a year’s worth of reading
2020 — what a year. At least we had plenty of time to read.
My reading patterns this year have helped better inform me of what I like to read, and what I want to like to read. Coming to terms with this difference has helped me become a more prolific reader.
I like reading short stories and definitely prefer reading shorter books. I want to like classical philosophy, but Epictetus has sat dustily on the bookshelf all year. The petite text size of Foucault’s The Order of Things has kept his spine intact.
I like books espousing zen concepts, books about Japan and books by the quirkier rank of Japanese authors. I like books about existentialism, both as a direct subject matter, and as an overarching theme. Apparently, I like books by and depicting the colonial era British upper class. I don’t necessarily like social commentary and political thought, even when the author’s opinions echo my own.
I judge books by their covers and I am irrationally delighted by the mosaic tile arrangement of book covers on my 2020 Reading Challenge page.
And I like lists, so here are the books I read in 2020 ranked from worst to best.
All books are created equal, but some books are more equal than others
NOTE: For all my “reviews” here I acknowledge there is a great degree of subjectivity involved. Certain books would certainly have hit me differently based on the context within which I read them, and the “order” of my list is fairly fluid. I have tried not to write much about each book in this article due to lack of time and lack of ability to express myself, so note that the full summation of my feelings towards each book is certainly not on show.
Before diving into the rankings, I’ve decided to exclude the following books, for a variety of reasons. Most generally because it doesn’t feel fair or indeed in any way possible to try and rank these against the more typical fiction, philosophy etc that makes up the bulk of the list.
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
by Charlie Mackesy
This is an excellent book. I guess you might classify it as a picture book or a story book, but it vastly transcends those confines. It is self-help in the purest sense. It is therapy you can administer on yourself. It is a truly beautiful piece of writing and illustration. It is the sort of book I would give to a friend who needs comforting, through depression or grief or anything else.
Man’Yo Luster
by Ian Hideo Levy
This is a selection of poems from the Man’yoshu, a classic collection of Japanese poetry. The poems are written in Japanese on one side of the page, and then in English overleaf, interspersed with pictures of Japan’s natural beauty. A highly elegant piece for the coffee table. I have chosen not to rank it as I see it’s value in the pictures and presentation as much as the words.
Millionaire Teacher
by Andrew Hallam
Comparing Millionaire Teacher to Confucius or Where The Crawdads Sing doesn’t make any sense to me. It’d be like comparing a Youtube tutorial video to Oscar Best Picture nominees; same medium, totally different purpose. It’s a great practical guide on wealth management and pension planning that I view more as a textbook for revisiting than anything else.
⭐ pretentious drivel
50
Walden; or, Life in the Woods
by Henry David Thoreau
I have had Walden on my bookshelf since 2012 when I decided to purchase it as part of my wider reading for my undergrad philosophy dissertation (on “The Meaning of Life” 🙄). At the time I fancied myself as a wide-eyed existentialist explorer, ready to tread new transcendental ground and contribute creatively to the philosophical zeitgeist.
Unfortunately though I was a terrible reader — I kinda doubt I had touched a book for pleasure since Harry Potter — and hence not only did I fail to break new ground in the search for existential meaning, I also failed to get more than a few pages into Walden, a book that drags and drags and drags with Sisyphean relentlessness.
Having allowed 8 years of maturing patience to grow within me I set forth on Walden for the second time with optimism and confidence.
Well, it still sucks.
The book is pretentious, disingenuous, condescending and above all else, boring. Really really boring. Thoreau goes on and on about birds and the depth of ponds and not all that much else for what feels like an eternity. Just don’t read this book — it’s not deep or insightful or meritable in any way, it’s just plain boring.
49
The Analects
by Confucius
Maybe this is a controversial one. And there should probably be an asterix besides this one star review. I’m not convinced that what I read was truly the words or views of Confucius, as is documented in Chinese or understood by others. I’m not convinced that the translation in the book I purchased is accurate.
I can only review what I read though, and according to Amazon, this is Confucius, translated by James Legge.
Confucius? More like confusing.
The Analects that I read were an odd and unconnected swathe of one-liners, musing about mostly banal topics and in a tone that at times seems like a parody of itself.
