December 23, 2010
Books of the Year
Things are obviously winding down around here until the New Year, and I imagine most readers are as burned-out politics-wise as I am.
So let’s have a bit of fun, and try to re-exploit what turned out to be very productive exercise over the summer.
Norm recently posted his annual Books of the Year blog, and I’m duly stealing the idea. Please share your books of the year in comments below; I find this to be an especially useful “crowd sourcing” technique and I’m sure fellow readers will too.
The only rule is that you must have read the book between 1st January and 31st December 2010. But it can have been published at any time. List as many or as few as you like.
Top 10 Non-Fiction Works
- Leviathan and the Air Pump - Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer
- The Case for the Enlightenment – John Robertson
- Politics in the Ancient World – Moses Finley
- Lords of Finance – Liaquat Ahamed
- History and Illusion in Politics – Raymond Geuss
- In the Beginning was the Deed – Bernard Williams
- Political Hypocrisy – David Runciman
- The Battle for Spain – Anthony Beevor
- Reappraisals – Tony Judt
- On Film – Stephen Mulhall
(Though if I cheat my own self-imposed imperative and have an 11th, Jealousy of Trade by Istvan Hont gets a mention because although I read much of it in 2009, I read it again more thoroughly and with more fruitful results this year).
Top 10 Fiction Works
- A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemmingway
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
- The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
- Towards the End of the Morning – Michael Frayn
- The Night Watch - Sarah Waters
- L’Etranger – Albert Camus
- The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
- Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
- Burr – Gore Vidal
- Beyond Black - Hilary Mantel
5 To Avoid
- Ordinary Thunderstorms – William Boyd
- Le Horla – Guy de Maupassant
- Britons – Linda Colley
- Voyage au Centre de la Terre – Jules Verne
- Ill Fares the Land – Tony Judt
-
Update: I probably should have included Graham Swift’s Waterland in my top 10 fiction, for being a 350-page indictment of the philistinism and incoherence of those who say history is unimportant because all that matters is the future.
Ed said,
December 23, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Imperial Life in the Emerald City : Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Nothing to be Frightened Of: Julian Barnes
Rousseau’s Dog: David Edmonds and John Eidinow
Envisioning Real Utopias: Erik Olin Wright
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius: Ray Monk
BenSix said,
December 23, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Oooh, lists!
N/F -
The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus
The Principia Discordia, Malaclypse the Younger
Irrationality, Stuart Sutherland
Cold World, Dominic Fox
God’s Funeral, AN Wilson
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer
The London Bombings, Nafeez Ahmed
Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Roger Lewis
F -
Whatever, Michel Houellebecq
Mao II, Don Delilo
Cities of the Red Night, William Burroughs
A Journey, Tony Blair
The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
Skinny Legs and All, Tom Robinns
Meh -
Voodoo Histories, David Aaronovitch
Breaking the Spell, Daniel Dennett
Reason, Faith and Revolution, Terry Eagleton
Enduring Love, Ian McEwan
So, now we can see what kind of self-construction exercise I’ve been pulling! Well, from this list it appears that I decided life is meaningless, went mad and descended into a world of bleak philosophy, totalitarianism, bad jokes and a curious dislike of men with beards.
Louisa Loveluck said,
December 23, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Fiction
Nuruddin Farah – Maps
Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
Tony Blair – A Journey
BenSix said,
December 23, 2010 at 7:14 pm
(Given how pretentious that post may have been, would it compound my disgrace to correct the spelling of DeLillo?)
Louisa Loveluck said,
December 23, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Oops, was definitely pipped at the post on the Blair book…
Jon Buss said,
December 23, 2010 at 7:38 pm
The Spirit Level – Kate Pickett & Richard Wilkinson
False Dawn – John Gray
Slow Learner – Thomas Pynchon
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea – Yukio Mishima
Industry and Empire – Eric Hobsbawm (re-read)
Planet of Slums – Mike Davis
The Predator State – James Galbraith
The Writing on the Wall – Will Hutton
The End of the Free Market – Ian Bremmer
The Return of Depression Economics – Paul Krugman
ps. The Battle for Spain is fantastic, good choice
Mike Armitage said,
December 23, 2010 at 9:15 pm
This year I read and enjoyed, to pick 3 which spring to mind, Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Freedom’, Ed Burns & David Simon’s ‘The Corner’, and Sebastian Faulks’s ‘Engleby’. The second in particular would be interesting to you, if you haven’t read it, as I know you’re a Wire fan.
