Theory/Study books
Trans Femme Futures, Nat Raha, Mijke van Der Drift
So this is my #1 2025 hole time book recommendation. This book is immaculately written and researched. It focuses on trans/queer abolitionist thinking, theorizing, and worldmaking together. It redefines femme and understanding transness and queerness less about identity and seeking inclusion or visibility, but rather why we do what we do. I love that the authors relate the struggle to the whole because yes, trans liberation is liberation for all (something that will be a theme in all of my top 3 recommendations). The book highlights care work in our movements. I truly believe everyone could get a lot from this book. I myself was blown away by a great deal, and this book has prompted me to write an essay. I think that my favorite highlight is their identifications of inclusion as a problem in itself. How it harms and leaves the individual to survive on their own after being included in a white patriarchal capitalist society that doesn’t want us. It draws parallels to the fight for “civil rights” inclusion to me. The point, that perhaps the system of oppression is the disease, whiteness and heteronormative systems of coercion and control are the problem, and rather than scramble for being “a part of,” the term “we got us” should be more emphasized. Worldmaking separate from their world. Trans Femme Futures does emphasize ways the community can and does support each other and bypass medical harm and violence done by its gatekeeping access to healthcare. (The research and cited sources are so much, it’s a solid part of the book, it shows their dedication to getting this book right, I also will be recommending a lot of those when I get them.) Focusing on the collective and femme care and abolitionist unity, Trans Femme Futures hopes to imagine a unity, a world made now based on, as it put, “ethics” of our collective making. I recommend this book to anyone in abolitionist circles, who know the value of collectivity. Out of my 6 months in the hole so far, this is my #1 read. Pick it up if you can.
Polywise, Jessica Fern (Polysecure)
To me, the best poly book I’ve read. Jessica Fern is artful in her writing, she’s forgiving and non-judgemental when talking about the good, the bad, and ugly of relationships and relating attachment theory to polyamory. I did recommend both of her books, they were sort of sequels, Polysecure being the intro, but she wanted to write Polysecure first. You can tell. Much like my first recommend, Trans Femme Futures, you don’t have to be poly (trans) to get something from either of these books. In fact, I love that Jessica emphasizes that there’s nothing wrong with being monogamous or wanting that. Consensual monogamy (not as a “norm” or default) is okay, too. She also says what I always do in so many words that just because you hold an identity does not make you better or more evolved. There are shitty people everywhere. Including in polyamory. Because it’s relationships and immaturity is a thing. Yet Jessica finds a way to relate Keegan’s Theory of Development to those in polyamorous and monogamous relationships. [] In a way that is not judgemental. We’ve all been immature, and you don’t get through an interpersonal relationship without harm, no one does. Also a book that’s well researched and written, worth chewing and digesting, definitely. Whatever your practice of relationships and how you relate, you can benefit from this book. Because as abolitionists, revolutionaries, radicals, anarchists, we must look at ALL systems and constructs critically and defamiliarize ourselves with them. Gender, sexuality, relationships, race, and not allow for white supremacist, capitalist, eugenicist systems to rule us. One very lovely thing she does is change restorative “justice” to “relationships,” which I love because I’ve BEEN saying usurping language is important, and I call it prisoner solidarity “relationships” and mutual aid “relationships.” And as relationships, we must defamiliarize ourselves with how harms prescribe them to us.
