Feature: the inspiration that makes for knowledge: relaunching the left book club

Formed in 1936 by publisher Victor Gollancz, the Left Book Club (LBC) published books on a monthly basis to be read and discussed at groups staged across the UK. Despite reaching a peak membership of 57,000 in 1939 and releasing 257 titles including George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, the movement ultimately dwindled by 1948. However, in 2015 Jan Woolf and Neil Faulkner instigated the relaunch of the Left Book Club in collaboration with Pluto Press. Following the publication of the first title Syriza: Inside the Labyrinth by Kevin Ovenden, LSE RB managing editor Rosemary Deller met with Woolf and Faulkner to discuss the past and present incarnations of the Left Book Club.