I missed this somehow! I actually read some Seneca in 2024--"The Happy Life"--as it gets referenced in a play I was in (Yasmina Reza's "Art"). I'll give Epitectus a shot. I'm more Epicurean in outlook (Seneca spends a bit of "The Happy Life" ripping on the Epicureans), although I don't think Epicurus' transactional view of virtue is worth much.
My best non-fiction reads of 2024 included "Spain in Our Hearts", which is an account of Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil War. It's billed as replacing Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" as the best book on foreign fighters in Spain in the '30s, and lives up to its billing. It makes me think about what the appropriate thing to do with respect to Ukraine is.
Another non-fiction highlight: "The Art of Not Being Governed", which is James C Scott's "anarchist history" of Southeast Asia. I've always had anarchist leanings, but never bought into the utopian fantasies of Bakunin, Graeber, et al, who are basically leftists in anarchist clothing. Scott explains clearly the enormous cost that stateless societies accept for their freedom from exploitation, including things like eschewing literacy. It really solidified my "anarchist by nature, social democrat by policy" understanding of my own politics.
In fiction, "The House of Doors" by Tan Twan Eng is a fascinating, slow-moving but deeply moving, look at British colonial culture in Panang, an island off the Malaysian peninsula, north of Singapore. It's framed around a visit by the writer Sommerset Maugham to the island, and the tensions arising from sex, sexuality and race (Maugham was gay, traveling with a lover, struggling with an unhappy marriage back in England, and had just gone broke due to a bad investment). His hosts are a couple struggling with their own lives and loves and entanglements. It's atmospheric and powerful and surprisingly moving.
Great list! I only just started actually reading books again. I was on a major listening binge earlier this year. I really enjoyed Sebastian Junger's In My Time of Dying and The Devils Candy by Julie Salamon. I'm trying to get back into reading more fiction as I have been reading mostly non fiction for the majority of the last few years.
My fave bit about the Discourses is when Epicetus calls an oaf of the street and chides him for "plucking his hair as the women do", for NOT having a beard (and presumably the poor young lad maintaining a suitable coif to go with his OG metrosexual presentation), and for not being capable of raw thought on anything.
The rest is your area.
Being mad isn't so bad. In a MAD world, only the mad are sane! (Hatebreed lyric. J. Jasta is a heroin abuser in remission, the front man/writer... I am just a pot fiend, proudly never to be in remission again; a common gutter snipe drunk, in early post-acute withdrawal syndrome. Uhm, I am inpatient in a psychosocial rehab program at a Veterans Health Administration medical centre. Hopefully, for the very last time.)
(no worries, I am medicated with the whole of a home pharmacy for everyone's general safety, verbally contracted with DHS/USSS for "safety", and just not armed unless someone hand delivers a weapon...like a cop or some schizo numbnuts gun concealer. What?)
I’m assuming that by talking about top books, you also admit the existence of bottom and verse books?
Of course!
This is a great list! I always enjoy Ryan Holiday’s books.
Thanks! What were your favorites last year?
I actually wrote a post with my top books! https://open.substack.com/pub/ryanclarkself/p/my-top-10-books-of-2024?r=7y31d&utm_medium=ios
I missed this somehow! I actually read some Seneca in 2024--"The Happy Life"--as it gets referenced in a play I was in (Yasmina Reza's "Art"). I'll give Epitectus a shot. I'm more Epicurean in outlook (Seneca spends a bit of "The Happy Life" ripping on the Epicureans), although I don't think Epicurus' transactional view of virtue is worth much.
My best non-fiction reads of 2024 included "Spain in Our Hearts", which is an account of Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil War. It's billed as replacing Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" as the best book on foreign fighters in Spain in the '30s, and lives up to its billing. It makes me think about what the appropriate thing to do with respect to Ukraine is.
Another non-fiction highlight: "The Art of Not Being Governed", which is James C Scott's "anarchist history" of Southeast Asia. I've always had anarchist leanings, but never bought into the utopian fantasies of Bakunin, Graeber, et al, who are basically leftists in anarchist clothing. Scott explains clearly the enormous cost that stateless societies accept for their freedom from exploitation, including things like eschewing literacy. It really solidified my "anarchist by nature, social democrat by policy" understanding of my own politics.
In fiction, "The House of Doors" by Tan Twan Eng is a fascinating, slow-moving but deeply moving, look at British colonial culture in Panang, an island off the Malaysian peninsula, north of Singapore. It's framed around a visit by the writer Sommerset Maugham to the island, and the tensions arising from sex, sexuality and race (Maugham was gay, traveling with a lover, struggling with an unhappy marriage back in England, and had just gone broke due to a bad investment). His hosts are a couple struggling with their own lives and loves and entanglements. It's atmospheric and powerful and surprisingly moving.
Great list! I only just started actually reading books again. I was on a major listening binge earlier this year. I really enjoyed Sebastian Junger's In My Time of Dying and The Devils Candy by Julie Salamon. I'm trying to get back into reading more fiction as I have been reading mostly non fiction for the majority of the last few years.
My fave bit about the Discourses is when Epicetus calls an oaf of the street and chides him for "plucking his hair as the women do", for NOT having a beard (and presumably the poor young lad maintaining a suitable coif to go with his OG metrosexual presentation), and for not being capable of raw thought on anything.
The rest is your area.
Being mad isn't so bad. In a MAD world, only the mad are sane! (Hatebreed lyric. J. Jasta is a heroin abuser in remission, the front man/writer... I am just a pot fiend, proudly never to be in remission again; a common gutter snipe drunk, in early post-acute withdrawal syndrome. Uhm, I am inpatient in a psychosocial rehab program at a Veterans Health Administration medical centre. Hopefully, for the very last time.)
(no worries, I am medicated with the whole of a home pharmacy for everyone's general safety, verbally contracted with DHS/USSS for "safety", and just not armed unless someone hand delivers a weapon...like a cop or some schizo numbnuts gun concealer. What?)