left\/right issue. The cause crosses all such divisions, it must appeal, not only to those who will march and those who don\u2019t. The potential is huge and broad yet nowhere near reached. Kate Thompson\u2019s delightful A-Z will convince anyone why it needs to, if not, how?<\/p>\n

Palestine A-Z is available here<\/a><\/p>\n

Five Star choice: Mark Steel, The Leopard In My House One Man\u2019s Adventure in Cancerland (Ebury Press 2025)<\/p>\n

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My \u2018five-star\u2019 choice for this summer\u2019s top beach read is a comically inspirational real-life read on the potential disaster, cancer. No, it doesn\u2019t sound like quite the book for long-awaited summer hols but in the hands of the one and only Mark Steel, anything is possible.\u00a0 Cancer touches the lives of all sorts, ages and sizes, it requires all the skills the NHS can provide to detect and diagnose. The treatment is often lengthy, sometimes intrusive. Most cancers can be moderated, a few extinguished entirely, some, too many, prove lethal. Men on the whole aren\u2019t very good talking about much, or indeed, any of this. Mark Steel is, and provides bucketfuls of laughs along the (happy-ending alert) road to recovery. An absolutely superb beach read. Five gold stars fully deserved.<\/p>\n

The Leopard In my House is available here<\/a><\/p>\n

Note: No link in these reviews is to Amazon, if you can avoid buying from tax-dodging billionaires please do so.<\/p>\n

Mark Perryman\u2019s new book, The Starmer Symptom is published by Pluto in August, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before you go<\/p>\n

The ongoing genocide in Gaza, Starmer\u2019s austerity and the danger of a resurgent far right demonstrate the urgent need for socialist organisation and ideas. Counterfire has been central to the Palestine revolt and we are committed to building mass, united movements of resistance. Become a member today<\/a> and join the fightback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An eclectic selection for beach reading provided by Mark Perryman The summer, a time for the beach, sunshine,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[457,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-31857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}