What Have You Read This Year?

 

You’ve all read at least one book this year. I know you have, since Ricochetti are famously literate — not the many-leatherbound-books type (though I have more than my fair share of those). I really enjoy learning what other people read; it’s an eyes-into-the-soul kind of feeling, and I always learn of a few more books to add to my list. So please, post your list of the books you’ve read in 2015!

Add commentary as you wish or not. If you feel extra generous, include Amazon links so we can add your recommendations to our own lists.

To assure the apprehensive that all types of books are accepted here, I will kick this off with my own list:

  • Allan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind
  • Pat Kirwin, Take Your Eye Off the Ball
  • Several dialogues of Plato
  • Michael Sacasas, The Tourist and the Pilgrim
  • Charles Murray, American Exceptionalism
  • Bart Scott, Ears of Steel: The Real Man’s Guide to Walt Disney World
  • Be Our Guest
  • Frederick Ferre, Philosophy of Technology
  • Ira Stoll, Samuel Adams: A Life
  • David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion
  • Cory Doctorow, Information Doesn’t Want to be Free
Published in Literature
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  1. Sowell for President Member
    Sowell for President
    @

    Nice. How did you like The Devil’s Delusion?

    Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James McPherson

    Defending Marriage by Anthony Esolen

    Their Name Is Today: Reclaiming Childhood by Johann Arnold

    Dakota Diaspora by Sophia Turpin

    After America by Mark Stern

    The Cost of “Choice” edited by Erika Bachiochi

    Salvation is from the Jews by Roy Shoeman

    Til Faith Do Us Part by Naomi Schafer Riley

    Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems by Dorothy Parker

    Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom by Ryan Anderson

    The Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff by Joseph Epstein

    Oh, and, you know… the Bible…

    • #1
  2. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    I really don’t want to sit down and try to remember in detail, but here are a few I know I read in 2015.  (As Christmas presents a year ago, I probably started most of them in late 2014.)

    The Poverty of Nations by Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus

    Strange Fire by John MacArthur

    The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

    • #2
  3. Chris Williamson Member
    Chris Williamson
    @ChrisWilliamson

    I read Homer’s “Ilead” and “Odyssey” for the first time. (I don’t remember reading them in high school.) I downloaded the English translations on the MIT web site and put them on my Kindle.

    What a cast of characters, and what plots! I expected the experience to be boring, but it was all action and adventure. After finishing “Ilead” I couldn’t wait to go through “Odyssey”, and Homer didn’t disappoint.

    I started Virgil’s “Aneid” — a lively English translation by the poet Dryden — but it’s hit or miss right now.

    • #3
  4. Pony Convertible Inactive
    Pony Convertible
    @PonyConvertible

    I have found Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon series to be very enjoyable reading.

    • #4
  5. Tom Meyer, Ed. Member
    Tom Meyer, Ed.
    @tommeyer

    Chris Williamson: I started Virgil’s “Aneid” — a lively English translation by the poet Dryden — but it’s hit or miss right now.

    There’s a few excellent episodes in the Aeneid — the flight from Troy, Dido, Nisus and Euryalus — but I found the work as a whole is a disappointment. The main problem is that Aeneas is boring.

    • #5
  6. Paul Erickson Inactive
    Paul Erickson
    @PaulErickson

    The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace  by Jeff Hobbs.

    Tragic indeed.  A view of how the noble and ignoble are woven together in so many of us.

    Also, the local flavor made it an easy read for me.  In how many books can you get straight on the distinctions among Orange, East Orange, West Orange and South Orange, NJ?

    • #6
  7. Dan Campbell Member
    Dan Campbell
    @DanCampbell

    Currently reading The Relic Master by Christopher Buckley.  Enjoying it immensely.

    Two of the four Otto Prohaska books by John Biggins.  Picked up the first one, A Sailor of Austria, because I knew nothing about the Austro-Hungarian U-boat war other than that Georg von Trapp (of Sound of Music fame) was a U-boat commander.  Enjoyed it so much I got the other three books, but have only read The Emperor’s Coloured Coat so far.