I also, unforgivably, haven’t read any Kafka before and recently read The Trial, which was excellent.
Finally, I (re-)read most of Jonathan Coe’s novels and loved almost all of them, especially the House of Sleep.
Of your fiction top 10, I’ve read the Hemingway and the Hardy – any of the others you’d especially recommend?
Mercer Finn said,
December 23, 2010 at 9:28 pm
I’m a new reader, so I don’t know if I should be contributing. I guess it’s as good an introduction as any other. These were the books that made the biggest impact this year:
The Second Sex – Simone De Beauvoir
On The Genealogy of Morality – Friedrich Nietzsche
The Theory of Moral Sentiments – Adam Smith
Regarding Method – Quentin Skinner
Energy Flash – Simon Reynolds
Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
Fun Home – Alison Bechdel
Mercury – Hope Larson
From Hell – Alan Moore / Eddie Campbell
Mercer Finn said,
December 23, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Paul: did you by any chance do the Political Ideas MA at Queen Mary? I’m on the course this year, and I wonder if I’ve seen you at some of the various conferences in London. Or I maybe thinking of someone else, if so please ignore me.
paperbackrioter said,
December 23, 2010 at 10:49 pm
If I could ask, paul: what didn’t you like about Ill Fares the Land? I think that’s the best book I’ve read this year; certainly the most inspiring.
Carl Packman said,
December 23, 2010 at 11:26 pm
I’ll blog my ideas and set about memetically reinforcing them like nailing my faeces on the door that is intergalact… nevermind. What I will ask here is what, Ben, did you not like about Reason, Faith and Revolution by the great Terry Eagleton?
Paul, you’re a star
Nakul said,
December 24, 2010 at 12:15 am
I’ve gone off Ill Fares the Land too, though it seems a bit harsh to say it. Nothing in it that Judt hasn’t said better elsewhere, and a bit too much of the argument just piggybacks off the Spirit Level.
Of books actually published this year, I enjoyed Zadie Smith’s Changing My Mind, and (with all the usual caveats) Stephen Fry’s The Fry Chronicles. I’d add John Lanchester’s Whoops! on the origins of the financial crisis to the list, but I find that for all its simplicity and humour, I manage to forget everything he’s just explained to me within a half hour of putting the book down. Maybe that’s just me.
I also enjoyed Rory Stewart’s unsettling memoir of the first year of the occupation of Iraq — Occupational Hazards — full of sober political realism illustrating the apropos epigraphs from Machiavelli.
Some classic pieces of fiction I read for the first time and recommend unreservedly: L P Hartley’s The Go-Between, J G Farrell’s Troubles, and Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea. Also recommended: Small World, David Lodge’s satire of conference-hopping humanities academics. A bit excessive, but some brilliant set pieces (look out for the absurd seduction scene in an Italian villa that features in Jerry Cohen’s If You’re an Egalitarian).
Books of the Year 2010 « Raincoat Optimism said,
December 24, 2010 at 1:14 am
[...] I hear you ask – silently), so what better time to do a good ol’ meme (nicked from Paul, who in turn nicked it from Norm – and, well, it’s hardly a new idea is [...]
duncanseconomicblog said,
December 24, 2010 at 9:55 am
About to read Ill Fares the Land, so will comment on that afterwards.
Books I’ve enjoyed this year.
Non-Ficition
23 Things they Don’t Tell You About Capitalism – Ha-Joon Chang
Live Working or Die Fighting – Paul Mason
Postwar – Tony Judt
Animal Spirits – Akerlof and Shiller
The Great Financial Crisis – Foster & Magdoff
Whatever it Takes – Steve Richards
Keynes Betrayed – Tily (re-read)
New Jersulems, the economics of democratic socialism – Durbin
Labour Party & Planning, 1931-1951 – Toye
The Anatomy of Fascism – Paxton
Fiction
GB84 – Peace
Sword of Honour Trilogy – Waugh (surely counts as 3?)
