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A Year of Reading
The slow-news time betwixt Christmas and New Year’s Day was created by media conglomerates to publish thousands of “Best Of” lists. I stink at creating them since I’ve always had a years-long backlog of music, movies, and books that I haven’t quite gotten around to. To remedy this, for books at least, a few of years ago I decided to read at least one book a month. Granted, that’s far below the number consumed by my bookworm friends, but gimme a break — my job consists of reading the internet non-stop and my old eyes get tired.
I’ve decided to share my booklist with you, the highly literate Ricochet member. Here’s what I read in 2016, in order:
- Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy, Judd Apatow
- Don’t Thank Me All at Once: The Lost Pop Genius of Scott Miller, Brett Milano
- Coolidge, Amity Shlaes
- The Art of Peace, Morihei Ueshiba
- Why Is the World So Dangerous?, Herbert Meyer (booklet)
- A Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don’ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life, Charles Murray
- The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle, Steven Pressfield
- The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph, Ryan Holiday
- The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Have you read it yet? You really must.)
- People’s Republic, Kurt Schlichter
- Based on a True Story, Norm MacDonald
- The Haçienda: How Not to Run a Club, Peter Hook
- Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig
- Substance: Inside New Order, Peter Hook
- Almost Interesting, David Spade
Not only did I hit my book a month goal, I blew by it with 15 titles total. Granted, three of them were super short, but the Dostoyevsky more than made up for that. Three were about the inner workings of comedy, three about music, three about politics, two fiction, and four were philosophy/self-help.
Now I want to know: What books did you read this year? Any I should add to my 2017 list?
Published in General, Literature
So you read the Brothers Karamazov. You grand old Inquisitor you.
Yes, and Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground. Both are must reads as well.
Master and Man, a novella by Leo Tolstoy.
Interior Castle, a non-fiction book on spirituality by St. Theresa of Avila.
To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee.
Prayer for Beginners, a non-fiction book of devotion by Peter Kreeft.
The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times, a non-fiction book by Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B.
White Fang, a novella by Jack London.
Saint Dominic, a biography by Sr. Mary Jean Dorcy, O.P.
The Book of Psalms, KJV and Ignatius RSV Translations.
Learning the Virtues That Lead You to God, a non-fiction book of Christian devotion by Romano Guardini.
First Letter to the Corinthians, an epistle from the New Testament by St. Paul the Apostle in both the KJV and Ignatius RSV translations.
Silence, a novel by Shūsaku Endō.
Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, a novel by Thomas Mann.
Two Gentlemen from Verona, a play by William Shakespeare.
And a bunch of short stories and shorter things.
Silence, Master and Man, and Buddnebrooks are great novels. I also think highly of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Okay, I’ll bite. Here’s a selected list. Note that some are re-reads:
Night Solders – Alan Furst
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
World Gone By – Dennis Lehane (can’t recommend this series enough!)
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
Nitro Mountain – Lee Clay Johnson (you will feel like you need to go to confession when you are done)
All Over But the Shoutin’ – Rick Bragg
Animal Farm – George Orwell
A Kiss Before Dying – Ira Levin
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold – John Le Carre
Still soldiering on with the first volume of Churchill biography – Youth.
Other assorted light novels much too numerous to list, but rest assured they all have things like “Duke,” “Earl,” “Pleasure,” “Wedding,” “Rogue,” and “Rake” in the titles. That list is available on request for interested parties, with ratings.
Jon Gabriel, Ed.:
My year:
The ones in bold figured into my M.A. thesis, which I completed this fall (thankfully). Thesis was based on an idea I got while reading The Brothers Karamazov. Great novel!
A partial set of my reading list for 2016 can be found here. They are only the visible part of my reading iceberg, though.
I’d recommend any of them. (Actually I did.)
Seawriter
Whew, let’s see what I can remember. Being a college student, I read several books for class (and also didn’t read several books for class, but noone needs to know that…), so that’s going to pad my list a bit. But some that look like class books aren’t, since I’ve been trying these past years to brush up on my Western Canon and history in general.
Grand Strategies, Charles Hill (this was the Ricochet book club book for the year, I think)
Apollodorus’ Library
Works and Days, Hesiod
Metamorphoses, Ovid
Discourses, Machiavelli
The Prince, Machiavelli
The Dreamkeepers, Gloria Ladson-Billings
Revelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy, Merina Smith (Ricochet’s Own)
Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, Thomas Sowell
Make it Stick, Peter Brown
Science Matters, Robert Hazen
Outworlder, Joe Vasicek (novela)
I spent the first half of the year mostly rereading some old favorites and then buckled down and powered through two three volume sets that I had been planning for quite some time:
I did not count the 13 others that I listened to but I will mention two that I really enjoyed: Autobiography of Mark Twain – Volume 3 and Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. This latter one is very reminiscent of “Comrade Tulayev” in the list above.
As expected, you guys have far more impressive lists that I do!
Sci-Fi heavy, but the Washington bio and Gates memoir are very good.
Washington: A Life, Chernow, Ron
This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral, Leibovich, Mark
Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Gates, Robert M.
