Spring reading 2022

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This has been a busy semester. I had classes on three different campuses of my college and spent a great deal of time driving. I’m thankful to say, however, that despite a long and arduous semester I was able to get a lot of reading done. Here are the highlights, sorted by genre.

(For the purposes of this post, as usual, “spring” runs from January 1 to roughly the beginning of summer classes, give or take a few days. One tries to stay flexible.)

History

You’ll be Sor-ree! by Sid Phillips*—Sid Phillips may be familiar to readers of EB Sledge’s With the Old Breed or viewers of the HBO miniseries “The Pacific,” in which he was a secondary character. You’ll be Sor-ree! is his memoir, originally published privately and circulated among friends and family in the late 90s. Phillips combines terse narration of the harshness of Guadalcanal and Peleliu and the horrors of combat with a wry wit and an insistence that, despite it all, these young Marines occasionally laughed and had fun. It’s not as powerful a memoir as his best friend Sledge’s, but it conveys more clearly than any other book I’ve read the youthfulness of the teenagers and twenty-year olds who went to war in 1941, many of whom never came back.

Copse 125, by Ernst Jünger, trans. Basil Creighton—Ernst Jünger is best remembered today for his memoir of First World War infantry combat Storm of Steel, but in the mid-1920s he also published this memoir, which is based on a single month of his war diaries from the summer of 1918. Slower paced and more philosophical, filled not only with the nitty-gritty of trench life but also with the musings of a dedicated young officer in tough circumstances, Copse 125, in its stalwart tribute to guts and endurance, is also reflective of the humiliations and uncertainties of the postwar Weimar Era. A thought-provoking, insightful, and gripping window into the experience of the trenches.

Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire, by Katja Hoyer—An excellent succinct history of the Second Reich, from its origins in the nationalist unification movements of the mid-19th century to its collapse and destruction at the end of the First World War. For a book of its size, I was astonished at how much Hoyer fit in, with the book straddling the political and military, the economic and commercial, the imperial, the ideological, and with some space left over for individual personalities (Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II especially) and German culture. Culture proves especially important, as one of the book’s major narrative threads is the artificial shaping of a unified “German” culture out of the disparate and diverse cultures of the 39 states of the former Holy Roman Empire for political purposes.

The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy, and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream, by Charles Spencer—A readable, well-paced popular history of the reign of Henry I and the disastrous consequences of the sinking of the White Ship, which went down in 1120 with only one survivor. Among the drowned was Henry’s only legitimate son. The subtitle misleadingly suggests the whole book is about this event; in fact, it tells the whole history of Henry’s reign and the beginnings of the Anarchy, a period of contested rule directly caused by this fatal accident.

General non-fiction

In the House of Tom Bombadil, by CR Wiley—An insightful and thought-provoking look at one of the most bewildering characters to appear in The Lord of the Rings and a passionate defense of the good and the beautiful. Full review on the blog here.

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts, by Jed Perl—A good short meditation on the tension between creative freedom and adherence to artistic tradition, a tension that gives vitality to art, whether painting, architecture, music, or writing. I especially appreciate Perl’s insistence that art should not be used for mercenary political purposes, an insistence we need more than ever.

The War on the West, by Douglas Murray—Murray’s previous book, The Madness of Crowds, appeared just before the world went into lockdown and the United States spent a summer tearing itself apart. (The edition I read included an afterword added in the wake of the summer of 2020.) This, his follow-up, is a direct response to that explosion of ideological furor. Murray characterizes wokeness and its repercussions as a moral panic akin to the Salem witch trials or the Satanic Panic, an analogy that has crossed my own mind more than once in the last few years. He catalogs sustained, systematic attacks on Western culture, philosophy, ideals, art, and civilization writ large in several specific areas, including race, religion, and history (an excellent chapter of particular interest to me). Interspersed with these chapters are “interludes” on narrower topics, the most incisive and damning of which concerns the West’s obsequious relationship with China. Where The Madness of Crowds suggested forgiveness as a way forward from the insanities already gripping the West before the pandemic, here Murray argues that a blinkered ideological resentment has caused the last few years’ upheavals and he encourages—insists upon—gratitude as the antidote. Absolutely correct. This is an excellent book—well-written, sharply observed, carefully structured and argued, and its diagnoses and prescriptions spot on. I just wonder how many people who don’t already agree will listen, much less change.

