Literary Non-fiction
“Black Earth” — Timothy Snyder — The best book on our current veer towards totalitarianism. “Blood & Soil” was no accident. Read this.
“Celia, A Slave” — Melton A. McLaurin — A moving and unique account of a young woman enslaved in Missouri, and her epic court fight.
“Reading Lolita in Tehran” — Agat Nafise
Vol. I: The Ancient World — Susan Wise Bauer — Best history ever. A writer must know enough human history to be gobsmacked about how we were always this way.
Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity — Rebecca Goldstein — “...a secularist challenge to religion that would be as radical as it was original.”
The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God — Matthew Stewart — Genius Leibniz denounced Spinoza in public, was privately obsessed. Reason vs Monads.
Historical Fiction
“The Last of the Amazons” — Stephen Pressfield — sharp and infogettable storytelling, excellent research, vivid characters. Nitty-gritty.
“The Killer Angels” — Michael Shaara — extraordinary qualities of historical accuracy and luminous writing.
“Genghis: Birth of an Empire” — Conn Iggulden — more per page than most writers in any genre. Ripping yarns; tendon-flexing symphonies of lean storytelling. An instruction set for effective prose + Genghis! Mongolia/China/Persia!
“The Ptolemies” — Duncan Strott — odd, digressive, intimate, and languid. Hear the fat alligators splash in the temple pool.
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