Shami Chakrabarti picks her favourite books

The politician, lawyer and human rights activist chooses her favourite polemics. Her most recent book, "Human Rights: The Case for the Defence", is out now in paperback.

With the Law on Our Side

Brenda Hale, 2025
The "Spider Woman" – former president of the UK Supreme Court – rides again in this uniquely comprehensive and accessible explanation of our court system and lawmaking processes. From lowly benefits tribunals to the highest courts in the land, Hale shows why access to justice matters for everyone.

Keep Left

Edited by Pauline Bryan, 2025
Scotland is one of my favourite places in the world, and I have many memories of reading, writing and discussing politics there. This timely collection of essays (coming 50 years after a young Gordon Brown's original Red Paper) offers idealism, practical policy and hope.

Pigeonholed: Creative Freedom as an Act of Resistance

Gary Younge, 2025
The elegantly published pamphlet version of the inaugural Faber Lecture features the voice of one of the greatest living writers on race in the English language. Now in the middle years of a distinguished career in letters, the James Baldwin of our generation grapples with his own thought-leadership burden.

The Transgender Issue

Shon Faye, 2021
No vaguely thoughtful or literate cisgendered person should dream of wading into the tragically toxic culture war currently being waged on trans people in the UK without reading this powerful account of so much of their lived experience.

Is Democracy Possible Here?

Ronald Dworkin, 2006
The late great legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin was an enormous influence on my thinking as a young human rights lawyer and campaigner. This accessible polemic from the earlier days of the War on Terror is worth revisiting in our current terrifying moment. His eloquent wisdom endures.

Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop on 020 3176 3835