Today’s topic makes me sigh a bit on the inside,because one of my intended themes for 2025 was “The Great Re-Read”, in which I’d re-read a few books that played substantial parts in changing my thinking 10-15 years ago. So far, I’ve re-read two books, only one of which could qualify for that initial premise, and none of the ones I really had in mind. And I’ve BOUGHT COPIES of the books, too, because back in the day I was reading them from university libraries. Ah, well. Oh, here’s a tease first:

In fact, said Adams, almost a half century before Tocqueville made the same penetrating observation, the desire for distinction was even stronger in egalitarian America than elsewhere. Aristocrats, of course, had to keep up their distinctiveness, “or fall into contempt and ridicule.” But in America “the lowest and the middling people,” despite their continual declamations against the rich and the great, were really no different. They were as much addicted to buying superfluities as the aristocracy. Indeed, “a free people,” said Adams, “are the most addicted to luxury of any.” (FRIENDS DIVIDED)

(1) The Meditations, Gregory Hays. I’ve read The Meditations full through twice at least, but with different translators. The Hays is a translation I’ve grown to prefer in recent years despite never going all-in on it. Hays strikes a good balance between the beauty of language and modern meaning — a bit like the RSV treatment for the Bible, I’d say. (I read the RSV bible, but I quote the KJV.)

(2) Crunchy Conservatives, Rod Dreher, a book on counter-culture conservatives, those who grow their own food, homeschool their kids, etc. When I read this I was still in a bit of transition point in my thinking about economics, politics, values, and such: I left the book a very mixed review, but found Dreher interesting enough to continue reading him online, and he’s since become one of my absolute favorite authors, alongside Wendell Berry and Anthony Esolen. He’s literally the only author I’ve ever taken a photo with.

(3) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs. It’s funny, but I can never post a review of this book that would do justice to it — not only to it itself, but the amount of times I’ve mentioned it. It shattered my worldview in the first hundred pages.

(4) Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel, Joseph & Frances Gies. The book that destroyed my Victorian conceit of the medieval period as one of intellectual stagnation and pushing-mud-round.

(5) Techopoly, Neil Postman. One of the two fundamental books in my own tech-skepticism. along with Nicholas Carrs’ The Shallows.

(6) That book series I read as a kid about forest animals who lived on the edge of human farms. The series was both realistic and fantastic; its fantastic element was the notion of birds, frogs, badgers, etc being able to talk — but the book was realistic in that its animals were animals. They weren’t donning robes and fighting with swords against vole-armies threatening their monastery a la Redwall. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the series or any of its titles.

(7) The Plain Reader, various authors. A collection of essays on simple or plain living.

(8) The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes it Hard to be Happy, Michael Foley. I read this thirteen years ago at the suggestion of Cyberkitten: the book sits on my bed’s headboard bookcase, I’ve re-read it several times, and still no review.

(9) Weapons of Satire, Mark Twain. On Twain as an anti-imperialist, railing against the Spanish-American war and DC’s subsequent occupation of the Philippines.

(10) Race with the Devil, Joseph Pearce. This was a fascinating story about a man who came of age preaching race-hate, but whose life was changed by grace via literature — specifically, GK Chesterton — and repented and later became a literary biographer and Catholic apologist.