Let me give you some examples verbatim:
The people of the south have a saying, ‘A man without constancy cannot be either a wizard or a doctor.’ Good!
Right…
The Master, having come to Wu-ch’ang, heard there the sound of stringed instruments and singing. Well pleased and smiling, he said, ‘Why use an ox knife to kill a fowl?’
Why?!
The Master said, ‘The accomplished scholar is not a utensil.’
Good one Confucius.
Now you may think that I am plucking these quotes completely out of context, but I’m not. There is no context at all. Each of the above are standalone paragraphs. The passages surrounding these examples are totally unrelated and equally mystifying.
I certainly have no disinclination towards proverbs, or single-stanza philosophy. Quite the opposite if anything. Yet I came away from The Analects feeling nothing but perplexed.
48
Why Am I So Wise?
by Friedrich Nietzsche
I hated this for so many reasons. The following adjectives adequately describe this book: pretentious, incomprehensible, pointless, indecipherable, scatterbrained, arrogant, insulting, unsubstantial, self-indulgent.
This is the worst type of philosophy; it’s intentionally esoteric and baseless gibberish. I guarantee if you started reading Nietzsche with this little handbook of drivel as your introduction, your journey with Friedrich would go no further.
I’ve read notes that this (Nietzsche’s final work btw) was intended to be at least somewhat tongue in cheek, sarcastic, playful. But frankly it’s not funny, it’s not witty, it’s mostly just the nonsensical ramblings of a delusional (senile?) man.
At least it is relatively brief.
Things get better from here, I promise.
⭐⭐ not my cup of tea
47
Lost Japan
by Alex Kerr
I felt a bit deceived by this book. It’s basically just Alex Kerr’s autobiography, which is fine. But not quite what I was expecting from the subtitle, “Last glimpse of beautiful Japan”. The start of the book, where Alex relates finding and buying his traditional thatched-roof, tatami-floored house in an extremely rural Japanese village (where he supposes no Westerner may have ever been) is compelling, but the subject matter quickly drifts away from actual elements of lost Japan, and to Alex’s life — for instance his recollections of his time working in corporate Japan, which serve very little toward the ascribed title and to me, are not that interesting.
I guess perhaps this is more a memoir than an autobiography, and there may be those that find it stimulating. It’s not for me though, and I’m not sure who I would recommend it to — I think sadly the lost Japan that Alex glimpsed is just a bit uninteresting.
46
Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Building Teams and Winning at the Highest Level
by Michael Lombardi
I have similar issues here, despite the very different subject matter. Gridiron Genius is a collection of insider anecdotes from Lombardi’s time as an NFL Executive. Whilst each chapter and recollection certainly has some standalone value to an NFL fan interested in the nuts and bolts of football or the behind scenes stuff, the whole feels less than the sum of its parts. One chapter is just a long list of things to ask a potential Head Coach candidate (with little to no explanation), another is a list of things that Lombardi hates about broadcast commentators (surprisingly this was perhaps my favourite chapter). Its a scrapbook of memories without a strong undercurrent running through the text.
By the end of the book I didn’t feel like I’d like I gained any real tangible insights into what makes a great NFL team (or business for that matter — something Lombardi alludes to at points). It felt instead like I’d read an assortment of ESPN online articles commissioned by Bill Belichick.
45
Lips Too Chilled
by Matsuo Bashō
Lips Too Chilled is a collection of haiku by the 17th century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō. Whilst in general I am a big fan of haiku, I was very disappointed by this collection. By the end of this (very short) book it feels like if you’ve read one Bashō haiku you’ve read them all. The themes are very repetitive and I have to imagine the translation has sapped some of the beauty from the original forms.
44
Shanti
by Vikram Chandra
I found this short novella rather unengaging and just a bit ho-hum. It has a dream-like quality in the storytelling that I think would’ve been more effective in a slightly more fleshed out novel.
43
The Book of Tea
by Kakuzō Okakura
Not very much to say about this one. It kinda just does what it says on the tin, in very typical traditional Japanese zen style.
I would only recommend if you’re really into tea, or specifically 茶道 sadō (traditional Japanese tea ceremony).
