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Reading lists

Books and resources to help you navigate the 2024 UK general election 

Caroline Lucas

This is not just an inspiring, nuanced and deeply literate book, but that rarest of things &ndash; a necessary one.

I love Caroline Lucas taking her own independent-minded journey into finding a better political future for England through its mythical and literary past.

Another England is a visionary book, and it&rsquo;s also written in the clearest, plainest, and most eloquent prose . . . The author&rsquo;s awareness of the complex fullness of our history is steeped in the language and the landscape, and she sees all the more clearly because of it. I was profoundly impressed.

PHILIP PULLMAN, author of His Dark Materials

Insightful, inspiring and highly readable, in this book Caroline Lucas invites us to ask ourselves a long overdue question: what type of country do we actually want to be?

Deft and wonderfully poetic . . . A fascinating and thoughtful reflection on one of the most fraught and important issues of our time.

GRACE BLAKELEY, author of Vulture Capitalism

Timely, passionate and perceptive . . . Another England tells a new story about England and Englishness, and sets out the possibility for a progressive politics of land, place and nation. This is vital reading.

ROBERT MACFARLANE, author of Underland and The Lost Words

Caroline Lucas is a shining light of integrity and values-based politics . . . This is a clarion call to define England and Englishness as our common ground, and a grounding for a transformation of politics and society.

KATE PICKETT, co-author of The Spirit Level

An urgent, vital book for our fractured nation . . . By showing us the alternatives in our past, Caroline points to alternatives in our future . . . stories that must be heard more urgently than ever.

NICK HAYES, author of The Book of Trespass

Essential and magnificent. This book fills a yawning gap, showing how we can create the progressive and inclusive sense of Englishness this country so urgently needs.

A progressive vision of the country&rsquo;s literary and cultural history from the trailblazing MP . . . [Offers] much needed crumbs of hope for the future.

Uncomfortably honest and true . . . Another England is a book we need at this critical time when so much seems lost, when we have become so divided, and so hopeless.

MICHAEL MORPURGO, former Children’s Laureate

Progressives have for too long treated the idea of an English national identity as an embarrassment, allowing the Right to create and exploit a narrow and chauvinistic version of collective belonging. In this vivid and invigorating book, Caroline Lucas shatters these distorting mirrors and reveals a much more interesting and complex picture of Englishness . . . Engaging, illuminating and ultimately uplifting.

FINTAN O’TOOLE, author of Heroic Failure

Another England makes the compelling case that progressives need not shy away from talk of Englishness. Eloquent and persuasive, it offers a powerful new perspective on how we might make our national stories fit for the twenty-first century.

JON SNOW, former Channel 4 News presenter

Caroline Lucas brilliantly draws together the narrative threads of our national stories to define some clear blue water between the British state and an England capable of being inclusive and forward looking, while at the same time bearing the weight of its own history.

We can make England brutal or beautiful. To understand the choice and how we make the right one together, read Another England, a wonderful and timely book on the country we can still be.

In Another England, Caroline Lucas sets out to start a conversation about &lsquo;what it means to be English&rsquo;. As such, it provides a remarkably inspiring foundation for such a conversation . . . I absolutely loved it.

JONATHON PORRITT, former leader of the Green Party

Poetic and clear-sighted, romantic and analytical, principled and open-minded. There&rsquo;s no other politician quite like Caroline Lucas . . . She's dug into the soil of England to find a progressive patriotic vision for the twenty-first century. What she discovers is profound, hopeful and radical. A brave and vital book.

IAN DUNT, author of How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn’t

Combines a love of English literature and its role in telling the story of England with what's gone wrong in politics . . . A very interesting book.

While patriotism might now provoke connotations of empire or Brexit, the former Green Party leader offers a different outlook by drawing on some more joyful aspects of the nation&rsquo;s past. A perfect read for a divided Britain.

Not just another book by another politician; if only more departing MPs would write about Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton (1848) and John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes (1953) . . . Lucas’s strength as a writer—and perhaps also as a politician—is her fierce reasonableness.

Rather than toss out the national story, Lucas reads a more radical one between the lines . . . She cleverly deploys Elizabeth Gaskell, John Clare and Charles Dickens to demonstrate that a culture can be diverse and coherent, innovative and rooted; many stories told in one beautiful language. Blending art with political analysis, Lucas writes far more forcibly than authors of Left and Right who think a nation is defined entirely by its constitutional order, or that if the party they happen to support isn’t in power, England is lost for good.

A lucid insight into the ways the English might cultivate an inclusive ‘national story’. . . . Lucas’ intervention is not only timely, but also imperative . . . Lucas’ evaluation of how we might foster a progressive Englishness is a far more honest, balanced and just approach to nationhood than we see elsewhere in the mainstream political sphere . . . The creation of a collective English story, which stands to represent and benefit all, relies on an open conversation between multiple texts authored by writers of various identities and experiences of the nation. Another England is a valuable contribution to this vital discussion and makes clear the progressive change that can be achieved by championing an Englishness characterised by inclusiveness, solidarity and dissent.

Deftly marries the political and the literary . . . Another England is idealistic, naive and freewheeling, as urgent and lively books often are. I loved it.

Whatever your politics, former Green leader Caroline Lucas’s musings on Englishness and national identity are fascinating and provocative.

An alternative vision of England to the jingoistic and aggressive one conjured up by culture war squabbles . . . Another England is possible? Well, let’s hope she’s right.

How to Reclaim Our National Story

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'A visionary book' Philip Pullman 
'Essential and magnificent' George Monbiot 
'Deft and wonderfully poetic' Grace Blakeley 
 
The Right have hijacked Englishness. Can it be reclaimed? 
 
Today, the only people who dare speak of Englishness are cheerleaders for Brexit, exceptionalism and imperial nostalgia. But there is another England, hiding in plain sight, which is dramatically more inclusive and forward looking. Here, Caroline Lucas delves deep into England's literary history to sketch out alternative stories of who we are - ones that we can all embrace to build a greener, fairer future. 
 
'Not just an inspiring, nuanced and deeply literate book, but that rarest of things – a necessary one.' Jonathan Coe, author of Bourneville

Caroline Lucas

Praise for Another England

This is not just an inspiring, nuanced and deeply literate book, but that rarest of things – a necessary one.

I love Caroline Lucas taking her own independent-minded journey into finding a better political future for England through its mythical and literary past.

Another England is a visionary book, and it’s also written in the clearest, plainest, and most eloquent prose . . . The author’s awareness of the complex fullness of our history is steeped in the ...

This is not just an inspiring, nuanced and deeply literate book, but that rarest of things – a necessary one.

I love Caroline Lucas taking her own independent-minded journey into finding a better political future for England through its mythical and literary past.

Another England is a visionary book, and it’s also written in the clearest, plainest, and most eloquent prose . . . The author’s awareness of the complex fullness of our history is steeped in the ...

This is not just an inspiring, nuanced and deeply literate book, but that rarest of things – a necessary one.

I love Caroline Lucas taking her own independent-minded journey into finding a better political future for England through its mythical and literary past.

Another England is a visionary book, and it’s also written in the clearest, plainest, and most eloquent prose . . . The author’s awareness of the complex fullness of our history is steeped in the ...

Articles featuring Caroline Lucas

Books and resources to help you navigate the 2024 UK general election

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