Books by John Gray

John has a new book coming out The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism .  So what should I ask him?

Gray, a renowned cultural and historical pessimist, also offers a critique of those thinkers who promote mass feline genocide, so at this point you may be wondering why he titled his book Straw Dogs .  Here is the review .  Here is Abigail Tucker’s very good cat book, The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World .

2. John Gray, The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Inquiry into Human Freedom .  The usual dose of pessimism, with a choppier argument and a slightly larger typeface than usual.  It induced me to order Mr. Weston’s Good Wine .  In any case, I’ll still buy the next one, engaging with John Gray if nothing else has become a ritual.  I once predicted to Jim Buchanan that John would end up converting to Catholicism, but I still am waiting.

3. John Gray, The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death .  A bunch of weird guys, in the early 20th century, thought they could cheat death but they couldn’t!  And it all has something to do with H.G. Wells and a Russian spy.  When is the cutting polemic against rationalism going to fall?  It doesn’t, and when the book ends it feels as if it is only one-third over.  The mood is wistful.  I recall once predicting to Jim Buchanan that Gray would someday end up co...