⭐⭐⭐ positives and negatives
42
Kitchen
by Banana Yoshimoto
Kitchen (or the version I read) is two short stories packaged together, Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow. The eponymous story is a young woman’s recollections of her relationship with a mother and son who take her in after her last remaining familial guardian passes away, framed very oddly around the concept of the kitchen. I struggled to buy in to some of the characters and dialogue, as well as the theme of the kitchen which seemed like a desperate ploy to add some quirk to the protagonist.
In comparison I preferred the second shorter story, Moonlight Shadow, which features a very similar style of first-person recollection — as I read it I was not sure whether this was the same story and characters or an entirely new novella — but has a bit more mysticism to it. The fact that I could not tell that I was hearing from a brand new character and an entirely new story though I think detracts rather than strengthens the book’s overall quality.
41
Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
On the back of this edition of Brave New World reads a quote from J.G. Ballard, “Huxley was uncannily prohetic… Nineteen Eighty-Four has never really arrived, but Brave New World is around us everywhere.” To me, upon reading Brave New World, this is a gross overstatement. I’d like to know if Ballard (notably the author of High-Rise, an exploration into social disintegration in a high-end tower block) outlined more specifics on this view, because I felt there were some significant issues with the plausibility of Huxley’s vision.
In the first place, Huxley’s world building is shoddy. His projection of culture is naively Anglo-centric, his predictions of technology comically inaccurate, even a half century after writing. These issues might be beside the point. The social commentary is perhaps what matters — and in that regard there is not really any doubting Huxley’s prescience. The world has changed to be a more socially and pharmaceutically conditioned place since Huxley’s time.
Still, based off reputation, I was expecting a lot more from this book. Huxley was clearly a vastly intelligent man and capable writer, but Brave New World feels like Huxley attempting a style of composition outside of his natural wheelhouse. And unnecessarily so. The last few chapters where Huxley makes transparent his social commentary through the mouthpiece of “World Controller” Mustapha Mond are probably the most important, and could have sufficed as a standalone novella in my opinion.
40
Existentialism & Humanism
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Here lies another relic from my bygone dream of philosophical enlightenment. I hoped upon second reading to uncover some new pearls of wisdom or to be reinvigorated in my love of philosophy, but I can’t say I came away from this reading feeling much of anything. Important philosophy texts are often like important scientific texts — esoteric, and a real slog for the layman, and Existentialism & Humanism is no exception. If I were ordering purely on enjoyment this would actually have come a lot lower down the list, but even I can acknowledge that Sartre’s ideas, if not exactly enjoyable, are of great philosophical significance.
39
The Prince
by Niccolò Machiavelli
I had very little connection with The Prince, and took very little away from reading it. I don’t have much to say in critique of it either, to me it was just meh.
The Goodreads description for it
Today The Prince is still seen as the Bible of realpolitik, read by strategists, businessmen and political animals everywhere as the ultimate guide to gaining and maintaining power in a dangerous world.
is rather laughable. I struggle to imagine that anybody in any position of power is reading The Prince and learning anything of practical value in the 21st century.
38
Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth
by Guy Standing
Some of the books in this region of the list (like the last two entries) I was basically just apathetic towards. Plunder of the Commons is a whole other kettle of fish. There are some aspects that I really enjoyed and found fascinating, but there are even more aspects that I found frustrating and misleading. The book is not afraid to swing punches, sometimes seemingly to the detriment of logical argument.
No book made me more angry this year — at the state of wealth inequality in the UK, and the policy decisions facilitating this inequality. But also at the book itself which comes to its conclusions in such a bizarre and roundabout way.
37
The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell
by Aldous Huxley
The Doors of Perception is Aldous Huxley’s account of a mescaline trip. He recounts his experience in detail, with reference to the (notated) comments he makes during the trip. On paper, this should be a groundbreaking exploration of the positive mind-altering ability of psychedelics — but it’s basically just Huxley boasting about his knowledge of art.
36
Ubik
by Philip K. Dick
Ubik is a real page-turner. I was gripped throughout by the fast-paced storyline. For the first few chapters I thought that Ubik was the source material from the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report. Only after reading did I discover The Minority Report is a separate Philip K. Dick story. Makes sense.
