Fiction

1. Skylark, by Dezső Kosztolányi (re-released by NYRB Books in 2010). Not No. 1 by accident. Set in a provincial Hungarian town c. 1900, the plot of Skylark works to put on display the quiet suffering and ambivalence experienced by us all through its exploration of ordinary folk & their ordinary lives. Other Kosztolányi titles available in English: Anna Édes and Kornél Esti (re-translated/released in 1993 and 2011, respectively), both of which are fine reads, esp. Anna Edes, which IMO rivals Skylark as DK’s best.

2. Perlmann’s Silence, by Pascal Mercier, the nom de plume of Swiss philosopher Peter Bieri. An academic thriller novel. Not as good as Mercier’s philosophical adventure tale Night Train to Lisbon, but worth reading. Apparently Night Train is coming out as a movie later this year, though it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that would necessarily translate well onto the screen.

Other:

1. Thomas Pangle’s The Theological Origins of Liberal Modernity in Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws. Pangle focuses on what he takes to be Montesquieu’s subterranean philosophical/theological radicalism. Review forthcoming at some point in PPS.

2. Locke books by Lee Ward–John Locke and Modern Life, which has been much discussed on this blog–and Douglas Casson–Liberating Judgment. The latter offers a good account of the political or civic character of Locke’s natural rights philosophy.

3. Lucid Mind, Intrepid Spirit, the Chantal Delsol volume already mentioned by Carl.

As far as reading goes from last year, I usually read a few books a year that are challenging enough that requires me to pull out my Mortimer Adler method of outlining. It’s sort of my version of Soduku.

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying David Walsh’s Modern Philosophical Revolution. I do sympathize with Lawler’s skepticism regarding Walsh’s optimistic take on the modern democratic project. But I do think Walsh describes nicely the paradox that healthy democratic societies require a willingness to acknowledge the tension that existence cannot be systematically reduced or mastered but must be lived out with eyes wide open. His chapter on Kierkegaard was particularly edifying.

I also enjoyed Bartlett and Collins’ new translation of Nichomachean Ethics.

And on theology, the Reformed theologian Michael Horton’s book Lord and Servant which is a study of the Doctrines of Soteriology, Creation and Anthropology in light of Covenant Theology.

And as one who is constantly attempting to impose organization on my disorganization David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Not very philosophical but helpful none the less.

A book that has my attention but I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to read it is Jaffa’s Crisis of the Strauss Divided. Maybe some of you Straussiophiles can tell me if its worth the effort.

On MacIntyre, I have fond memories of the book Kierkegaard after MacIntyre which was an amusing exercise in Kierkegaard experts poking holes in MacIntyre’s cartoonish take on the Dane. Theire premise was that it turns out Kierkegaard and MacIntyre had more in common than not. MacIntyre writes a response in the last chapter which, to say the least, suggested not a little annoyance on his part.

Hands down the best book I read last year (and the best in many years, actually) was The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson. A spectacular book set in North Korea that is bizarre and surreal and probably not even a fraction as weird as real life in that horrific place. It’s like science fiction, but like I said, if anything is probably not nearly off-the-wall enough. There’s a line in the last few pages that is something like “This is how I would have felt every moment of my life if you had never lived” that is like a massive punch in the gut. (Actually this line may only resonate for we idealists, and mean nothing to realists, sadly for them.)

Other than that I spent most of the year reading stuff like Joel Salatin and James Schall, which undoubtedly strongly affected my views on the proper perspective to have regarding the major events of the year…

PS. Whatever happened to the songbook?