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Choosing Books for a Young Conservative
This is my son’s last free summer. Next year, he’ll be 16, when driving and working will distend the umbilicus connecting him to home. So, acting on a long-held, half-baked impulse, I’m going to spend this summer discussing books with him.
Since he never reads on his own the books I hand him, I’m reading the assignments right along with him. Here’s my (insanely) ambitious list:
- From Bauhaus to Our House (Tom Wolfe) completed
- The Abolition of Man (C.S. Lewis) current
- The Conservative Mind (Russell Kirk)
- Architecture: Form, Space and Order (Francis D. K. Ching)
- Poems: Wadsworth Handbook & Anthology (Main & Seng)
- Anatomy of Thatcherism (Shirley Robin Letwin)
- Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)
- From Dawn to Decadence (Jacques Barzun)
- Emotional Intelligence (Daniel Goleman)
- City Comforts (David Sucher)
- How the Irish Saved Civilization (Thomas Cahill)
- The Timeless Way of Building (Christopher Alexander)
- Introduction (W. H. Auden) to The Protestant Mystics (A. Fremantle)
- The Painted Word (Tom Wolfe)
- The Weight of Glory (C.S. Lewis)
- The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis)
- Leadership & Self-Deception (The Arbinger Institute)
I don’t expect to read every word of every book. Certainly, in the case of Kirk, Letwin, and Barzun (at least), I’ll select a few representative chapters.
What do you think of my list? What book by Roger Scruton should I add? Should we skip the Kirk and take our Burke straight-up? How about some Klingon poetry?
Published in General
Seriously though. What priceless gifts you are giving to your son: affirmation of his reading habit, time with his father, and working through the books and lessons together. Pretty fine example to us Dads out in Ricochet Land.
Fredosphere, your son has an interest in architecture?
(I’m wondering based on about 3 of the titles on the OP list.)
If so, he might enjoy J.E. Gordon’s classic “Structures: Or, Why Things Don’t Fall Down”
More…The Case for Democracy by Natan Sharansky and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass. Heck, I’ll even throw in My Grandfather’s Son by Clarence Thomas. (I’m not sure if it is even possible at this point but that last one might just lower one’s opinion of the current Vice President.)
These are good for anyone, of course. If your son is interested in writing, I would have a few more recommendations to add. I would particularly recommend the Kooser. It’s really not just about poetry, but ninety percent or more applies to all writing.
Great book and I have a personally autographed copy. As he was wielding the sharpie, the author wanted to know my favorite passages. He signed all three of them!
As long as you’re reading Tom Wolfe–and when should one not read Tom Wolfe?–consider adding I Am Charlotte Simmons to the list. Maybe not right now, depending on how…worldly he already is. But perhaps the summer before he heads to college…
If he has already read liberal fascism and tyranny then I suggest A Conflict of Visions by Tom Sowell. This book should be a must read for anybody that wants to be politically aware.
I’d suggest building up his reading of classics. Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare should be on his list. And Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur is a great read for teenage boys.
With Sowell, start with Basic Economics. (No, it isn’t a textbook, but it is delightful reading.)
Seawriter
Starship Troopers – for the action sure, but also for the interludes of History and Moral Philosophy.
I am squarely in the camp of read for fun and glean a little philospohy on the way
To that end, you also might want to consider the John Ringo series Live Free or Die, Citadel, and the Hot Gate. Michael Z Williamson’s Freehold series is pretty good too.
Seriously, though, your reading list reminds me of the curriculum required in the USAF’s School for Advanced Airpower Studies (SAAS), otherwise known as ‘The book a day club’ – is that what you are shooting for?
Son number 1 learned his conservatism via High School Debate – instead of advocating government actions to solve a problem, he would argue problem solutions from a libertarian perspective.
The Federalist Society has a long list of law/policy related books here –
http://www.fed-soc.org/resources/page/conservative-libertarian-pre-law-reading-list
I like Mark Hemingway’s suggestions. I’m also intrigued by the Hewitt book (In, But Not Of).
I second the suggestions turning him toward fiction, as the best will kindle an interest in the non-fiction behind it.
The Russians are good for high school temperaments. One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich. More Solzhenitsyn…for some reason, I loved Cancer Ward when I was a teenager (picked it up in my parent’s library). Crime and Punishment is also gripping (especially if ever you’ve truly betrayed a girl).
If he likes sci-fi there are many good suggestions above. I’ll add Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes from Bradbury and the Falkenberg’s Legion series by Jerry Pournelle. The Pournelle/Niven collaborations are (mostly) excellent: Lucifer’s Hammer, Mote In God’s Eye, Footfall.