Ace, Angela Chen
“What asexuality reveals about desire, society, and the meaning of sex.” This book is profound to me, and it follows the theme of the last two in deconstructing a norm and analyzing it critically and with new ethics. Angela Chen writes beautifully and honestly. I truly believe (like the last two), everyone will get something from this book. It will cause you to look at sex more critically if you don’t already. That too is a norm with prescribed gender roles in the bedroom, prescribed expectations of relationships all coalescing in sex. And if you’re anything like me, inquisitive and open and honest with yourself, you think, is this the driving force of humanity? Angela Chen debunks that and helps us to imagine relationships and what we’d get without being told what to feel, how to feel, or what to do. I learned a lot. Like all Tumblr kids, I found asexuality on Tumblr, but I never really paid it any mind. This book is a reason why you should, as with trans liberation, relationship liberation, queer liberation as a whole, which includes asexuality, is liberation for all. Abolishing constructs and systems of controls means them all, and compulsory sex is a huge one. The day we are all thinking more critically of what we want and who we are is a liberated day. Not prescribed genders at birth with one relationship dynamic and the obligation of sex as the only thing there is. The sexual revolution/liberation touting pro kink and sex positivity was about choice and freedom to be, but lest we forget, freedom from as well. From compulsory sex. A woman isn’t inherently oppressed or less evolved if she chooses to abstain from multiple partners and kink play, and men who abstain aren’t automatically incels. Angela Chen took a deep dive and thought critically and changed the way I viewed things. It’s certainly a great first step in deconstructing and defamiliarizing ourselves with harmful systems.
Pleasure reads
Monk and Robot, Becky Chambers
For anyone who writes me recently, you know how much I love this book. My bestie whom I love and am obsessed with put this gem in my hand. For everyone who needs a break, and wants to imagine a world where humans get their shit together and maybe you wanna block out the news and pretend you live there and sip some tea, this is the book for it! In this utopian fiction, you’re met with such wholesomeness and yet still have questions like purpose, and what is its meaning, is it okay to change it, or not have one? This book got me at a time where I truly needed a break. Under constant torture, violence, and struggle, it was much needed. Plus it gave me what I call my anarchists now, siblings. ‘Cause comrade is fucking tankie shit, brother and sister while classic for revolutionaries, it assumes gender, so “sibling (name)” it is. Thank you sibling Hay Bales, oh how I love you.
Parable of the Sower/Talents
Okay, they’re two books, but still, if you DON’T know about these books, you must be living under a rock. If you haven’t gotten around to reading them, you’re missing out, and you should carve out some time. Octavia Butler is a wonder. The Orwellian predictions are one thing, but I was just so enthralled by the storytelling. I LOVE a dystopian future road trip novel. It’s NOT a great roadtrip, but her novels, while bleak and realistic, offer hope. She offers “Earthseed,” which I have definitely taken to heart lol. They are full of tragedy, suffering, endurance, hope, and love. I think they match our times well. While not as light as my first one, it offers an enduring hopeful outlook still. Octavia herself is enduring and hopeful, what she did as the only Black woman in sci-fi is as Olamina as it gets. And yes, my standard for a great human is Olamina. If you ain’t Olamina-like, I don’t need you in my life worldmaking. Lol.
Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins
So first, I MUST let you know the Hunger Games series is my absolute FAVORITE. Both the movies and the books. I was gifted the original trilogy by a roommate of mine a long time ago, and it was my favorite, and the fact they even remembered had me almost infatuated lol. I no longer have that collection, but then my cellie when I first came up state knew how much I loved them, and after someone bought me the trilogy again, they bought me “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Once again, I was so happy, and I literally didn’t even wanna open it cuz I was so happy. Then this hole shot “HAY HAY Bales” once again swooping in like my hero, during a really bad time, sent me this book, and ugh. I cried all the way through, then sobbed on my floor for an hour, not just for Haymitch, but I was crying tears I hadn’t shed yet for what was happening to me. It was cathartic. I recommend this book also because despite the dystopia, it offers a hopeful outlook, the idea that resistance will win. In Parable and Sunrise, “us” win in the end. So resistance IS essence.