But ultimately I found the ending to Ubik very unsatisfying and poorly constructed. Way too many untied loose ends and unanswered questions that pretty much undermined the whole book for me.
35
Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 to the Present
by Christopher Harding
I wish that I had the type of mind capable of digesting this book better. Unfortunately I found myself swamped trying to absorb 150 years of Japanese history (and people and place names etc) within a couple of hundred pages. I really struggle reviewing history books. Historians strive for objectivity and accurate recounting of facts. To me though, facts often fail to be compelling, and that was the main trouble I had with Japan Story — a book that clearly should have been up my alley, but I simply struggled to engage with.
34
Foundation and Empire
by Isaac Asimov
Foundation and Empire is the second book in Asimov’s foundation trilogy (that later became a series with prequels a la Star Wars). I read it without having read the first in the series, or indeed without any prior knowledge of the books or the author. I’m not sure if it is meant to be readable as a standalone novel, but a commitment to the full series I think would probably enhance the reader’s enjoyment of Foundation and Empire. The plot moves at light speed, jumping forward rapidly in both time and space without much warning, and much of the descriptive content of the novel can be a bit dizzying, laden as it is with fictional sci-fi jargon and made-up galactic place names.
Viewing the book as a standalone novel, the whole first section (“The General”) was pretty much inconsequential to the second section (“The Mule”), which takes place about 100 years later. I struggled to care for the individual characters of “The General”, as they were quickly and cheaply dispensed of (Note: this is perfectly fitting for the schema of psychohistory); but the second section I found much more engaging to the end — though the big plot twist in the final pages felt a little cheap in its predictability.
33
Natives
by Akala
Natives is a memoir from rapper and activist Akala. In the book Akala recounts his experiences with race and discrimination growing up as the son of a Scottish mother and Jamaican father in 80s-90s London.
I feel a bit bad, guilty even, not being blown away by this book. My issues with it though are similar to my issues with Lost Japan (#47) — it is much more of an autobiography than an objective investigation into race and class. There is obviously nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but this style simply doesn’t greatly appeal to me.
32
Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior
by Geoffrey Miller
I almost really loved Spent. In the book Geoffrey Miller uses evolutionary psychology to try and explain modern day consumerism, starting from the key assertion that all of what we do (including our consumer habits) is us subconsciously advertising our potential as biological mates.
Whilst a lot of the book does effectively shine an uncomfortable light on our unconscious rationales as consumers, I find myself unconvinced by Miller’s overall thesis. The conclusions seem a bit flimsy to me (such as the suggestion that it would be biological preferable to only live in communities of likeminded consumers) and seem to be too tunnel-vision focused on evolutionary biology as the one and only deterministic cause of human behaviour.
31
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray is an iconic, landmark piece of literature. It’s a novel ripe for academic critical exploration with its explicit themes of egotism, vanity and madness. It’s a beautifully worded piece of work, but I found it to be disappointing in construction. The eponymous Dorian Gray is a caricature rather than a character — a highly incredible person who descends without much motive or explanation into lascivious miscreance. The story as such is best seen as a work of fantasy, perhaps more politely, an allegory, rather than what it could of been (what I was expecting it to be), i.e. a more poignant study of human character.
I recall reading the first few chapters of the book and struggling dearly to decipher which character was behind every line of dialogue, as the characters all display a very similar style of voice. The witticisms that Wilde is widely known for are very present, but the overall composition of the story is uneven.
30
I Am a Cat
by Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Sōseki has emerged as probably my favourite Japanese author, and though I Am a Cat is one of his most widely celebrated works, it is probably the only of his novels that I have felt bored whilst reading. The book is long and aimless (an unfair criticism perhaps, as it was first published as a series in the literary journal Hototogisu), following the meanderings of a nameless cat, living in the house of a modest, grumbling teacher. Sōseki uses his anonymous narrator as a fly on the wall to critique much of the social goings-on of the day, satirising Japanese Meiji society from a safe and stealthy distance.
