Funny enough, I found reading Towards a New Socialism to be helpful in understanding the first 3 chapters of Capital. The authors clearly explain socially necessary labor, which if you get it then you can handle Capital but if you can’t you’ll struggle).
However, I cannot mention TANS without mentioning that Paul Cockschott is a MASSIVE turbo-TERF and despite co-authoring a good book, he gets reeducation then the wall if the reeducation doesn’t stick.
For those who happen to read this, I’d like to add to @star_wraith 's comment that Paul Cockshot also has a great youtube-channel . I’d advise to anyone to watch his videos explaining how the labour theory of value works, and why the the neoclassical subjective theory of value (which is used in basically all of mainstream economics) is wrong: video 1, video 2 , video 3, video 4.
He also has some videos on climate change which are absolutely brilliant. One , two.
His stuff on the evolution from hunter-gatherers to slave economies and feudal systems is also great, just as all his stuff on thermodynamics.
