Our Library

I am an avid reader and book collector. Our home library includes 1,500+ hardcover and paperback nonfiction books from 1780 to the Present. You can explore our catalogue on LibraryThing here. Our library strengths include (in no order):

Self-Determination, Ethnic and Separatist Conflicts: A strong area of interest for me is the right of peoples to self-determination and its application in ethnically contested regions. Our collection includes books on Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), Chechnya, Somaliland, the Falklands Islands, the Chagos Islands, Ogaden, Oromia, Western Sahara, South Sudan, East Pakistan (Bangladesh), Darfur, Transnistria, Northern Cyprus, Eritrea, Palestine, East Timor, Kosovo, West Papua (West Irian), Balochistan, Biafra, Kashmir, New Caledonia, and more. In September 20222, I published my own book on the Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Books Published in the USSR: My wife and I own a large number of books published in the USSR. Many of them were once a part of the library of the Socialist Party of Australia, the Moscow line breakaway from the Communist Party of Australia. I take great pride in preserving the ideological and historical legacy of the USSR, the world’s first socialist republic.

Central Asia and Afghanistan: The five Central Asian republics — Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, in that order — and Afghanistan have been a source of interest to me since I was a child. Few regions of the world have such a diverse historical legacy in such a short period. Since 1900, the five Central Asian republics have transitioned from rival feudalistic emirates on the periphery of the tsarist empire, to developed socialist republics with living standards comparable to Western Europe, and finally to capitalist states ruled by megalomaniac dictators. Afghanistan since 1900 achieved independence from Britain in 1919 after the Third Anglo-Afghan War, was ruled by a feudal monarch from 1926 until becoming a republic in 1973, experienced a socialist revolution in 1978 and a U.S.-sponsored counterrevolution with devastating long-term consequences, became a fundamentalist Islamic state in the 1990s, was illegally occupied by the U.S. and other Western states for 20 years, and is now once again an Islamic fundamentalist state. What incredible history!

Socialist/Anti-Colonial/Anti-Imperialist Revolutions and Wars of Liberation: This is closely related to the first section on ethnic and secessionist conflicts. Many revolutionary struggles have been fought by colonial and subject peoples. Our collection includes books on revolutionary struggles in Algeria, Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Kenya, East Timor, Palestine, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Balochistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Russia, Yugoslavia, Ireland, etc.

Communists, their Parties, and their Countries: As Marxist-Leninists, it should come as no surprise that our collection includes several books on various communist leaders, their parties, and their countries. Our collection includes books about Communist parties, leaders or movements in the U.S., Canada, India, South Africa, Cuba, China, the USSR, Greece, Spain, Nepal, Iraq, Sudan, Japan, Ireland, etc.

Labour Movement: You can’t improve the world without knowing the struggles that came before. As a working-class couple, our aim is the overthrow of capitalism, the end to wage slavery, and for a socialist future. Our collection includes books about working-class struggles for better wages and working conditions, the right to unionize, the 8-hour day, etc., and the leaders (or misleaders) that led them.