Despite there being some ennui-inducing sections, there are equally many moments where Sōseki’s literary genius is on full display. His ability to turn a phrase is for me unparalleled, and his precise depiction of human thought and emotion is jarringly accurate.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ a fine assemblage of words
29
Star
by Yukio Mishima
It only took about an hour to read Star. It’s a succinct novella about celebrity and ego. Simple but subtly dark story from the irreverently dark Mishima.
28
On the Shortness of Life
by Seneca
Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life is a classic of stoic philosophy. Like his scholastic descendent Marcus Aurelius, Seneca muses and meditates on what it is to live, with effortless free-flowing poetic style. The result is a loose collection of thoughts and suggestions that the modern reader can easily take to heart to live a less troubled and more fulfilled life.
Seneca, and stoicism in general is the sort of philosophy that in my opinion should be much more commonplace in school curriculums. Even as I find myself identifying less and less as a stoic at heart, the ideas and concepts espoused in Seneca’s writing stay with me as important aphorisms for self-reflection.
27
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World
by Tim Marshall
Prisoners of Geography is a great primer on global geopolitics. It’s very informative and easy to read, though I will say that the content is mostly a surface level introduction to the geopolitics of basically the entire planet — as opposed to specific in-depth studies of certain disputes, conflicts etc. Based on the subtitle I was expecting more of the latter: new and detailed looks into particular local, national and regional issues, but really all the maps and all the content of the book are about the big picture. For the very well informed, politically speaking, I imagine this book may provide little value or new insights. It’s also not for map lovers — the cover emphasis on cartography is perhaps somewhat disingenuously overstated.
26
Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined
by J.J. Bola
Bola’s Mask Off is an inspection of societal notions of masculinity, and the problems that arise from how we currently define masculinity. Whilst I felt the book was far shorter than it needed to be to go properly in depth on the various topics, I would highly recommend it to all men (and to people of all genders, but foremost to those who are uncomfortable or afraid to talk about or challenge their masculinity) as a great starting point for conversation on the dangers of (our current conceptions of) masculinity.
25
Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee
Pachinko is a domestic epic of sorts, following the fortunes of several generations of a Korean family that emigrates to Japan, from the early 1900s through to almost the end of the 20th century.
The story rolls on at a rapid pace making it highly readable, though when I think back on the book the image that sticks in my mind is that of the helpless teenage Sunja grappling with poverty and young womanhood from the first few chapters.
24
The Fall
by Albert Camus
“Perhaps the most beautiful and least understood of Camus’ books”
The quote above is from Jean-Paul Sartre’s eulogy of Camus and sums up The Fall perfectly. It is a 90-odd page monologue by the fictional Jean-Baptiste Clamence, self-proclaimed “judge-pentitent”, taking the reader (and presumed silent interlocutor) on a wearying fever dream of an autobiography. As per Sartre’s comment, I enjoyed the beauty in the novel, but struggled with the comprehension. It is so seemingly philosophical and allegorical that to digest in detail and find a message at the bottom of it all is a confounding task. Perhaps that is the existentialist’s point.
23
Mostly Hero
by Anna Burns
This is a funny little book. Anna Burns puts you on alert with the first few lines:
The villains from downtown eastside put a magic spell on femme fatale so that she would kill superhero whilst under the influence of this magic spell. She would be totally insensible of doing so. The villains considered this plan delicious and foolproof, but it wasn’t entirely foolproof because the evil wizards from whom they had purchased it said it was a new spell, not as yet perfected, therefore not entirely reliable.
Burns keeps up this style for the entire book, and whilst it might seem gimmicky from a page or excerpt, by the end a cohesive world and jarring oddball plot has materialised.
Whilst I don’t find myself wanting to rave excessively about Mostly Hero, it does make me highly excited to read more of Anna Burns’ work — she is clearly a writer forging a unique style.
22
Botchan
by Natsume Sōseki
Another Sōseki, though vastly different in style and structure to I Am A Cat. Botchan is a much snappier, goofier romp about a hapless graduate sent off to teach in an unruly provincial school. Lighter and easier to read than I Am A Cat, it is perhaps less witty and of less importance in the grand Sōseki canon, na moshi.
21
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
by Yukio Mishima
If nothing else, this is one of the most disturbing books I read all year. The plot’s not super important, it’s Mishima’s dark style that makes his writing compelling.