Against the Tide, by Roger Scruton, Mark Dooley, Ed.—A very good collection of journalistic pieces on a variety of topics spanning fifty years of work. This will probably become my go-to suggestion for introducing people to Scruton, as the fifty-odd essays, op-eds, and personal reflections collected here are short, accessible, and often witty. (An interesting coincidence: Murray, in The War on the West, quotes from the final piece in this collection, a poignant meditation on gratitude that was Scruton’s last published work in his lifetime.)

On the Passion of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis, trans. Joseph N Tylenda—A worthwhile devotional work organized as a series of prayers of thanks for every stage of Jesus’s suffering and death, from his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to his entombment. Quite moving and convicting throughout. Read over Good Friday and Easter weekend, which I would highly recommend.

Enemies of the Permanent Things: Observations of Abnormity in Literature and Politics, by Russell Kirk—A meditation on the decay of cultural norms, especially in literature and politics, with special attention to the philosophical “abnormities” that evacuate both of meaning and morality. For me, this accurately hit the sweet spot between culture and politics. This was rich enough that I mean to revisit it soon.

Fiction

Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson—A vividly written and moving short novel set in Reconstruction Texas. You probably know some of the story. You probably also know what happens to Old Yeller. It’s still absolutely worth reading.

Slow Horses and Dead Lions, by Mick Herron—The purest enjoyment I got out of my reading this spring. I got into Herron’s Slough House series courtesy of my friend JP Burten, who described them to me as “John LeCarre crossed with ‘The Office.’” Sold. Intricately plotted, well written, briskly paced spy stories with plenty of twists and surprises and suffused with wry, often dark humor, this has become my new favorite fictional series. I already have Real Tigers, the third, and look forward to reading it.

The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, by Alexander McCall Smith*—The second installment (unbeknownst to me at the time I listened to it) of the misadventures of Prof Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, this is a set of loosely interconnected short stories about a German philologist of the Romance languages whose academic intrigues and public embarrassments are made hilarious by his combination of pomposity and excruciating politeness. A real hoot.

Wait for a Corpse, by Max Murray—An impulse buy at my local used book store, this novel by a now almost-forgotten writer was a fun, wittily written mystery in which the question is not who killed the narrator’s obnoxious Uncle Titus, but who is going to kill him. I read this to my wife at bedtime for a couple weeks and we both really enjoyed it.

A Lost Lady of Old Years, by John Buchan—One of the earliest novels by Buchan, this one follows ne’er-do-well Francis Birkenshaw, the dissipated scion of an austere Highland clan, on a series of adventures and misadventures through the Jacobite Rising of 1745, culminating in the Battle of Culloden and its aftermath. Somewhat slower-paced and with a less proactive main character than in many of Buchan’s later books, but still vividly realized and enjoyable.

Kids’ books

Macbeth, adapted by Bruce Coville, illustrated by Gary Kelley—A very good picture book adaptation of my favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies, with beautiful and often genuinely spooky illustrations. Coville incorporates enough of the Bard’s own language (and Macbeth is eminently quotable) to give a flavor of the original while making the plot understandable to kids. Really enjoyed introducing mine to this story.

Caedmon’s Song, by Ruth Ashby, illustrated by Bill Slavin—A beautifully illustrated picture book retelling of the story of Cædmon, a shy cowherd who miraculously received the gift of song and the boldness to sing about God to his friends. Nice attention to detail and realistically rendered early medieval settings, including a cameo appearance by St Hild of Whitby. A nice introduction to a famous story from Bede and the Anglo-Saxon period for kids.