War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts – De Bernieres
The Rules of Attraction – Easton Ellis
Sharpe’s Eagle – Cornwall (re-read and nostalgia!)
Debt of Honour – Clancy (ditto!)
Our Man in Havanna – Greene
The Good Soldier Svejk – Hasek
5 to avoid
The Third Man – Mandelson
A Journey – Blair
The End of the Party – Rawnsley
Occupied City – Peace (a shame as Tokyo Year Zero was v good)
The Spirit Level – just read the introduction and then stop.
Grace said,
December 24, 2010 at 10:32 am
Non-fiction
Whatever it takes – Paul Tough
Our America – LeAlan Jones, Lloyd Newman, with David Isay
The Language Instinct – Steven Pinker
Chasing Hellhounds – Marvin Hoffman
Humanity – Jonathan Glover
So Much Reform, So Little Change – Charles Payne
Bad Science – Ben Goldacre
Desiring God – John Piper
Louisa Loveluck said,
December 24, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Far less intellectual than those cited above but…
NF
A History of Iraq – Charles Tripp
The Great War for Civilisation – Robert Fisk
Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the 20th Century -Jeffry Frieden
Eyewitness to Genocide: the Unied Nations and Rwanda – Michael Barnett
Civil War Is Not A Stupid Thing – Charles Cramer
BenSix said,
December 24, 2010 at 12:07 pm
I thought he was smug in his treatment of supposed new atheists – “supposed” because he rarely seemed impute a view directly – and condescending to believers, most of whom, I’d speculate, wouldn’t recognise the faith that he was crediting them with…
…God, I do write a lot of wank…
Churm Rincewind said,
December 24, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Good game! My nominations:
Best non-fiction: Nightmare of Ecstasy – Rudolph Gray
Best fiction: Fictions – Jorge Luis Borges
To avoid: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
Carl Packman said,
December 24, 2010 at 5:06 pm
He is allowed to be smug to the so-called new atheists, they are trying to tackle subjects they know little about – you know this Ben
BenSix said,
December 24, 2010 at 5:42 pm
True, but I got no more impression that he did. He almost seemed to think the factual bases of religion is irrelevant but aside from the most wooly, quiche-consuming Anglicans who’d accept that? Aquinas, bless ‘im, REALLY MEANT to prove that God existed…
I did, perhaps, get too hung up on that. He made some good points about secular rationalism and its own idols and faith. Then again, John Gray had made them better long before.
Carl Packman said,
December 24, 2010 at 6:05 pm
I won’t fault you that, and had I read Straw Dogs and Black Mass this year they’d have gone straight in my list. I find Eagleton a cut above most; his introduction to the Gospels (you know the type of books) was amazing, very counter-intuitive, particularly with regards to Jesus who he says was far from revolutionary (by which I mean we’ve come to expect any left wing Christian to pretend Jesus was the first socialist etc etc). We ought to get our heads on this subject more often Ben, I’ve lost trying to convince you that the war in Afghanistan is justified ;)
BenSix said,
December 24, 2010 at 6:20 pm
I endorse that suggestion – humanity needs more than secular rationalism or it’ll lose the will to live.
Carl Packman said,
December 24, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Couldn’t agree more – I’m with you and Gray on this one, and like Gray I’m coming at it as an atheist. I noticed Daniel Dennett in your bad books there, how do you rate him generally? I feel like I spent a lot of time in his head – if there’s a long way round explaining something he knows it; I nailed Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Freedom Evolves, Breaking the Spell and Consciousness Explained – and there’s more. That tallies up to about 2,500 pages in itself. I find him so interesting as a science historian and applied philosopher (almost) but he will forever be associated with saying that as technology becomes all the more sophisticated, religion will become reduced to folly – a common mistake among the “brights”.
