Michael Heinrich has written a companion book for the first seven chapters (he also recommends starting with chapter 1): “How to Read Marx’s Capital”. I found it be very helpful. There’s also a podcast called “Reading Capital with Comrades” by Derek Ford and Liberation School that’s excellent.

There are two recommendations I make to people reading it for the first time. 1.) Always try to keep in mind that Marx is describing capitalism; discussions about how all this might apply to communism are left out. I think some readers try and read into how Marx’s analysis fits in with communism, and while that’s a useful discussion later on I think it just makes things a bit more confusing early on. Just focus on how he’s trying to show how capitalism works.

2.) In Marx’s time, the working class were largely paid for a day’s work. This is pretty uncommon now; typically we are either paid hourly or a monthly or annual salary. But back then it didn’t really matter if you worked 10 hours or 16 in a day, you would still get paid the same £X per day. This doesn’t actually change the analysis but it can get confusing especially in the sections where the length of the working day are being analyzed.