(Part 2) Top products from r/Marxism

There are a couple of 'strands' of Marx's thought which you might investigate. I can't comment too much on shorter introductions to the philosophical side, as I'm more familiar with (and interested in, for the moment) works the economic side. For this, I can recommend the following:

• A Short History of Socialist Economic Thought by Gerd Hardack, Dieter Karras, Ben Fine. It's all in the title :)
  
• David Harvey's excellent A Companion to Marx's Capital. This certainly isn't a short book, but Harvey is a terrific writer, and so the time flies. I would also point to and highly recommend the series of lectures on which this book is based. Of course, the lectures are hardly an exercise in brevity, but they are very good and worthwhile.
  
• Ernest Mandel's An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory is good. Read it online here. Any Mandel is very good. He is an incredible clear author, and he really knows Marxist thought inside out. For instance, I would also recommend Ernest Mandel's introduction to the Penguin edition of Capital (the introduction is a bit shorter than the whole book of Mandels that I've mentioned above) very nicely summarises the context of his economic thought, and gives an overview thereof.
  
• Yannis Varoufakis (the former finance minister of Greece) wrote a fantastic, more general introduction to economics and economic theory called Foundations of Economics: A beginner’s companion. While Varoufakis deals with economics as a whole, and discusses, for instance, Adam Smith and David Ricardo, this serves to very well position Marx within the economic milieu of his time. This is a recurring theme for a reason: to understand Marx, I believe that it's imperative to understand what drove Marx to ruthlessly critique capitalism.
  
• Finally, I'm not trying to be glib or conceited by suggesting The Marx-Engles Reader (2nd ed.), edited by Robert C. Tucker. This is the book that I used to start studying seriously the thought of Marx and Engels, after reading Singer's introduction. I recommend the book because it has (again) a wonderful introduction, the works that are presented are quite short, and each work has a solid introduction. This is a very good volume for seeing the trajectory and evolution of Marx and Engels's economic thought without having to dive into the larger works. The book even has a very heavily reduced version of Capital vol. I. This book also deals with the philosophy of Marx more heavily than the other works I've recommended here, as it contains a number of earlier philosophical works (including the Grundisse, which is practically the philosophical sister to Capital).
  
  I hope these will be useful, even if they aren't necessarily the aspect of Marx that you are most interested in.
  
  Edit: I should state that I am a philosopher of language, and so one doesn't need any especial economics expertise to dive into the texts that I've recommended! I certainly knew very little about the field before I read these texts.

First. I think we are in a similar boat! I research literature and cultural studies but have become much more interested in Marxism lately, since that's where my personal politics fall (in fact, Raymond Williams specifically sent me toward Marxism). I have had to do a lot of background research and I have a few things to mention. I've done a lot of reading of Marx, Engels and Lenin. I do a lot of work in postcolonial theory, and there are some good texts that criticize postcolonialism from a materialist perspective I found specifically helpful. (LMK if that is something that interests you and I can name a few, but they're pretty specific).

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First, I think this might be a good book for what you're looking for, though I haven't read it yet:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0141983485/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_5?smid=A3MLGQ1VC2HHW2&psc=1

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Second, I'd suggest a few podcasts:

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Proles of the Round Table and Revolutionary Left Radio both have a TON of excellent episodes that look at different historical events and schools of thought (Rev Left is especially good for this, and is possibly my favorite podcast going rn).

Also, Dead Pundits Society is another decent podcast and is more theory focused. This one, as I recall, went through state theory quite closely and in the process ends up giving a wide breadth of names and schools:

https://soundcloud.com/deadpundits/ep-31-part-1-make-state-theory-great-again-w-rafael-khachaturian

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David McLellan's commentary/anthology, The Thought of Karl Marx is arguably the best short one volume approach to Marx.

> This text provides the basic elements necessary for a grasp of the range and complexity of Marx's ideas. The first half of the book is a chronological account of Marx's ideas with a miniumum of biographical and historical detail. The second half is thematic and provides a concise summary of Marx's position, and extracts from his key texts on alienation, historical materialism, labour, class, the party, the state, revolution and future Communist society.

McLellan also wrote the most widely read biography of Karl Marx, and an all-you-need anthology.

When you feel ready to start reading about Marxism (as opposed to the works and ideas of Karl Marx), McLellan has a good overview in Marxism after Marx.

>No it was aimed at petite bourgeois idiots in America the biggest market for books written in English.

I don't know why you feel the need to contradict me on this. The quotes below prove it.

Below is excerpted from the Foreword to the American Paperback Edition 1956 The Road to Serfdom After 12 Years. It is Chapter 15, p216 in the collection Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics

>"This book might in some respects have been different if I had written it in the first instance with American readers primarily in mind. It has by now made for itself too definite, if unexpected, a place in this country to make any rewriting advisable."

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>"The book was written in England during the war years and was designed almost exclusively for English readers. Indeed, it was addressed mainly to a very special class of reader in England. It was in no spirit of mockery that I dedicated it 'To the socialists of All Parties'. It has it's origin in many discussion which, during the preceding ten years, I had with friends and colleagues whose sympathies had been inclined towards the left, and it was in continuation of those arguments that I wrote The Road to Serfdom".

As for Orwell, he wrote a positive review of The Road to Serfdom, agreeing with Hayek on his diagnosis, but disagreeing with him on his cure..

>.In the negative part of Professor Hayek’s thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often – at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough – that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of.

Some books on Marxism and technology that I really like:

• Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism (1999)
  
• Cyber-Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex (2015)
  
• Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (2016)
  
• Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation (1986)
  
  Peter Frase is a Marxist theorist who writes a lot about technology, i.e. check out the debates about technology and working-class struggle like this essay where he debates some other leftists
  
  Check out "Ours to Master"--Jacobin Magzine, Issue 17, Spring 2015, which is an issue on technology and socialism.

Understanding Marxism by Richard Wolff