The Public Reading Rooms

Marx and the credit crunch Public Meeting
Tuesday October 21st
7pm Conway Hall, Red Lion Square

Istvan Meszaros, author of Beyond Capital
Chris Harman, editor, International Socialism journal
Richard Brenner, author of The Credit Crunch - a Marxist Analysis

A global credit crunch. Banks collapsing. Prices soaring. Recession looming.
Conventional economic theory appears to have no coherent explanation.
Government stumps up hundreds of billions to rescue the
bankers - and demands that working people's pay be held down and
spending cut on public services.
At this meeting, three Marxist writers examine the roots of this
great crisis in the nature of capital itself. Tracing the current
crisis to its origins, they show how workers can resist paying the
price for a crisis they never made, and set out the case for
systemic change.

Bring your friends.

Public Access Catalogue
We are developing an on-line catalogue of our collection of forgotten pamphlets and seminal books. To see all items in the catalogue click Search without entering any search terms.

New Book
We are pleased to announce that the third issue of Icteric - 'the supercession of art' has now been published by the PRR. It is printed in full colour in a limited edition of 100 copies. We have priced the booklet at £3 plus £1 p&p.

New DVD
Also available is our second publication which a dvd of Naomi Klein's launch of her recent book on disaster capitalism. The dvd includes her talk at the Friends Meeting House together with an interview conducted at the PRR offices. The run time is 115 minutes and has been professionally shot and edited. We are offering a limited number of copies at £5 plus £1 p&p.

If you like to order either or both please makes cheques out to 'the public reading rooms' and send to PRR 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX. Or order thorugh the website - www.andrewburgin.com

Exhibition and Conference 2009
We are preparing an exhibition and a conference on the Miners Strike of 1984/5. Called 'The Enemy Within - the Miners Strike and its Aftermath' The exhibition and conference will examine the contemporary importance of the strike and therefore its relevance for today's struggles. Please let malcolm@andrewburgin.com know if you want to be involved in the preparations for this event which will take place in May 2009.

The Public Reading Rooms - Aims and Objectives

"The true, greatly misunderstood collector is always anarchistic, destructive. For this is its dialectics: to combine with loyalty to an object, to individual items, to things sheltered in his care, a stubborn subversive protest against the typical, the classifiable" - Walter Benjamin

At the end of August 2008 the Porcupine Bookcellar in Kings Cross cwas closed.. In its place arose The Public Reading Rooms. It will have the following objectives:

1] This will be a project which will archive and document the many lost causes and small movements which litter our collective existence. The material covered will be pamphlets, books, magazines, badges, photographs and posters. Areas archived will include: the situs, underground newspapers, fanzines, the sixties, class war, solidarity, anarchy, left communism, conscientious objection, Maoism in England, rock against racism, Peter Kennard, Clifford Harper, deviant trotskyism, Walter Benjamin, radical feminism, squatting, Frank Zappa, lesbian
separatism and the 1970s mens movement and many others.

2] Together with PM Press from the States we will publish short runs of books magazines and posters. Our first publication is the third issue of Icteric - a political/art/anti-art journal whose first two issues were published in the mid 1960s.

3] A cinema club - in alliance with the Rochester Film Salon we will show a series of interesting and unusual films with a discussion element.

4] Regular events, parties and an annual conference in association the with South Place Ethical Society at Conway Hall. The first Public Reading Rooms conference was the May 68 event on May 10th 2008.

5] Outreach lectures to schools and colleges - to spread the word on the subjects that concern us.

6] A website which will archive the oral history of these movements - with interviews and film.

The archive will be a legal entity controlled on a trustee basis and will hold open monthly meetings.

The following are sponsors of the PRR:

Nina Power / philosopher
Jan Byrne / fine art ceramicist
Paul Flewers / Cold war warrior
David Wilson / Playwright
Amanda Sebestyen / Explorer
Nick Rochford / Compendium
Alan Woodward / Workers Council Socialist
Peter Kennard / Artist
Dave Chapple / Chair National Shop Stewards Network
Pete Green / Economist
Ian Bone / Class Warrior
Anna Hunt / Artist
Craig Liddle / Father
Ron Heisler / Polymath
Paul Stott / Class War
Nick Heath / Veteran anarchist
John Rudge / Credit cruncher
Esther Leslie / Benjaminite
Barry Buitekant / Councillor
Bill Hetherington / Conscientious Objector
Ben Watson / Zappatist
Keith Flett / sec London socialist historians
Ron Hunt / Icteric
Andrew Whitehead / Archivist
John Plant / Revolutionary History
Chris Bertoud / Spoon Unit
Marg Nicol / Photographer
Sara Brown / Psychotherapist
Andy Meinke / Statistician
Malcolm Hopkins / Tumbling Man
Leila Kassir / Librarian
John McAllister / Accountant
Andrew Burgin / Catastrophist

and many others

Membership of the PRR is open to all and comes at £10 a year or £100 for life membership. Please contact us for further information - at PRR@andrewburgin.com.