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, Mann, Charles C.
Wastelands II: More Stories of the Apocalypse, Adams, John Joseph
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, Adams, Scott
Golden Son (Red Rising, #2), Brown, Pierce
Red Rising (Red Rising, #1), Brown, Pierce
The Swarm (The Second Formic War, #1), Card, Orson Scott
Empty World, Christopher, John
Warrior King (Odyssey One, #5), Currie, Evan C.
Burning Chrome, Gibson, William
Count Zero (Sprawl, #2), Gibson, William
Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl, #3), Gibson, William
The Peripheral, Gibson, William
Virtual Light (Bridge, #1), Gibson, William
Idoru (Bridge #2), Gibson, William
All Tomorrow’s Parties(Bridge, #3), Gibson, William
Manhattan In Reverse, Hamilton, Peter F.
Solaris, Lem, Stanisław
The Cybernetic Samurai, Milán, Victor
Market Forces, Morgan, Richard K.
Thirteen, Morgan, Richard K.
Engineering Infinity, Strahan, Jonathan
Mutiny in Space, Walker, Rod
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, Warrick, Joby
Read You Shall Know Them by Vercors.
I have Coolidge, currently on top of a stack of books among my American history on top of my dresser. After I spend the first month or so of 2017 finishing several things I’m in, I look forward to reading it.
Take some time to read, “Supreme City” by Donald L. Miller. A “best of” from the taxed upon John Podhoretz in 2014, about the Jazz Age in New York City. It is basically several biographies that tell about 1920s New York from the people that lived it. Splendid!
Probably the best book I read this year was Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl.
I read 80 books last year, which isn’t bragging so much as admitting I need more to do with my life. Details and authors on request.
Fiction highlights include:
Crossing to Safety
Gone with the Wind
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Dream Life of Balso Snell
The Colour of Blood
The Group
The Seeds of Time
They Came Like Swallows
Prince of Darkness
Coup de Grace
Invisible Cities
and the whodunnits of Ngaio Marsh I hadn’t read.
Non-fiction highlights:
The Florentine Renaissance
Hour of the Women
The Cruelty of Heresy
The French Revolution (Hibbert)
Man’s Search for Meaning
Prague in Black and Gold
Sir Walter Scott (Buchan’s biography)
The Totalitarian Temptation
Shakespeare’s Religious Background
Coming Apart
Historians’ Fallacies
Shakespearean Tragedy
The Death of Tragedy
Literature Lost
A History of Christianity (Paul Johnson)
The Image of the City (essays by Charles Williams)
Homilies and Recreations (essays by John Buchan)
The Range of Reason (essays by Jacques Maritain)
Up from Communism
The Spartans
The Cloud of Unknowing
Literature Lost provided my favourite line of the year: ‘ordinarily, when we pick up a book we have not read, we assume we are about to become familiar with its content. Race-gender-class critics, however, seem to know in advance.’
I also read sections of books as research for a play I wrote about St Edmund Campion and Shakespeare. (And, speaking of research, anyone who knows anything about Dunstan Thompson is invited to get in touch).
In 2017 I really must read another presidential biography. Only thirty to go…
I watch too much TV. But I took a break from it this summer and read fiction: Seventeen of the “Aubrey/Maturin” seafaring novels, 5 or 6 of the Connelly “Bosch” novels, and a couple of the “Reacher” novels.
In hindsight, I may have been needing a shot of testosterone.
My 2016 reading list can be seen here, courtesy of Goodreads. I managed to read 27 books, all of which were non-fiction. As usual, military history dominated my reading list.
Happy new year to all! Best wishes. This will be an interesting way to see if my book reading really did take a dive this year. I had a chance to pack in a lot of reading during the summer then it kinda fell off. At least book reading did.
Democracy for Realists. Achen & Bartels
Acting White. Stuart Buck
Who’s Counting. John Fund
The War on Cops. Heather Mac Donald
Administrative Behavior. Herbert Simon
Crisis and Leviathan. Robert Higgs
What is Conservatism? Frank Meyer (editor).
The Robust Federation. Jenna Bednar
The War on Guns. John Lott Jr.
Liberty’s Nemesis. Reuter & Yoo
Relic. Howell & Moe
Congress. David Mayhew
Off the Books. Sudhir Venkatesh
And a few others.
We will see what this year holds!
Happy New Year, fellow readers. Loved reading your lists, but I gotta ask one thing:
Two Gentlemen of Verona? Doctor Faustus? ANTIGONE?
What would cause (some of) you to pick up a play to read for pleasure? (Theatre is my field and I’m just curious.)