OK, this is not a “conservative” book per se, but it is a book about a great (living) American, whose life and accomplishments are simply amazing. This is not literature, make no mistake, but it is a great, great read (you can knock it off real fast), and – I might add – largely forgotten. I was surprised how much I enjoyed reading this…. “Yeager, An Autobiography” about the amazing life of one our truly great Americans, General Chuck Yeager. Tom Wolfe wasn’t making stuff up about “the right stuff.”
http://www.amazon.com/Yeager-An-Autobiography-Chuck/dp/0553256742/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401983533&sr=8-1&keywords=Yeager
In the really-short-but-punches-above-its-weight category (a la The Abolition of Man): I would suggest Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. The first part is a concentration camp memoir. The last part is Frankl’s exposition of his philosophy/psychology of life. This is a book everyone should read.
Sometime you ought to find a used copy of Robert Nisbet’s out-of-print masterpiece, Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary. Jonah Goldberg has said this is his favorite book. He once promised that you would want to buy extra copies to give away, and I have done so several times over. It is organized alphabetically by topic (abortion, anomie, etc.) and each chapter is really short. Idea for on and-off-bedside reading. Try Alibris.com
This was one of my favorite books as a teenager and I highly recommend it. As others have said, it’s important to mix in fun stuff with the heavy stuff. His sort-of sequel about his fishing trips is a hoot as well.
That said, MSFM is excellent heavy stuff. In the same vein, I’d add Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer, which is surprisingly accessible and utterly brilliant.
By the time he finds out that the “whores” are really politicians (I repeat myself), he’ll be so entertained he won’t care.
Ooohhhhh… I guess I can take my copy out from under my mattress then.
A few other fun suggestions:
The Bounty Trilogy (historical fiction account of the famous mutiny; really great YA reading, good introduction to the Royal Navy).
Anything by Mary Renault, if you’re okay with him reading (non-graphic) portrayals of ancient Greek pederasty. I’d particularly recommend the Alexander trilogy.
The Power of One. Great story about boxing and coming of age in South Africa.
Goleman? Meh. I’d skip him.
Definitely Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson and Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.
Warning: massive, unfair generalization coming. Young men tend not to read literary fiction once they no longer *have* to. So this is the time to hook him! Don’t miss Wodehouse. The funniest thing I’ve *ever read* is the Market Snodsbury Grammar School prize-giving chapter of Right Ho, Jeeves.
He might. I certainly do. Thanks.
Seconded.
In addition to Wodehouse, I’d read:
* Shakespeare: Don’t bother reading Hamlet, featuring a “hero” who is really, really hard for a guy to like. Instead watch the BBC David Tennant version. Read Macbeth instead. It’s deliciously good. Julius Caesar should be next, as it ties directly into your conservative political themes. Is there any better example of the power of persuasive speech (and of the fact that the uneducated are just sheeple) than Antony’s funeral oration (Act III)?
* Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet, The Valley of Fear, and several short stories of your choosing (my faves are probably “The Crooked Man,” “The Red-Headed League,” “The Copper Beeches,” “A Case of Identity,” “The Musgrave Ritual,” and “A Scandal in Bohemia”).
* Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels: Murder Must Advertise and The Nine Tailors are unspeakably fab.
* Great American short stories, some of which will curl your hair. Check out Poe, Irving, Hawthorne, and Bierce. *shiver* *shudder*
I learned almost nothing about WWI in school. Unless your son’s a military history buff…he can probably say the same. Winston Groom’s A Storm in Flanders is absolutely amazing “pop” history.
I know some here on Ricochet (maybe you, Layla) see Goleman as a tool of the debunkers of IQ testing. That may well be, but when I read Emotional Intelligence, I didn’t see much of that. I find it a useful corrective for people (such as my son and myself) who sail through school easily and are thus unprepared for the difficulties of real life.
Thanks. Your point is well taken. We discussed WWI briefly over the first chapter of Abolition of Man. CSL quotes, and explains, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori and I showed my son the Winfred Owen poem by way of explaining the attitude, so prevalent at the time, CSL was arguing against.
On WWI, my short answer was: I’m against it.
Ah . . . no. It’s great fiction, but it is not a particularly accurate depiction of the Royal Navy, especially during the period in which the mutiny took place. Nor is it a particularly accurate depiction of Bligh.
Nordhoff and Hall used two really bad sources for their historical research: John Maesfield’s Sea Life in Nelson’s Time and Sir John Barrow’s The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S. Bounty. The books were readily available, but both have significant errors and bias.
Seawriter