Recently Mentioned Books

Recommended, and do note Luke’s new book The One and the Ninety-Nine: Forging Identity in an Age of Social Contagion .

5. Munir Hachemi, The Mulai .  A somewhat loopy but intriguing science fiction story, broadly in the direction of Ursula LeGuin.  I am not sure what to think, but definitely will keep on reading.

4. Emily Wilson, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys through Ancient Literature .  Wilson has become a controversial figure for a variety of not-so-merited reasons, but the simpler truth is this.  She is a superior intellectual presence and mind, so you should be reading what she writes, no matter what your stances.  My two favorite essays in this volume were the one on Logue’s War Music , and the closing piece on translations of The Odyssey .

3. Simon Morrison, The Love & Wars of Lina Prokofiev .  More suspense and interest for me than any biography of Prokofiev I have read.  I had not known that she grew up in Brooklyn.  I am happy to recommend Morrison’s books more generally.

2. Sean Mathews, The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East .  A consistently interesting look at Greece, the Ottoman roots in the area, the radical changes brought by the early 20th century, and Greece’s relations with Israel, among other topics.  The book has the virtue of “trying to explain how things actually are,” sadly not the case for all works.

1. Gerald Martin, Mario Vargas Llosa: A Life .  A good book if you wish to read about his strange sex life, starting early in his years.  But if you are more interested in the history of ideas, Peruvian politics, or the development of the Latin American novel it is far less compelling.  So for me a disappointment.

I very much like the new Michael Khodarkovsky book The Steppe and its Empires: The Russian Empire & its Eurasian Counterparts .  Excerpt:

That is the new book by Peter Gray , and it is very much a whole philosophy of child-rearing and also antidote to the current panic over social media. Excerpt:

5. Emma Southon, Servus: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire .  A very good and aggressively readable book about how terrible slavery was in the Roman Empire.  A useful corrective to other sources as well.  While my general view is that interpretative disputes over antiquity are difficult to resolve, I find her interpretations more intuitive and more convincing than the other side of the debate.

4. André Breton, Nadja .  It is short, and fun enough to read.  But one learns most books from the past are not masterpieces, and that surrealism as a movement — most of all in painting — was more important than the literary outputs of surrealism.  Nadja, to me, sounds like a drag.  Which is fine.  But.  What does Breton really think he is immortalizing here?  At the end he writes “Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or not at all.”  I do appreciate Breton for his understanding of Mexico, and for his cult...

3. Forough Farrokhzad, Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season .  She died in a car crash in 1967 at the age of thirty-three, but it turns out she was an amazing poet.  I usually do not enjoy poetry in translation, but this is so fiery and full of passion that I am happy to recommend it.  Surely in the original Farsi it is better (and quite different?) yet.

2. Vasily Grossman, From the Front Line, Stalingrad-Treblinka-Berlin 1941-1945 .  Self-recommending, the best third of this volume is just stunningly good.  You do not have to read the whole thing, as there is some degree of repetition.

1. Mike Jay, Wireheads: An Unnatural History of Technology in the Brain .  Much of this story is told through the lens of the accompanying science fiction and non-neuro trends in other parts of science.  An excellent book, substantive on every page, and it will make you want to read some of the works he cites.

One of my favorite episodes of the year, interesting throughout, and I very much enjoyed Julia’s book Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia .

The author is Tim Whitmarsh and the subtitle is Augustus, Empire and the Making of Christianity .  This is the most important book on the history of Christianity I have read in a long time, and it is also an important work in Roman history.  Yet also fun and extremely readable.  Excerpt:

That is from the new and useful book by Michael John Alastair Reid and Eric Paul Goosby.  But $150 for a not so thick volume!?  If the authors believe in aid, as they should, perhaps they could consider giving this book away for free rather than turning it over to Elsevier…?

That is from the new and interesting The Powerful Primate: How Controlling Energy Enabled us to Build Civilization , by Roland Ennos.

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him .  His whole career is fair game, though many of my questions will cover his forthcoming book Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings (When) Do Leaders Matter?

6. The Routledge Handbook of Classical Liberalism .

The author is H.S. Jones, and I also learned a good deal about Bryce’s work on behalf of Armenia, a topic I had known nothing about.  I am a big fan of Bryce’s The American Commonwealth book as an analysis of democracy, though of course I do not agree with all of the particulars.  Bryce also was an early NIMBY proponent (even then), and played a large role in debates over the humanities, basically defending liberal education.  He served as ambassador to the U.S. as well.  His long (overlong?) Mo...

The author is H.S. Jones, and I also learned a good deal about Bryce’s work on behalf of Armenia, a topic I had known nothing about.  I am a big fan of Bryce’s The American Commonwealth book as an analysis of democracy, though of course I do not agree with all of the particulars.  Bryce also was an early NIMBY proponent (even then), and played a large role in debates over the humanities, basically defending liberal education.  He served as ambassador to the U.S. as well.  His long (overlong?) Mo...

A very good book , here is one excerpt that bears directly on a conversation I was just having:

The novel is Time Shelter , and the premise is that refuges are built for people with Alzheimer’s, reflecting life from past decades, for instance the 1960s.  But then people from the present start wanting to live in them.

5. Katie Kitamura, Audition .  A fun short novel, full of mystery and suspense, good for those who like puzzles in their writing.

4. Lars Behrisch, Democracy’s Double Helix: Participation, Equality and Revolution in Early Modern Europe .  A good book about how the roots of semi-democratic decision-making are found in 16th century Europe, and stemmed from new needs to assemble various military and fiscal coalitions.  Looks at the problem more broadly, in geographic terms, than most comparable studies.