Today’s treble T is “Book we didn’t review”. In 2020 we did a similiar topic, “Books We Loved But Didn’t Review”, and I gaze upon that list I realize: I still haven’t reviewed `em. Well, most of them. I did get around to reviewing The Way of Men.That may change this year since I’m doing purposeful re-reading. Today, I’m going to list ten more books I haven’t reviewed, drawing on my “What I Read in ______” lists. The amount of unreviewed titles is….oof.

But first, three teases:

[Our friend] arrived late because he’d been arguing with a man selling red T-shirts with pictures of Stalin on them.
“Do you realize,” he had said, pointing at the merchandise, that this is the greatest mass-murderer of the twentieth century?”
“Don’t blame me,” said the man, “I just sell T-shirts.” – Paul Kingsnorth, One No, Many Yeses

This field: it belongs to us, to me and my wife, because we paid for it and we have a piece of paper lodged with a lawyer somewhere that proves it. But my lifetime will flicker out and this field will still be here, as it was before I came. I am passing through this field like the heron sometimes passes above it and foxes come through every night and red-tailed bumbles drone past on their way to the hedgebank petals. I am here now, and then I will be gone again. So the field does not belong to me, really. Do I belong to the field? Probably not that either. I would like to. But I have only been on this land for three years. I have only been in the country for three years. I am a blowin, as we are called in these parts. You can’t just turn up in a place and claim it. A place needs to claim you. – Paul Kingsnorth, Savage Gods

Observation can tell more about the observer than about the environment being observed. It reflects the values, beliefs, and worldview of the witness. We see through the lens of our interests, and understanding. […] Hiking with a birdwatcher is quite a different experience than hiking with a geologist — one points out the flicking wings of a Ruby-crowned Kingler, the other notes the lavender glint of Lepidolite mica. Neither may notice the changing cloud formations that spell tomorrow’s snow. […] What we see is largely who we are and what we have learned to see. There is no such thing as an objective observer.” – “Eyes Wide Open”, What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs

Feminism against Progress, Mary Harrington. A critique of the sexual revolution and related technologies from unexpected quarters.

The Hardest Job in the World: the US Presidency,  John Dickerson. An analysis of the post that argues that foreign policy consumes the office, and yet it’s rarely an issue that voters care about.

Several books by Anthony Esolen, whose writing I love but fear I can’t do justice to, despite re-reading them. Such books include Life under Compulsion, In Defense of Boyhood, and Ironies of Faith.

We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State, Kai Strittmatter. I have a great introduction written for a review of this, but I’ll need to go back and re-read it to write the actual review bit.

Men on Strike: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage, Helen Smith. I have a mostly-full review written for this, but don’t like it.

How Emotions are Made, Lisa Feldman Barrett. Such a good neurology read and I neglect it still.

Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, Rod Dreher. On the approach of soft totalitarianism.

The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch, Jonathan Gotschall

Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, Abigail Schrier.

Anxious Generation, Johnathan Haidt