11 for 2011
Tevi Troy ·
December 9, 2011 at 6:37pm
I do a weekly book segment on the Bill Bennett radio show, and they asked me to list my top books for 2011. It would be presumptuous for me to characterize any list as the best books of the year, as more than 200,000 books are published in the US annually, and only the most diligent readers reach the triple digits. (I read about 100 books a year, and unlike many Washingtonians, I do not claim to have read books when I have not done so.) I was, however, willing to give Bennett – and his Friday guest host, Seth Leibsohn – a list of favorite recent books that I read in 2011 (some were published in late 2010). Happy reading:
- Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff
- Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, Candice Millard
- In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, Erik Larson
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Laura Hillenbrand
- In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir, Dick Cheney , Liz Cheney
- The Fight of Our Lives: Knowing the Enemy, Speaking the Truth, and Choosing to Win the War Against Radical Islam, Bill Bennett and Seth Leibsohn
- Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan, Del Quentin Wilber
- Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College, Andrew Ferguson
- The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, David McCullough
- At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson
- The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy, Bill Carter
P.S. The books are in no particular order.
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Comments:
Dec '10
Re: 11 for 2011
I heard it this morning on the way to work and was hoping you'd post the list here especially since I got a $50 Amazon gift card yesterday and my kindle has no unread books in it at the moment. Thanks!
Re: 11 for 2011
King Prawn: Thanks for listening, and spend wisely. Very impressive that your kindle has no unread books in it.
Sep '11
Re: 11 for 2011
Can you say a bit more about In the Garden of Beasts? Why did you find it compelling?
Nov '11
Re: 11 for 2011
Washington Reader or not, what does it mean to have read a book? To have passed one's eyes over each of its words? Surely more than that . . . but how much more?
One hundred books a year is waaay too many, I think.
It's not possible--for a normal mind--to do justice to more than about twenty books a year, unless the books aren't much worth reading. It can't be healthy, mentally or physically, to read so many books, especially books written in one's own lifetime. (It seems like intellectual promiscuity and reminds me of Nietzsche's thoughts about excessive newspaper reading.)
Better to read less, slowly, stopping often to think about what one just read, stopping often to re-read what one just read, going back to re-read what one read a few days ago, going back to re-read the books one read many years ago.
The notion of "holiday reading" makes me grimace.
Oct '11
Re: 11 for 2011
If it's helpful, I read it at the time it showed up at Costco and found it fascinating and creepy - although not nearly as creepy as Devil in the White City, I'm glad to say. The ambassador (name not recalled) seemed so very much out of his depth in the early Nazi environment; his daughter was a complete piece of work, and I could just feel Doom creeping up out of his cave throughout the whole thing.
Oct '11
Re: 11 for 2011
Astonishing:
One hundred books a year is waaay too many, I think.
It's not possible--for a normal mind--to do justice to more than about twenty books a year, unless the books aren't much worth reading. It can't be healthy, mentally or physically, to read so many books, especially books written in one's own lifetime. (It seems like intellectual promiscuity and reminds me of Nietzsche's thoughts about excessive newspaper reading.)
Less healthy than, say, spending the equivalent time watching Jersey Shore? And his list only included eleven of the hundred claimed; maybe the other 89 came from the Greats.
I don't know about anyone else, but I generally have multiple books going at once - some I may have read before, some new, some thought-provoking, and some lightweight mind-candy. I don't see any problem at all with devouring a hundred or so in a given year.
Nov '11
Re: 11 for 2011
Kelly B
Astonishing:
One hundred books a year is waaay too many, I think.
It's not possible--for a normal mind--to do justice to more than about twenty books a year, unless the books aren't much worth reading. It can't be healthy, mentally or physically, to read so many books, especially books written in one's own lifetime. (It seems like intellectual promiscuity and reminds me of Nietzsche's thoughts about excessive newspaper reading.)
Less healthy than, say, spending the equivalent time watching Jersey Shore?
Well, okay, if that's the best alternative we can come up with . . .
Some others:
Less healthy than sticking a red hot poker in my ear?
Less healthy than swapping bloomers with Snookie?
Less healthy than . . . me?
Jan '11
Re: 11 for 2011
Mr. Troy,
I like the list. As a person who opens National Review to the back for Mark Steyn and Commentary to the back for Andrew Ferguson, I will take your recommendation. I'd been afraid that "Crazy U" was just a book-long comic anecdote. I'd loved "Land of Lincoln."
I can't say I agree with "Unbroken." Maybe that's because I believe that Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit" tells you more about what it means to be an American than any ten sociological studies, and "Unbroken" didn't measure up to that high standard.
By the way, a hundred books a year sounds fine to me. I manage 40-to-50 annually in my spare time and I'm a slow reader.
Thanks again.
Re: 11 for 2011
Thanks to Kelly B for answering the question on In the Garden of the Beasts. As for the number of books I read, which seems to have generated a fair bit of discussion, I decided a few years ago to be more disciplined about reading. The number one time management change I made was that I renounced channel surfing entirely. If my wife and I want to watch a specific show or movie, we do so. But I no longer surf with the remote to see if there is anything compelling on. This one change has helped me read many more books than I had been able to previously.