BOOKS. Discussion. Politics. Conway Hall on Tuesday November 17 should be packed, as the relaunched Left Book Club (LBC) starts with a debate — something that was at the heart of the original — “Can Corbyn’s Labour be a movement for radical change?”

As with our predecessor started by Victor Gollancz in the 1930s, we’re about what reading empowers: thinking and discussion.

That the new LBC has been built at the same time as — although independent from — Jeremy Corby’s leadership campaign is significant. Something is challenging the same old politics that have mired us in austerity, with war just over the horizon.

The original LBC (1936-48) became a mass movement. With 57,000 members at its peak, two million books distributed and 1,200 workplace and local reading groups (which didn’t just read but hiked, went to the theatre and engaged in solidarity work, for instance with Spain).

It changed political consciousness amongst the working class, helped form the welfare state and even helped us defeat nazism. The mind-widening effect of reading and most importantly discussion brought a collectivity absent in today’s screen-staring and online reading, and we want to re-establish the pleasures of the culture of reading and discussion. For that’s what changes things. We, with our partner Pluto Press, are publishing four political titles a year, to be sent to subscribers for just £40.

The world today faces a crisis on the scale of the 1930s, with capitalism trapped by the dominance of finance over production and austerity programmes causing suffering, shrinking demand and widening social inequalities tearing apart the social fabric.

International relations are increasingly tense and militarised — especially in the Middle East and eastern Europe — with the push for markets and danger of war. Fascism and racism is seen as a solution by many across much of Europe. Then there is global warming!

All sounds a bit much for a book, no? But an informed overview of what is happening, and why, is vital. “Educare” is Latin for “to lead out.” And discussion with others is one of the best cures for melancholia and the atomisation that has removed so many people from collective action. Yet of course that action does exist. The last decade has seen huge levels of participation in street protest, implying a mass audience for progressive policies. One of neoliberalism’s aims has been to undermine ideas of solidarity, collective provision and public service that were “in the tea” during Gollancz’s LBC.

So we are an integral part of the movement putting socialist ideas back in the pot. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, the Momentum movement, our trade unions, the Greens — all form part of this fightback. And this is what we’ll be discussing on Tuesday. The Left Book Club is non-sectarian, with a broad church of directors from various left political traditions.

Our first title — Syriza: Trapped in the labyrinth by Kevin Ovenden (a fine, on-the-spot account of the struggle in Greece) has just been published — with the next three in the pipeline.

Next up is Being Red: A Politics for the Future by and about Ken Livingstone. This will be followed by books on the housing crisis and austerity. Our lists will represent a full range of progressive traditions, perspectives and ideas. It will also include reprints of classic texts where appropriate.

So please, come to the launch, hear what Kate Hudson, Kevin Ovenden, Neil Faulkner, Ken Livingstone, Kevin Maguire — and I — have to say about whether Jeremy’s Labour can be a mass movement for radical change. And, crucially, have your say too.

Please subscribe — it’ll be the best £40 you’ve ever spent and maybe one of the best presents you ever gave.

• Jan Woolf is chair of the Left Book Club. www.leftbookclub.com

• Can Corbyn’s Labour become a mass movement for radical change? Will be debated at the inaugural Left Book Club discussion at 7pm on Tuesday November 17 at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Suggested donation £5 or £3.