Radical Book Club

Radical Book Club was the museum’s first book club, devoted to radical reading.

Radical books and authors encourage readers to become aware of current societal challenges or inequalities and to contemplate alternative futures. The selected titles are those that have inspired, or encouraged, movements for structural, cultural or environmental change by highlighting and challenging conventions and norms embedded in society. conventions and norms embedded in society.

The program saw a remarkable coalescence of readers coming together to critically engage in conversations exploring past and present issues of migration, identity, decolonisation, climate change and capitalism. The book club provided an open platform for critical thinking and discussion around these themes on a monthly basis.

Radical Book Club ran consecutively across 2021-2024 and was facilitated by Nanette Orly, Senior Curator, Murray Art Museum Albury. The complete list of titles are included below to inspire future readers.

2021

• January
  The Yield (2019) by Tara June Winch
• February
  Decolonising Solidarity: Dilemmas and Directions for Supporters of Indigenous Struggles (2015) by Clare Land with a foreword by Dr Gary Foley
• March
  The End of Policing (2017) by Alex S. Vitale
• April
  Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (2017) by Reni Eddo-Lodge
• May
  No Country Woman: A Memoir of Not Belonging (2018) by Zoya Patel
• June
  Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined (2019) by JJ Bola
• July
  Gender Trouble: Feminism and Subversion of Identity (1990) by Judith Butler
• August
  Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century (2020) edited by Alice Wong
• September
  Talkin’ Up to the White Woman (2000) by Aileen Moreton-Robinson
• October
  The Hate Race (2016) by Maxine Beneba Clarke
• November
  Women, Race and Class (1981) by Angela Y. Davis
• December
  Dark Emu (2014) by Bruce Pascoe

2022

• February
  The White Possessive (2015) by Aileen Moreton-Robinson
• March
  The Right to Sex (2021) by Amia Srinivasan
• April
  The Atlas of AI (2021) by Kate Crawford
• May
  Sister Outsider (1984) by Audre Lorde
• June
  Hunger (2017) by Roxane Gay
• July
  The Body Keeps The Score (2014) by Bessel Van Der Kolk
• August
  Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future (2021) by Elizabeth Kolbert
• September
  Talking To My Country (2016) by Stan Grant
• October
  This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism (2016) by Ashton Applewhite
• November
  All About Love (2000) by bell hooks

2023

• February
  Freedom is a Constant Struggle (2016) by Angela Y. Davis
• March
  Too Much Lip (2018) by Melissa Lucashenko
• April
  Border Nation: A Story of Migration (2021) by Leah Cowan
• May
  The Fire Next Time (1963) by James Baldwin
• June
  Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency (2020) by Olivia Laing
• July
  Fire Country (2020) by Victor Steffensen
• August
  Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World (2022) by Jonathan Crary
• September
  We Come With This Place (2022) by Debra Dank
• October
  Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto (2022) by Beatrice Adler-Bolton
• November
  On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019) by Ocean Vuong

2024

• February
  Justice for Some (2020) by Noura Erakat
• March
  Orientalism (1978) by Edward W. Said
• April
  Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020) by Isabel Wilkerson
• May
  Capitalist Realism (2009) by Mark Fisher
• June
  Blockchain Chicken Farm (2020) by Xiaowei Wang
• July
  The Nerves and Their Endings (2022) by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson
• August
  Rivermouth (2023) by Alejandro Oliva
• September
  Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity (2023) by Ellen van Neerven
• October
  The Argonauts (2015) by Maggie Nelson
• November
  Cold Enough for Snow (2022) by Jessica Au