I didn't join the revolution to read

Weirdly, none of the 80 books on the reading list will actually be by Marx himself

Why is that weird? Marx wrote in the 1800s, quite a few things have happened since then.

Because he’s the M in ML

Marx was a social scientist, not a prophet. Marxism is a science, not a dogma. Marx’s work should be studied, I feature his works in my basic Marxist-Leninist study guide, but that does not mean that Marx’s words are holy. Marxist concepts have been extended and explained in ways more applicable to contemporary times, retaining Marxism as the foundation and applying it to present, ever-changing conditions. It’s this flexibility and evolution of Marxism that turns it into a science, rather than a dogma.