read 50 books in 2008

All 1271 pages. Have you ever had the pleasure of listening to a charming, thoroughly engaging, learned conversationalist? If yes then you are understand the feeling engendered in reading Vidal’s essays. Without doubt Vidal is one of the fine essayists in the Anglosphere. To read Gore Vidal is to rediscover the pleasures of learning.

The subtitle for this work is “Soldiers, Emperors, and Civilians in the Roman Empire. A fine eye for recognizing a good story when he reads it enables Santosuosso to write a gripping narrative of Roman militrary history from the later Republic to the fall of Rome. Packed with details and yet unified by general concepts the work is accessible and informative.

A good overview of Tocqueville’s life. Certainly makes me want to read T’s book Democracy in America.

I wish had read this wonderful book before my trips to Italy! You can learn alot from Goethe about how to enhance your ability to savor the moment.

The copy I read was translated by W H Auden and Elizabeth Mayer.

by John Armstrong

A wonderful meditation on Goethe’s life and on what that life can teach us for living our own.

by Peter Marshall.

A good read that argues the omnivorous collecting of Rudulph II coupled with his intellectual curiosity and theological apathy aided in the transition to the modern age.

Once I got over reading a long rhymed story I couldn’t put this book down. Kaufmann did a wonderful service to English speaking readers with this excellent translation.

by Andreas Hillen

This work is that rare product from an academic which is to this is a very readable intersting book. Hillen argues that 1973 was the pivotal year of transition fto post-Sixties America. It was a year of Watergate (political disillusion), Roe v. Wade, the first oil crisis, the mainstreaming of pornography, proto punk rock, defeat in Vietnam, etc. Hillen is a skilled writer as well as an able historian capable of educing broad insight from seemingly pure pop culture ephemera.

by Clive James

A strong collection of essays that well show James’ skills as literary journalist. I was so bowled over by his book Cultural Amnesia that I came to As of this Writing looking for another tour de force which is unfair of me as the intent of each work is different. A great read nonetheless but my vote still goes to Cultural Amnesia.

by Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner
The cleaning of the Sistine Chapel’s paintings has revealed details buried by the centuries. This illuminating works examines these details and explains them for the general reader. Michelangelo, the writers argue, was versed in Jewish thought and thus portrayed Jesus’s Jewish at every turn. This is a fine read.