Mishima also has to be one of the most curious stories in literary history. He was an author, actor, martial artist, and staunch Japanese nationalist, a fact that directly lead to his downfall. If you don’t fancy reading his work, at least read about his life.
20
Norwegian Wood
by Haruki Murakami
Despite having read many Japanese authors in the past couple of years, this was my first Murakami novel. In Norwegian Wood I sensed a lot of Sōseki influence, to good and bad effect. What both writers do well is build cohesive and engaging novels without much dependence on typical plot features. Not to say that Norwegian Wood has no plot, but that how the main character feels about what happens is of more significance than the happenings themselves. This is a thinking not a doing sort of novel.
19
Circe and the Cyclops
by Homer
This little Penguin Classic is a very short excerpt from The Odyssey, Homer’s epic tale of the hero Odysseus. Heading in I was skeptical that this might be a wordy, tough read, but it is actually quite the opposite. Homer’s tale moves at swift pace from adventure to adventure in poetic but not necessarily archaic prose.
The goal with reading this was to get a feel on Homer without committing to the whole Odyssey (or The Iliad), and I can undoubtedly say I came out of this brief read wanting more. The Odyssey is high on my to-read list for 2021.
18
Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens
Where the Crawdads Sing is a great story, undeniably moving and one of the best page-turners I read last year. Whilst I wasn’t necessarily a huge fan of Owens’ writing style, the plot is so compelling and the setting so beautifully mystical that it’s hard not to love reading Crawdads.
17
Of Dogs and Walls
by Yūko Tsushima
This little book is actually two short stories, Of Dogs and Walls and The Watery Realm. Something about these stories really resonated with me, though I think it would be fair to say that they are quaintly simple. The Watery Realm is a familial memoir about parent-child relationships that turns into a frank tirade from the narrator to their mother. Of Dogs and Walls has similar themes, with the characters’ domestic relationships revolving around the family dog Perry. Both stories feel personal and nostalgic in a way that I can’t help but be endeared to.
16
Of Mice and Men
by John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men is a classic and deservedly so. Steinbeck very effectively infuses his short story with a pervading uneasiness that culminates in the dramatic, but ultimately inevitable, climax.
I’m sure thousands upon thousands of English literature students have and will continue to make arguments that Of Mice and Men is a comment on inequality, the American dream, friendship, mental health etc etc etc — regardless of the specific point, Of Mice and Men is undeniably an affecting novel that stimulates discourse.
15
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari
I read Homo Deus, the sort-of sequel to Sapiens, a couple of years back and it profoundly freaked me out. If I’d made a list of my favourite books from previous years, it would have been at the top of one of them. So heading back to read Sapiens I had high expectations. Whilst Harari’s original breakout book is full of the same brilliantly terrifying insight and composed in the same easy-going writing style, for me Sapiens slightly lacks the same gut-punch as its successor (though I do wonder if I’d feel differently had I read the two books in the correct order).
In Homo Deus Harari talks about the future and has free reign to ponder the hypothetical. In Sapiens he reconfigures the past (you might call it historical revisionism) and there seems to be much less room for hypotheses when discussing the past.
14
The Woman in the Dunes
by Kōbō Abe
In The Woman in the Dunes Abe does a masterful job of creating a surreal and terrifying world out of the remarkably mundane. In the interest of avoiding spoilers I shan’t say too much about the actual plot itself, but this was a book I couldn’t put down until the end. One of the more unique works of Japanese literature I have read this year. The 1964 film adaptation is also available in full on Youtube.
13
The Sandcastle
by Iris Murdoch
I don’t really have a bad word to say about The Sandcastle. One of Murdoch’s earlier novels, its funny, satirical and at times slightly surreal. She has an excellent flair for depicting worlds that look perfect to an outsider in a fleeting glance, but are crumbling (like a sandcastle you might say) slowly from within.
12
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
Portrait is a really fascinating book. So readable at points, so hard to read at others. Eclectic and idiosyncratic in a way that feels truly personal, there are so many laudable qualities to the novel it’s hard to know what to really boil it down to. I love the way the book feels like it was written by the protagonist, despite being in the third person; as Stephen Dedalus ages and matures, so does the language and tone of the writing. This doesn’t feel gimmicky at all, such is Joyce’s skill and connectedness with the character.
