1. Florian Illies, The Magic of Silence: Caspar David Friedrich’s Journey Through Time. An excellent book, usually I am allergic to art history books that attempt to charm, but this one works. Excerpt: “A question posed to the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk: ‘What makes the Monk by the Seashore so unprecedented?’ His answer: “It is the first picture of the dissolution of the subject in the substance.”” I had not known Friedrich also was an expert canary breeder.
2. Elsa Morante, Lies and Sorcery. The kind of long novel that women on average will like much more than men do? If someone said to me they thought it was excellent, I would not feel they had bad taste. For me the narrative strayed too far from anything I cared about, other than fineries about the characters.
3. John Ferling, Shots Heard Round the World: America, Britain, and Europe in the Revolutionary War. A good and well-detailed book for putting the Revolutionary War and its battles into a broader perspective, explicable to both American and British perspectives.
4. Nick Land, The Dark Enlightenment. There is plenty one can say about this book and these views, but most of all I am struck how negative “the new Right” is about American institutions. Even at whatever you might think is their most decrepit state (which year is that again?), they are some of the best institutions the world has seen. Call that a low standard if you wish, but it is not an irrelevant standard. Here are some other examples of people becoming far, far too pessimistic about the American status quo ex ante. As personality types, they are simply way too much a bunch of sourpusses. Things just have not been that bad!
5. John Cassidy, Capitalism and its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI. John Cassidy of course is the New Yorker writer on economics. Comprehensive and clearly written, I predict this book will find its audience, and no it does not discuss Nick Land.
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