(We’re just going to hijack this space now, Christmas can wait)
BenSix said,
December 24, 2010 at 7:39 pm
I think he’s an exceedingly intelligent man with a bad habit of presuming that his interlocutors are being more foolish than they are and, thus, producing crude analysis. (This shouldn’t be surprising: research by Professor Keith Stanovich – I won’t link for fear of drifting into Paul’s spam folder, but it can be found on google – gives us reason to believe that there’s no strong link between intelligence and rationality.) My suspicion is that this leads him to presume his beliefs are more self-evident than they are.
On the other hand, I think his work on consciousness is very interesting (though I haven’t really got the know-why to judge it).
One of my primary beefs with the nu-rationalists is that they don’t seem to have realised how bleak their worldview is. (See David Benatar’s The Optimist Delusion.) I wouldn’t be surprised if people need religion; even if, in the absence of grand narrative dogma, they deify whatever junk happens to be lying around.
Paul Sagar said,
December 25, 2010 at 7:24 pm
OK belated replies, ignoring this bizarre exchange between Carl and Ben at the end:
Mike: they’re all really good, though Middlesex and Burr are hard work and take committment, so the others recommended for easier reading. The Wasp Factory is a definite must-read, however; if only because you’ll never read anything like it again.
Mercer: Of course you’re welcome to comment (everybody is, for the most part, a few regular prats excepted). Yes, I am one and the same. Glad to see a lot of the Method and Practice In The History of Ideas term 1 core reading making it onto your top 10…
PaperbackRioter: Basically I thought IFTL was extremely superficial, uninsightful and dealing in over-statements and broad-brush generalisation that precluded any sort of insight. Obviously it’s sort of harsh to say this – as Nakul hints – because after all Judt dictated it from an iron lung. And also, it’s explicitly for “young people”. But then, I’m not overly keen on prepping the “next generation” with an oversimplified narrative of political blacks and whites that cash out in an allegedly simple set of core solutions (if difficult in practice, not in principals) to the ills of the world. I basically just got nothing out of this book, which was a real shame because it ended up being such a whimper instead of a bang for the end of his phenomenal intellectual career. Though again, harsh vis-a-vis MND, iron lungs, etc.
Duncan: you thought the Rawnsley was that bad? I thought it was a bit superficial, glib and much less fun than Servants of the People (which I liked a lot), and it was a shame that his Blairite sympathies came through far too clearly, but I wouldn’t put it on my to-avoid list – even though it was tediously long. Largely agree re the Spirit Level, though.
–
Merry sodding Christmas and all that bla.
BenSix said,
December 25, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Oh, you tried to ignore it but you couldn’t, you couldn’t.
Jim Buck said,
December 26, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Non-Fiction:
Anthony Blunt; His Lives–Miranda Carter
What Darwin Got Wrong—Jerry Fodor & Massimo Piattella-Palmarini
Evolution in Four Dimensions–Eva Jablonka & Marion J. Lamb
Not By Design: Retiring Darwin’s Watchmaker–John O. Reiss
Freud: The Reluctant Philosopher–Alfred L Tauber
Fiction:
Aunt Mame—Patrick Dennis
The Finkler Question—Howard Jacobson
True Grit—Charles Portis
Rosa—Jonathan Rabb
Red Plenty—Francis Spufford
Avoided: (hoping to pluck up the courage to take these off the shelves in 2011)
The Arcades Project—Walter Benjamin (n/f)
Middlemarch—George Elliot
Perdidoo Street Station–China Mielville (f)
Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition—Glenn Alexander Magee (n/f)
Everyone tells me to avoid this (so I might give it a go!):
The Slap—Christos Tsiolkas
duncanseconomicblog said,
December 26, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Paul,
I also love Servants of the People. I just though EOTP overpromised and underdelivered, Brown at Ten (by contrast), which I’ve just started, seems much better.
D
Chris Brooke said,
December 27, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Five things stand out, for one reason or another:
James Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed
Tony Blair, A Journey
Franz Neumann, Behemoth
Jan Zielonka, Europe as Empire
James Meade, Efficiency, Equality, and the Ownership of Property