Why is this not 5 stars? As mentioned, some sections of the book can be a tad difficult to read, and I did feel that Stephen’s wrestle with religion was somewhat more protracted than it needed to be, considering the outcome was a rather foregone conclusion. Nonetheless, this is an undoubted classic that should continue to be read and studied for time immemorial.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ top of the class
11
The Life of a Stupid Man
by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
The Life of a Stupid Man is a collection of three short stories in the Penguin Little Black Classics series. I’ve read a number of books in this series this year, primarily because they serve as great tasters to an author without having to commit to a more extensive text. That may sound lazy or uncouth, but I’ve found it to be an efficient and practical way to dip my toes into different styles and authors.
My enjoyment of The Life of a Stupid Man is tied to my memory of the experience of reading it — this is going to sound pretentious to the max — but I read the book while sitting on a bench outside the Imperial Palace near Tokyo station. When I think of the book I think as much about that day walking the grounds there as I do the content of the book, for better or for worse. It’s amazing to me how reflecting on specific books from this past year takes me to specific places.
Of the stories themselves (!) the most accessible is In the Bamboo Grove, the short story that is the basis for the Akira Kurosawa classic film Rashomon. Like the film it is a novel exploration of subjectivity and truth that keeps the reader constantly on their toes.
The titular The Life of A Stupid Man is a bit more of an abstract read that certainly isn’t for everyone. It is intensely personal and brutally depressing.
9 & 10
How to Fight & How to Relax
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Some people might scoff at the advice contained in Thich Nhat Hanh’s pocket How to… series. At some point in my life I’ve been that sort of person. You can boil down his philosophy into one key idea: mindfulness through awareness of your breathing. If you can’t buy into this fundamental idea, you won’t take anything from Nhat Hanh’s writing.
Nhat Hanh’s teaching artfully straddles abstract zen buddhism and practical everyday life. He gives modern examples of putting mindfulness techniques into action, which to me at least really helps bridge the mental gap between traditional zen philosophy and chaotic 21st century living.
How to Fight is like a purer, more spiritual version of How to Make Friends and Influence People. Reading How to Relax made me really think practically about how to control my own anxiety in stressful situations.
These books are also just about the easiest thing to read. If you have any desire to be more mindful I’d recommend them.
8
A Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess
This is another book I’ve had on the bookshelf for years and had previously tried and failed to read. In my first attempt I was completely baffled by Burgess’ invented Nadsat dialect, which features gems such as appy polly loggy (apology), horrorshow (good) and bezoomny (mad, crazy). I gave up about 10 pages in.
Thankfully though I came back to A Clockwork Orange and thoroughly enjoyed it. I can’t remember whether I had seen Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant film adaptation when I first attempted to start the book, but this time around I found knowing the plot in advance at least loosely helped me digest the made-up lingo. Rightfully a classic.
7
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
by Michael Pollan
In How to Change Your Mind journalist Michael Pollan diligently lays out the history of psychedelic research, intertwined with accounts of his own entheogenic voyages, as well as commentary on the future of psychedelic use in society.
This book, in its structure as a scientific and academic account of the history of psychedelics, does an excellent job of recontextualising the role of psychedelics. Through even-keeled and unbiased reporting Pollan breaks down the typical stigma of psychedelics as a symbol of 1960s/70s counterculture, a risk to the health and stability of American/Western society, and refocuses the lens on the (potentially) huge benefits that psychedelics are showing in clinical research for a number of mental illnesses afflicting the modern age (depression, anxiety, addiction, dealing with terminal diagnoses).
More than anything, reading this book I felt a burning desire to strive to be more spiritual.
Having read The Doors of Perception (which Pollan frequently references) already this year, I was somewhat hesitant to dive into another account of the psychedelic journey, but How to Change Your Mind is well worth the trip. Whilst Huxley’s text reads as a bit of an overblown attempt to awe the reader (of both Huxley’s psychedelic experience and his literary prowess), Pollan is much more objective in his attempts to recount the ineffable, and draws upon the vast (and somewhat hidden) history of psychedelic research as a means of demonstrating the practicality that the substances may have for modern therapy.