The best I’ve read this year:
The Revenge of Geography – Robert Kaplan
Knife Fights: a Memoir of Modern War – John Nagl
Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity – Lendon
The Lost City: The Forgotten Virtues of Community in America – Ehrenhalt
Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism – Jim Steele
The Spartan Regime – Ricochet’s own Paul Rahe
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind – Julian Jaynes
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains – Nicholas Carr
Redemption: the Last Battle of the Civil War – Nicholas Lemann
The Liberators: My Time in the Soviet Army – Viktor Suvorov
The Hellenistic Age – Peter Thonemann
Fragile by Design: the Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit – Charles Calomiris
The War on Guns – John Lott
Protection or Free Trade – Henry George
Pearl Harbor : Warning and Debacle – Roberta Wohlstetter
Deep Survival: Who lives, Who Dies, and Why? – Laurence Gonzales
Venice: the Hinge of Europe – William McNeill
Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study in Total Power – Karl Wittfogel
Treasury’s War – Juan Zarate
Caucuses of 1860: a History of the National Political Conventions – Murat Halstead
Negros and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms – Nicholas Johnson
American Slavery, American Freedom – Edmund S Morgan
The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge – Matt Ridley
The Causes of the Civil War – Kenneth Stampp
The Secret War Against Hitler – William Casey
Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships – Mancur Olson
Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South – Grady McWhiney
Well, I really should have kept a list. My daughter does…but she is a reading fiend, and she is a college librarian, and writes a blog about books she reads. I, on the other hand, am an exhausted 4th grade teacher. So, I read a weird selection of books each year. In the summer…I read what I want—FINALLY! That is because I completed a master’s degree a couple of years ago (as an old lady) so I never have to get any more college degrees. I hope. So, during the summer, I can read a little for fun:
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (again for the umpteenth time…so good.)
John Adams by David McCullough
Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather
During the school year, I try to read aloud every day to my students, and when I read a novel, I like to read one by an author who has written other books of interest to nine-year olds so they’ll go looking in the library. Here are some novels:
Blue Willow by Doris Gates
The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
Hatchet by Gary Paulson
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Spear
The Good Master by Kate Seredy
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Betty Bao Lord
Okay, so I’ll read novels to them, chapter by chapter, but I also read picture books that are relevant to something that we’re doing in Social Studies or Science. If you’re learning about the Star Spangled Banner (as we do the week of Sept. 11 because the Battle of Baltimore was on Sept. 14th and I bring together the two events as times that our country was really worried because of attacks. Then, we write opinion essays about whether or not the Star Spangled Banner should remain our national anthem. It’s usually almost unanimous to keep it, once they learn the history) then you read:
By The Dawn’s Early Light by Steven Kroll
I don’t have room for all the picture books I read to my class. One author I use often is Tommy dePaola, since he has written so many fine, fine books. Also, I love to read the books from the Picture Book Biography series because there is such a variety of historical people.
But, for all of you out there fretting about the crummy education, or lack there-of, that today’s children are getting—I’m a little island of intense indoctrination about the joys of America, to love reading, and nature, and to honor veterans and the military, things that my dear students (who mostly speak other than English at home) should know. I mean, things that aren’t listed in my content standards, just life things that want them to know, and I manage to get it in as part of what I’m required to teach. I love my job! I love reading!
You should definitely look up FIERCE CONVICTIONS by Karen Swallow Prior, if you haven’t already.
It is about Hannah More. Good read! I hope to have Dr. Prior on my podcast next week.
Nick, have you read Joseph Pierce’s The Quest for Shakespeare? Fantastic read.
Shakespeare is a must read, especially for someone that is a lover of classic literature. I’ve got a goal to read through all 36 plays. I’ve now read 28. Great plays are a joy to read. It’s a faster read than a novel. But I have to admit that other than Shakespeare, I don’t read many other plays.
What a worthy goal! And yes, you’re right; great plays are a joy to read. Their brevity gives them a special immediacy and superb dialogue (like the Bard’s) gives us the ability to look into the human spirit that few other forms of literature can achieve. May fair winds speed your journey! (Just don’t leave Titus Andronicus until last. Yikes.)
Hmmm. I see three possibilities here. 1) The bestseller lists are wildly wrong as an indication of what people are actually reading. 2) Ricochet members are much more inclined than the general public to read history and literature, instead of mysteries, action, and horror (not a single cite to Stephen King, James Patterson, Tom Clancy, or Dean Koontz on this page). 3) Someone is padding his or her list with titles that are fancier than anything I have seen on an airport newsstand bookshelf.
As for me, these days I mostly read fluffy novels that are not worthy of being included on a list, but which do include Stephen King, James Patterson, Tom Clancy, and Dean Koontz.
We are more C. J. Box and Alan Furst types.
Seawriter
LOL, already read it. There’s an interesting film adaption out there set in the modern world I think.
A film of Titus? Double yikes. It was harrowing enough in Elizabethan ink on paper!
Hi, Glad you’re Fine,
Comfy, at-home reading of plays is for the poetry and the insights into human nature. On top of that, when I enjoy a teevee dramatization of a play (usually Shakespeare) I make haste to read or re-read the play afterwards, for unfailing appreciation of what the players and the director and the cameraman did with the script.
When I read a play without first seeing a performance, I’m absolutely pathetic at visualizing it. Subsequent viewings give all the more appreciation and admiration of theatrical skills.
This past year that cycle was with Twelfth Night, with the play, the Trevor Nunn production with Imogen Stubbs, and the BBC production with Felicity Kendall.