    The first nine of the Richard Bolitho books by Alexander Kent. Had to take a break and read something less depressing, hence, Otto Prohaska.

    Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell (enlightening)

    BMOC by Warren Meyer.  I’ve been reading his Coyoteblog for years.

    The Seven Deadly Virtues, edited by Jonathan Last

    Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

    The Casablanca Tango by James Lileks

    Periodic Tales by Hugh-Aldersey-Williams

    When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It by Ben Yagoda

    Books 3, 4, and 5 of the Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin

    • #7
  8. Eric Wallace Inactive
    Eric Wallace
    @EricWallace

    Sowell for President:Nice. How did you like The Devil’s Delusion?

    I really enjoyed it. He has a great, very personal writing style. It’s kind of a trip that the text feels so conversational even while discussing incredibly complicated, technical topics.

    My one criticism is that he convincingly shows how prominent scientists are less concerned with being scientific and more concerned with avoiding any ideas about God or purpose or meaning – it’s revealing information but nothing you could use in most conversations. Having said that, I appreciate his work to make his readers aware of the reality of the arguments, even if it’s unspoken.

    • #8
  9. Tom Meyer, Ed. Member
    Tom Meyer, Ed.
    @tommeyer

    A sadly short list for me this year (about half of my usual total, with a lot of light stuff included here):

    • The Curse of Chalion (Chalion, #1) Bujold, Lois McMaster
    • The Dispossessed (Hainish Cycle, #5) Le Guin, Ursula
    • The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century Bailey, Ronald
    • What If? : Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions Munroe, Randall
    • The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels Epstein, Alex J.
    • The Conservatarian Manifesto: Libertarians, Conservatives, and the Fight for the Right’s Future Cooke, Charles C.W.
    • The Polygamist King: A True Story of Murder, Lust, and Exotic Faith in America Miller, John J.
    • FrankensteinShelley, Mary
    • The Hedge Knight (The Tales of Dunk and Egg, #1) Martin, George R. R.
    • The Hedge Knight II: Sworn Sword (The Hedge Knight Graphic Novels, #2) Martin, George R.R.
    • The Shadow Out of Time Lovecraft, H.P.
    • An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson Linklater, Andro
    • Laudato Sii: On the care of the common home Pope Francis
    • #9
  10. Crabby Appleton Inactive
    Crabby Appleton
    @CrabbyAppleton

    Umber to Eco’s “Foucault’s Pendulum” (for the fifth time!). What a completely barilliant book that is!

    Some classical histories, ” The Death of Caesar”, “Scipio Africanus, Greater Than Napoleon”, and I just finished Prof Rahe’s ” The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta”( I highly recommend it; I was going to write a Ricochet® post about it but thought in the end it would be a tad bit presumptuous of me, not being a scholar and all).

    Over the summer I had some recovery- rehabilitation time so I did a lot of therapeutic reading. I (re)discovered and revisited some old stuff on the back shelves. One book I will recommend is “The Idea Of Decline in Western History” by Arthur Herman. I’d forgotten what a good book it is. Great if you are interested in the geography of ideas and how they grow and move. Also I went on a Thornton Wilder jag and in the process rediscovered two of my favorite books, ” The Ides Of March ” and “The Woman Of Andros”. Wilder is a vastly under appreciated American author and if you aren’t acquainted with him you should be. Just sayin’.

    • #10
  11. I Shot The Serif Member
    I Shot The Serif
    @IShotTheSerif

    Crabby Appleton:Also I went on a Thornton Wilder jag and in the process rediscovered two of my favorite books, ” The Ides Of March ” and “The Woman Of Andros”. Wilder is a vastly under appreciated American author and if you aren’t acquainted with him you should be. Just sayin’.

    My high school put on “Our Town” and “Skin of Our Teeth.”