Essays and Conversations
All the Black Girls Are Activists, EbonyJanice Moore
You do not need to be a Black femme to read this book. You do need to read this book if you have a Black femme in your life you love. I believe truly self care and care relations in the revolutionary/activist/anarchist community is so DIRELY important. Especially for our marginalized folk, trans/queer, Black, femme, indigenous, and disabled folk, brunting actual effort, suffering in silence. EbonyJanice outlines something that Malcolm X once said, “The Black woman is the most disrespected,” and also how self care and reclaiming your peace and your being, or “going to find my body…” as she quotes Solange Knowles, is a revolutionary act, yet she does not stop there, she lays grounds and builds on a path laid before her by ancestors to invite and bring along other Black femmes and subsequently us (not Black femmes) to find our bodies. Rest and self care are paths to liberation and Black femme liberation IS liberation for us all. I highly recommend this book no matter who you exist as in the struggle for liberation. This book is so worth the read, to just name drop a few of my favorite essays of hers, “In Pursuit of My Body,” “In Pursuit of Wellness,” And “In Pursuit of Authority,” I love it! Lastly, I would be remiss and doing EbonyJanice a disservice if I did not forward people (namely white people) who may pick up this book, it’s EbonyJanice (Ebony Juh-nees), NOT Janis like Joplin or Mean Girls, it’s also the WHOLE NAME, please, like “A Tribe Called Quest” or “A Pimp Named Slick Back,” one name, whole name, NOT “Janice,” “Juh-nees.”
The Philosophy of Social Ecology, Murray Bookchin
Bookchin certainly has a way of making antagonistic assertions that often do seem to come from a white lens, despite his great effort to be objective, however his reinvention of Hegel and ethics do have great implications. I adore his definition of history, and I spend a considerable amount of time studying this piece of work, I believe I’ll be heavily impressed by him. I believe is theory is very relevant today. I think it’s a good read for anarchists or any rational autonomous human. I believe everyone can get a lot from it. There’s actually only one essay in here I just didn’t like, but to name drop a few I adore, “History, Civilization, and Progress: Outline for a Criticism of Modern Reflectivism,” “A Philosophical Naturalism,” (actually is my favorite for all it’s trans applications) “Freedom and Necessity in Nature: A Problem in Ecological Ethics” (also lots of trans applications). I hope people give it a read. I’m still working through his Ecology of Freedom but have stopped just to revisit and mull over The Philosophy of Social Ecology.
In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love
My last recommendation is a compilation of conversations with my favorite academic, Joy James. Boy, if I could sit and talk with her a few hours… though what I got to do was witness her through this book in conversation with others. Her nuanced look at the Black Power movement, her captive maternal theory, her openness as an academic to cede space to revolutionaries/prisoners to truly allow us to lead an abolitionist movement, her dedication to standing on her beliefs and morals despite academia and her truth telling about being an academic with radical politics, NOT a revolutionary, is all awesome to me. There’s so much I wish I could talk to her about personally, I will admit since you’re free and have internet, you could just listen to the conversations and not buy the book, but uh it’d be a lot cooler if you did… buy the book that is, lol.
Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings, Ghassan Kanafani, edited by Louis Brehony and Tahrir Hamdi
I would be remiss if I did NOT recommend this. I just couldn’t think of a category for it, but I guess since these ARE conversations, I can go with essayists since I forced Joy James in here. Despite the fact that I am only halfway through, I want to still recommend him, given the ongoing struggle for Palestinians. I believe keeping those that came before relevant and learning what they know is important for the movement, as of course, Palestinian liberation is liberation for us all. In addition, we keep our revolutionaries alive through their words reverberating and their memory. Kanafani is prolific and this compilation of writings and interviews is of course all of my recommends, worth the read. From the river to the sea, long live the people and revolutionaries we see. Love, Rage, and solidarity, RIP Kanafani.
Bones Material
Bones Material to grab and study/keep starts with “Medicinal Plants of the Pacific Northwest.” Any who know Olamina or read the Parables, well… you know it’ll be advantageous to have lol. I’m keeping and studying this till I get out and can put it to use.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, which I love, I just like his writing in general.
Scary Monsters by Michelle de Krester, it’s a two part book, very nicely written, I heard about it on NPR, got it, but only really liked one part. But her expression on the immigrant experience in the past then a dystopia we’re headed for feels so accurate and relevant to now. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice series by Laurie R. King, if you like Sherlock Holmes like I did as a kid, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is so good. I must say the fact that he’s like 50 when he falls for a 21 y/o who he met young, like 15, as she started working for him, feels SO predatory. But still very well written.