Personally just getting into this myself.
I think the best way to start now is actually with Cockshott's How the World Works, which basically is a contemporary materialist re-elaboration combining physics with anthropology and into history.
Seems a better place to start than Towards a New Socialism (TANS), which probably can come after. Other works of his seem more geared to strengthening the TANS thesis, i.e. Economic Planning in an Age of Climate Crisis.