    • #11
  12. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    Strictly technical books by Jeremy Du Plessis and David Linton this year.

    • #12
  13. MikeHs Inactive
    MikeHs
    @MikeHs

    I wasn’t too good at completing books that I started this year.  I did read T.R. Fehrenbach’s classic account of the Korean War, “This Kind of War.”  I also read the fantastic “The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors” by James D. Hornfischer,  and I also re-read (after about 20 years) John McPhee’s book about California geology, “Assembling California” (but I’m a geologist and my daughter is a geology major at the school of the main protagonist in this book); also David R. Starbuck’s “The Legacy of Fort William Henry: Resurrecting the Past.”

    I have too many books on my night table that I started but only read part of in 2015: Anne Applebaum’s “Iron Curtain, The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956;” an abridged version of Winston Churchill’s “The History of the English Speaking Peoples;” David Halberstam’s “The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War;”and the one I have to been trying to finish for the longest time, Melville’s “Moby Dick” (which I actually like); plus a bunch of others that I can’t think of their names.

    (Added: Oh, yeah, forgot I started, “John Wayne, the Life and Legend” by Scott Eyman, pilgrim.)

    • #13
  14. Eric Wallace Inactive
    Eric Wallace
    @EricWallace

    anonymous:I’ll probably add one to the list before the end of the year.

    Good point. There’s 2.5 days left – get your year’s reading done while there’s still time!

    I should have V for Vendetta finished before the new year.

    • #14
  15. Crabby Appleton Inactive
    Crabby Appleton
    @CrabbyAppleton

    I shot the Serif: I remember “being taught” Our Town in school. I have both of those plays on DVD and watched them recently. Good stuff.

    MikeHs: if you like the Applebaum book (I did) I’ll recommend “Savage Continent” by Keith Lowe about post war Europe. Also Hornfischer’s ” Neptune’s Inferno” is almost as really really good if you haven’t read it.
    Thanks for reminding me about John McPhee, I have all of his stuff somewhere. I’m going to go look for it right now. Oh, and “Moby Dick” is a hideous and intolerable allegory.

    • #15
  16. Eric Wallace Inactive
    Eric Wallace
    @EricWallace

    BrentB67:Strictly technical books by Jeremy Du Plessis and David Linton this year.

    Have they written any entry-level (or close to it) books you could recommend?

    • #16
  17. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    I think I’ve recovered from my Fred Sanford faux heart attack after reading Aeneas is boring.

    I too read Iliad. Also picked up Naked Lunch because it is on all those best lists. Exhibit A in the argument against best lists. Naked Lunch = Tossed Lunch.

    If you’re the sort who would drink a gallon of sour milk just to prove it won’t kill you then Naked Lunch is the book for you.

    • #17
  18. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    I did Moby Dick audio this year. Fantastic on audio. So many great turns of phrase. Fun to listen to. But I love the book.

    Also, Dorian Gray is great. And Cardinal Wuerl’s The Mass is a great intro or reminder.

    • #18
  19. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    One more, I’m wrapping up Why Homer Matters by Adam Nicolson. Recommended by tabula rasa here on ricochet and had a good write up in NR. Wanted to read it after reading Iliad but I gotta say this is a broccoli book. Good to consume but not really enjoying it.

    • #19
  20. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    Okay, I had to wait to get home before I could comment.

    Parliament of Whores by PJ O’Rourke

    Marked For Death by Ghert Wilders

    Coolidge by Robert Sobel

    Why Not Victory by Barry Goldwater

    Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

    Money Men by Jeffrey Birnbaum

    and currently Scalia Dissents by Antonin Scalia and Kevin A. Ring

    also Basic Boating by Alexander Russell Andrews Howard (I only skimmed the seamanship and sailing sections.

