Image Credit: (Paul Bowman CC BY 2.0)
Last month, LSE hosted its ninth annual Literary Festival. This year’s theme was Revolutions – not only marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution, but also other anniversaries of revolutions in literature, international relations, politics, religion and science. The Festival sought to explore the notion of ‘revolution’ in its broadest sense – encompassing rebellions, resistance and reform, change and progress, cycle and renewal and fragmentation and chaos.
As part of the Festival, we asked readers to tell us the books, poems or songs that have revolutionised their thinking or their lives. Penguin Classics kindly agreed to provide copies of And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov to five competition winners following the end of the Festival on 25 February. Thank you to all those who took part! We received such great suggestions that we’ve put together a post-Festival ‘Revolutionary Reading List’, featuring ten of our favourite recommendations.
Revolutionary Reads from #LSELitFest 2017
A Room of One’s Own. At 13, it articulated what I’d been feeling & experiencing- was one of my first feminist texts!
— Rishita Nandagiri (@rishie_) February 15, 2017
#LSELitFest – as I said in my application to study at LSE in 1971, Germinal by Emile Zola stirred my political awareness & values https://t.co/WiCLF7rckK
— Jackie Ballard (@volunteerjackie) February 9, 2017
Book the revolutionised my life: The Production of Space by Lefebvre. #LSELitFest – a new way of thinking
— Lee Fallin (@LeeFallin) February 12, 2017
https://twitter.com/katieheadon/status/834455300505755648
I was still a child and Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino was the first glimpse into the sadness of working poors' life in the city. #LSELitFest https://t.co/ezoaSYwPk1
— Elisa Pannini (@elisapannini) February 15, 2017
#LSELitFest Nawel El Saadawi 'Woman at Point Zero'
— Zakia Setti (@ZakiaSetti) February 18, 2017
@LSEReviewBooks @classicpenguins #LSELitFest – #Aramis or the Love of Technology by Bruno Latour is the book that revolutionised my life
— Mohammad R. Kalantari (@mrkalantari) February 13, 2017
#LSELitFest The Castafiore Emerald. Wrote a comment about it on a Tintin nerd's blog. She replied. Nine years later, we're still together 🙂 https://t.co/DTDg1cYdHu
— Sroyon Mukherjeee (@SroyonMukherjee) February 12, 2017
#LSELitFest the house of the spirits by Isabel Allende pic.twitter.com/qKW2RxbkIL https://t.co/yyvzYGE0OL
— Dr Ross Espinoza (@DrRossEspinoza) February 10, 2017
Bulgakov, "The Master and the Margarita". Witches, Stalinism, Faith, Slaughter, Love, Lucifer, Betrayal, and all of it comedic. #LSELitFest https://t.co/m9C83jI7c5
— Liam Kennedy Connell (@liamkconnell) February 13, 2017
If you missed any of the 2017 LSE Literary Festival, do check out the LSE RB features exploring the theme of ‘Revolutions’ and listen to podcast and video recordings of the Festival events here.
Note: This reading list does not give the views of the LSE Review of Books blog or of the London School of Economics.
Germinal is a perfect one to understand what is the difference between systems, what are the people living under a system of being a part of slave-like lives. He wrote it around over a century ago, but the things he mentioned are still alive in all around the world.