6
The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Master and Margarita is a bewilderingly imperfect masterpiece. I find it incredibly difficult to explain what I loved about it in limited words. The novel is a whirlwind, jumping through time and space, from Biblical Judea to 20th century Moscow, and on to realms of sheer fantasy on a whim. New characters are brought in and out willy-nilly — the titular master and Margarita don’t make an appearance until about half way through the book, and neither could be considered a true protagonist. There’s a character called Ivan Nikolayevich, then another called Nikanor Ivanovich — Bulgakov devilishly refers to each character by nicknames or by their profession or loose relation to the other characters on scene at any given moment (“the guest”, “the stranger”, “the foreigner” etc etc), which can create in the reader a dizzying struggle to keep up with who is who and what is what.
In spite of this, or perhaps owing to this, the first few chapters were some of the most captivating prose I’ve read all year.
5
The Moon and Sixpence
by W. Somerset Maugham
I loved this book. Maugham’s style of prose is so vivid and articulate, and the story crafted here, that of a bourgeoise London stockbroker who leaves his comfortable life and happy family to pursue painting, is bizarre, banal and poetically romantic in equal measure. And somehow I mean all those adjectives in a positive sense.
Based loosely off the life of Paul Gauguin (though I believe with a sizeable amount of artistic licence), The Moon and Sixpence is told from the perspective of an up and coming author on the late Victorian London social scene. Though the story is that of stockbroker-cum-painter Charles Strickland, the novel is framed around the narrator’s fleeting liaisons with the artist, and embellished recollections from his few acquaintances.
I was several chapters into the book before I was even able to discern whether it was a work of fiction or a biography of an artist I had never heard of.
4
A Severed Head
by Iris Murdoch
Witty, funny, obscene, A Severed Head is a brash demonstration of English middle class farce. The characters are all so simultaneously charming in their words and conventionally revolting in their actions, it’s completely dizzying. But in a good way.
I’ve read two great Murdoch novels this year (see also The Sandcastle #13) and they share a lot thematically (love, lust and infidelity amongst the British upper classes) and stylistically (Murdoch’s novels spiral chaotically from domestic harmony to near madness in a manner that is close to surreal but also acutely tongue-in-cheek). Murdoch is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.
2 & 3
Fictions & The Garden of Forking Paths
by Jorge Luis Borges
These two are grouped together as all the stories contained in The Garden of Forking Paths, are also contained in Fictions. I read The Garden of Forking Paths first, and was absolutely blown away. Borges had a talent for creating beauty out of words that is unmatched in anything I have ever read. Upon finishing the short compilation of stories in Forking Paths I immediately went out and got a copy of Fictions, the more complete full work. Some of my favourite stories and pieces are:
Death and the Compass
A murder mystery as intriguing and twisting as any Agatha Christie, yet carved from a much more poetic vernacular.
The Circular Ruins
A dreamy, almost mythological tale of a wizard/professor/creator figure going through something of a metaphysical conundrum.
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.
Hardly even a story, merely a fabrication of facts about a made up planet.
All the stories in these collections from Borges are beautiful down to the minutest detail. Each story is uniquely creative, yet within them all the unrivalled talent of Borges is ever-present.
1
If This Is a Man • The Truce
by Primo Levi
Most of the other books in this top tier are poetic masterpieces of fiction by supremely talented wordsmiths. Primo Levi’s If This Is A Man • The Truce is important for different reasons. It’s his autobiographical account of his time in Auschwitz, and it is shocking, harrowing and written with remarkable vividity.
If This Is A Man • The Truce is hands down the most essential book I read in 2020. But beyond just the importance of the subject matter, Levi has a remarkable skill for recounting moments with great precision whilst still keeping the reader hooked on every word. His descriptions of his experience spare no necessary detail and paint a clear and oftentimes terrifying picture.
Having seen countless films depicting WWII, having studied it in History lessons at school, having visited a concentration camp in Germany, nothing has given me the same insight into what it was like to experience the holocaust as I’ve gained from reading If This Is A Man • The Truce. For me, it’s the best book I read in 2020.