    • #20
  21. Jon Gabriel, Ed. Contributor
    Jon Gabriel, Ed.
    @jon

    Here are the books I can remember reading in 2015:

    • Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow
    • The Polygamist King by John J. Miller
    • Attack Your Day by Mark & Trapper Woods
    • Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
    • The Weed Agency by Jim Geraghty
    • Conservative Insurgency by Kurt Schlichter
    • The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
    • The Baby Boom by P.J. O’Rourke
    • The Conservatarian Manifesto by Charles C.W. Cooke
    • 5: Where Will You Be Five Years from Today? by Dan Zadra
    • #21
  22. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Saint Augustine:The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

    Started rough, but much improvement by the second book. And the resolution of final book was so . . . heartbreakingly perfect.

    • #22
  23. JRez Inactive
    JRez
    @JRez

    Um…Ricochet?

    • #23
  24. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    I’ve binge read Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware novels, all borrowed as ebooks from my local library.  God help me.

    • #24
  25. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Most of the reading I do is to my kids. To that end, we finished up Cressida Cowell’s “How to Train Your Dragon” series this month, and . . . wow. Such a fantastic close to the series. (Nothing like the movie series, by the way. They share character names, but that’s about it.)

    The publication of the final book should have been met with as much fanfare as that other popular series of children’s books by that other famous British author. And it was far, far better.

    • #25
  26. Eric Wallace Inactive
    Eric Wallace
    @EricWallace

    Jon Gabriel, Ed.:Here I the books I can remember reading in 2015:

    • Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
    • The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

    The ancients are well-represented in this thread!

    How was Judd Apatow’s book?

    • #26
  27. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    I did a fair amount of re-reading.

    •  Ab Urbe Condita Libri, Livy
    • Ivanhoe, Scott (again)
    • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (again)
    • The Wisdom of Father Brown, Chesterton (again)
    • I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting Next to a Republican, Harry Stein
    • The Casablanca Tango (Mill City Book 2), James Lileks
    • The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Suetonius
    • The Lion’s Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War, Steven Pressfield
    • My Man Jeeves, Wodehouse (again)
    • Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, Machiavelli
    • The Story of the Champions of the Round Table, Howard Pyle (Okay, so I’m in a rut.  I like this rut.)
    • The Big Sleep, Chandler (again)
    • #27
  28. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    I also delved a bit into classic pulp adventures, and I can report that Tarzan of the Apes is absolutely fantastic, and in terms of literary style, presentation of theme, and sheer awesomeness, it should be a staple of the English literature canon.

    It would also give SJWs conniptions, but I consider that a bonus.

    • #28
  29. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    I might accidentally list a book or three that I actually read in 2014 but this should be pretty close to correct.  First of all, the books by Ricochet members/contributors:

    The Casablanca Tango by James Lileks

    Safe is Not an Option by Rand Simberg

    The Perils of Fat-Free Cheese by Pleated Pants Forever  (Carl Boraca)

    The Devil’s Dictum by Fredosphere (Frederick Gero Heimbach)

    Venus Rising by Stad (Rowena Tulley)

    Then books by everybody else:

    Calendrical Regression by Lawrence M. Schoen

    Warbound by Larry Correia

    The Beautiful Land by Alan Averill

    Skin Game by Jim Butcher

    Afterparty by Daryl Gregory

    The Humans by Matt Haig

    The Spirit Well by Stephen R. Lawhead

    The Long Utopia by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

    The End of All Things by John Scalzi

    Influx by Daniel Suarez

    The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, edited by John Jospeh Adams

    A year’s worth of Popular Science, reason, and Car and Driver magazines

    I’m part way through Reagan: A Life in Letters by Kiron K. Skinner and Annelise Anderson

    • #29
  30. Mollie Hemingway Member
    Mollie Hemingway
    @MollieHemingway

    Good idea for a post. I wrote up some recommendations of books I read this year over at The Federalist. Of those, I’d particularly note William Gairdner’s The Great Divide: Why Liberals and Conservatives Will Never, Ever AgreeBut one that I didn’t mention over there, that I’d also recommend, is Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. It’s a beautifully told coming of age tale that takes place in post-War Naples.

    • #30
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