WHAT have you finished reading recently? The Fighting Little Judge, a biography of Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama and his political career.
WHAT are you reading now? Nixon’s White House Wars, an inside look at the Nixon administration.
WHAT are you reading next? Two possibilities are Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, or Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership. Still on a history and politics binge…
Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is “Books We Loved But Didn’t Read”. TTT did that back in 2020, so I will revisit that list and check my reading lists of the last few years to see if anything new has joined.
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which is on my hopeful re-read list for this year.
- Unnatural Selection, which I was sent as an ARC back in the day but shamefully did not post a review for.
- The Age of Absurdity, which I’ve re-read several times but never posted a review for
- The Once and Future King, on the return of over-powerful executives in America, Airstrip One, and Australia
- This Brave New World, on DC’s relationships with India and China
- The Way of Men, which I described as “Imagine if Tyler Durden wrote a book”. This one stands out as the only book I later reviewed!
- The Evolution of Everything, on emergent order
- The Roots of American Order, a cultural examination that looks at the role of Stoicism, Judaism, Christianity, and a few other elements in shaping American civilization
- The Mind of the Market, Michael Shermer.
- The Tell-Tale Brain, V.S. Ramachandran.
So, that’s the last list. What have I added since that were both bold end-year favorites and unreviewed?
2024: Abigail Schrier’s Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up; Jon Haidt’s Anxious Generation. I have a long draft for that one, just never finished it.
2023: The Filter Bubble: How the Personalized Web is Changing How We Read and How We Think; Feminism against Progress by Mary Harrington.
2022: Live not by Lies, Rod Dreher. (Again, long draft review.) How to Think like a Roman Emperor. David Brook’s The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life.
2021: We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State, Kai Strittmatter. How Emotions are Made, Lisa Feldman Barrett
Almost another ten! Yikes. And if I’m not careful Provoked will join the list for this year, nevermind my long draft for it.
Reading Freely 
I feel like you can learn a lot about a person based on their taste in books. History and psychology feature a lot on my bookshelves, too.
It’s so interesting to think about how what you google affects what results you get from future web searches!
Wow! Sounds like a ton of great books here, Stephen. Would love to read The Age of Absurdity and Bad Therapy. I get into political book binges occasionally. It’s been a while. Thanks for sharing and for visiting my blog.
Interesting selection. Now I want to visit you just to browse through your bookshelf…lol and jk! Seriously, the Wallace bio appeals because I remember trying to read a book Wallace had written, during his lifetime, when I was too young for it. I don’t think there ever was a time when I would have voted for him but he must have experienced himself as something more than just “the opposition.”
PK
I know of one Wallace book that’s a collection of quotes from him — and I can’t remember the title, but it’s something about “words” or “say”.
As far as his appeal, I’m learning from a Nixon administration history that Nixon regarded him as a serious threat for conservative votes.