The Second World War, by Dominic Sandbrook—Part of Sandbrook’s Adventures in Time series, which includes The First World War and Alexander the Great (both of which I own and mean to read soon) and forthcoming volumes on Cleopatra and the Vikings. This is an excellent narrative retelling of World War II for young readers (approximately 9- to 12-year olds). Sandbrook judiciously selects ordinary people—children, civilians, grunts—as point of view characters for the action and also provides good, age-appropriate introductions to the major figures of the war, especially Churchill and Hitler, as well as genuinely global coverage of the war. He manages to include not only the big events in Europe and the Pacific but the broader context, including the rise of the Nazis in the 1920s and 30s and Japanese aggression toward China in 1930s. I look forward to sharing this with my kids as they reach the age where they’ll be able to read and appreciate it.

Stephen Biesty’s Cross-Sections: Castle—Another excellent medieval picture book, this one a layer-by-layer cross-sectioning of a thirteenth-century castle during a siege. Every picture is loaded with fantastic details, and each two-page spread also has side bar illustrations and explanations of specific topics like vassalage, food and drink, medieval games and entertainment, and crime and punishment. My kids and I have enjoyed leafing through this one and finding new things hidden away every time.

Disappointments

Fatelessness, by Imre Kertész, trans. Tim Wilkinson—Based on the author’s experiences as a teenage prisoner and slave laborer at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, this is a curiously muted and dull book, with individually involving scenes of great vividness set in a great stretches of discursive exposition. And lacking most of the conventions of fiction, such as dialogue, it barely qualifies as a novel. I am still unsure about whether this was intentional or a problem with the translation, Hungarian being a notoriously difficult language. I’m glad I read it, but I wouldn’t recommend it, at least not as a novel.

The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan—You know how certain kinds of people criticize Tolkien? Saying that he over-describes insignificant details, has indistinguishable underdeveloped characters, gets lost in his own lore, lards his writing with awkward archaisms, wanders down too many plotting rabbit trails, generally goes on too long, and is tedious, simplistic, and derivative? Those criticisms aren’t true—of Tolkien. But they describe Robert Jordan 100% accurately.

Rereads

I continue my project of making myself revisit good books I’ve read before. Most of these I’ve listened to on Hoopla or Audible during my commute. Lemonade out of lemons. As usual, audiobook “rereads” are marked with asterisks.

  • Devil May Care, by Sebastian Faulks*—A Bond continuation novel that Faulks wrote in imitation of Fleming’s style, mostly successfully. Especially interesting for its pre-Revolution Iranian setting.

  • Russell Kirk’s Concise Guide to Conservatism*—A succinct handbook of traditionalist conservative thought in the tradition of Burke. A much-needed corrective to whatever it is that “conservatism” is today. Full review from 2019 on the blog here.

  • After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division, by Samuel Goldman*—A helpful and thought-provoking study of what “nationalism” means in a country with none of the usual sources of national identity.

  • Blood Meridian, or: The Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy—Far and away the best thing I reread this spring; almost certainly the most rewarding reread I’ve ever undertaken. A real masterpiece. Related blog reflections on finding hope in McCarthy’s work here.

  • Socrates: A Man for Our Times, by Paul Johnson*—The book that got me into Paul Johnson; a witty and engagingly written popular introduction to the Father of Philosophy, with careful—perhaps too much—attention to his life and times.

  • The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien—Read to my children for bedtime. One of the highlights of my seven years as a dad.

  • The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman*—A sci-fi action classic clearly inspired by the author’s experiences in Vietnam, but also startlingly prescient in many ways. Not only action-packed, with all the trappings of good intergalactic, time-dilating space travel and alien combat you could want, but also thoughtful and moving.

On the horizon

I’m very much looking forward to the summer, as my schedule is considerably more relaxed (no commuting between campuses for a few months) and my wife and kids will soon be on their break. I’m currently halfway through with Simon Callow’s Being Wagner: The Story of the Most Provocative Composer Who Ever Lived, about a quarter of the way into the mammoth Stalin’s War, by Sean McMeekin, and have just started And the Whole Mountain Burned, a war novel set in Afghanistan by combat veteran Ray McPadden. And I have lots more lined up.

Hope y’all have a restful summer full of good books, too. Thanks for reading!