David Auerbach’s Books of the Year 2015
Waggish 2016-01-25
I was dissatisfied with my 2015 reading. A number of projects and situations contrived to cut down my reading time drastically, and so this list feels even more provisional than most years, a grab-bag of things that stood out for me stood out for me personally rather than a considered ranking. I think in a better world we would all do books of a given year 5 to 10 years down the line, and the resulting lists would be far more well-considered. Maybe 25 or 50 years would be even better.
I was pulled into a number of projects and situations that obliterated both my concentration and reading time, the biggest being my Facilitated Communication investigation, which consumed an entire quarter of the year. That would not have been so bad by itself but a handful of other similar matters made it difficult to do as much comprehensive reading as I would have liked. I’ve resolved to change that this year.
So, wish a bit of disappointment and shame, I am attaching a “Promising Nonfiction” section of books I haven’t yet assessed. These are books that due to their subject matter, pedigree, author, or some other factor struck me as being worth investigating, but which I didn’t have time to do so. Note that it is entirely possible that some of these books are terrible–they just merit a look in my mind. (Example: Cesar Hidalgo’s Why Information Grows would have been on the promising list, but I did get time to take a look at it and it did not fulfill its promise. On the other hand, I am near-certain Noel Malcolm’s latest tome of scholarship is brilliant, but simply didn’t have time to get to a work so far outside outside my current area of focus.) If any readers have opinions on them, please chime in.
Book of the Year
The Laughter of the Thracian Woman: A Protohistory of Theory (New Directions in German Studies) Hans Blumenberg Bloomsbury Academic
Fiction
Thought Flights Robert Musil Contra Mundum Press
The Blizzard: A Novel Vladimir Sorokin Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The Complete Stories Clarice Lispector New Directions
The Complete Works of Primo Levi Primo Levi Liveright
Horse of a Different Color: Stories Howard Waldrop Small Beer Press
The Librarian Mikhail Elizarov Pushkin Press
A School for Fools (New York Review Books Classics) Sasha Sokolov NYRB Classics
Our Spoons Came from Woolworths Barbara Comyns NYRB Classics
Thus Were Their Faces: Selected Stories (NYRB Classics) Silvina Ocampo NYRB Classics
A General Theory of Oblivion Jose Eduardo Agualusa Archipelago
The Wake: A Novel Paul Kingsnorth Graywolf Press
Kvachi (Georgian Literature) Mikheil Javakhishvili, Mixeil Javaxiesvili Dalkey Archive Press
Eyes: Novellas and Stories William H. Gass Knopf
Book of Numbers: A Novel Joshua Cohen Random House
The Door (NYRB Classics) Magda Szabo NYRB Classics
Callimachus: The Hymns Oxford University Press
Silvina Ocampo (New York Review Books Poets) Silvina Ocampo NYRB Poets
Eileen: A Novel Ottessa Moshfegh Penguin Press
A Brief History of Seven Killings: A Novel Marlon James Riverhead Books
The Tale of Genji (unabridged) Shikibu Murasaki W. W. Norton & Company
Macbeth: Third Series (Arden Shakespeare) William Shakespeare Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare
Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales from the Time of the Cult Bohumil Hrabal New Directions
The Little Town Where Time Stood Still (New York Review Books Classics) Bohumil Hrabal NYRB Classics
The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes (Hackett Classics) Jackson Crawford Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Incidents in the Night Book 2 David B. Uncivilized Books
Dungeon: Monstres – Vol. 5: My Son the Killer Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim NBM Publishing
Melody: Story of a Nude Dancer Sylvie Rancourt Drawn and Quarterly
The Eternaut Héctor Germán Oesterheld, Francisco Solano Lopez Fantagraphics
Fatherland: A Family History Nina Bunjevac Liveright
Nonfiction
World Philology Harvard University Press
Chaos Imagined: Literature, Art, Science Martin Meisel Columbia University Press
The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet Justin Peters Scribner
The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz Aaron Swartz The New Press
Paradoxia Epidemica: The Renaissance Tradition of Paradox (Princeton Legacy Library) Rosalie Littell Colie Princeton University Press
Myth and the Human Sciences: Hans Blumenberg’s Theory of Myth (Theorists of Myth) Angus Nicholls Routledge
The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter Myles Burnyeat, Michael Frede Oxford University Press
The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution Timothy Tackett Belknap Press
Physics: a short history from quintessence to quarks J. L. Heilbron Oxford University Press
Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology Kentaro Toyama PublicAffairs
Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine Andrew Scull Princeton University Press
Forgetting: Myths, Perils and Compensations Douwe Draaisma Yale University Press
Massacre: The Life and Death of the Paris Commune John Merriman Basic Books
Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up Philip N. Howard Yale University Press
The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World Pedro Domingos Basic Books
The World the Game Theorists Made Paul Erickson University Of Chicago Press
The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece (The Princeton History of the Ancient World) Josiah Ober Princeton University Press
Persius: A Study in Food, Philosophy, and the Figural Shadi Bartsch University Of Chicago Press
European Intellectual History from Rousseau to Nietzsche Frank M. Turner Yale University Press
Orientation and Judgment in Hermeneutics Rudolf A. Makkreel University of Chicago Press
The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement Michael A. Gould-Wartofsky Oxford University Press
Sometimes an Art: Nine Essays on History Bernard Bailyn Knopf
Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil’s “Aeneid” W. R. Johnson University Of Chicago Press
Does Altruism Exist?: Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others (Foundational Questions in Science) David Sloan Wilson Yale University Press
The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution Tony Hey, Gyuri Pápay Cambridge University Press
Greek Models of Mind and Self (Revealing antiquity ;) Anthony A. Long Harvard University Press
Track-Two Diplomacy toward an Israeli-Palestinian Solution, 1978-2014 Yair Hirschfeld Woodrow Wilson Center Press / Johns Hopkins University Press
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World Bruce Schneier W. W. Norton & Company
The Age of the Crisis of Man: Thought and Fiction in America, 1933-1973 Mark Greif Princeton University Press
The Cybernetics Moment (New Studies in American Intellectual and Cultural History) Ronald R. Kline Johns Hopkins University Press
Heart of Darkness: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe (Science Essentials) Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Simon Mitton Princeton University Press
Anti-Education: On the Future of Our Educational Institutions (Nyrb Classics) Friedrich Nietzsche NYRB Classics
Promising Nonfiction
Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World Noel Malcolm Oxford University Press
The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology Aldon Morris University of California Press
Database of Dreams: The Lost Quest to Catalog Humanity Rebecca Lemov Yale University Press
A Sense of Power: The Roots of America’s Global Role John A. Thompson Cornell University Press
Democracy and the Origins of the American Regulatory State (The Institution for Social and Policy St) Samuel DeCanio Yale University Press
Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance Adair Turner Princeton University Press
Realpolitik: A History John Bew Oxford University Press
Two Arabs, a Berber, and a Jew: Entangled Lives in Morocco Lawrence Rosen University Of Chicago Press
Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception George A. Akerlof, Robert J. Shiller Princeton University Press
Shadows of Revolution: Reflections on France, Past and Present David A. Bell Oxford University Press
Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World Leif Wenar Oxford University Press
A Foot in the River: Why Our Lives Change – and the Limits of Evolution Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Oxford University Press
We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination Russell Rickford Oxford University Press
The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945 Nicholas Stargardt Basic Books
The Age of Catastrophe: A History of the West 1914–1945 Heinrich August Winkler Yale University Press
A Country Called Prison: Mass Incarceration and the Making of a New Nation Mary D. Looman, John D. Carl Oxford University Press
In Search of Sir Thomas Browne: The Life and Afterlife of the Seventeenth Century’s Most Inquiring Mind Hugh Aldersey-Williams W. W. Norton & Company
Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers (The Sheng Yen Series in Chinese Buddhist Studies) N. Henry Rothschild Columbia University Press
Stem Cell Dialogues: A Philosophical and Scientific Inquiry Into Medical Frontiers Sheldon Krimsky Columbia University Press
The Political Machine: Assembling Sovereignty in the Bronze Age Caucasus (The Rostovtzeff Lectures) Adam T. Smith Princeton University Press
The Black Mirror: Looking at Life through Death Raymond Tallis Yale University Press
Violence All Around John Sifton Harvard University Press
Barbarism and Religion: Volume 6, Barbarism: Triumph in the West J. G. A. Pocock Cambridge University Press
The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy Daniel A. Bell Princeton University Press
KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps Nikolaus Wachsmann Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity James J. O’Donnell Ecco
Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa Scott Straus Cornell University Press
“They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else”: A History of the Armenian Genocide (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity) Ronald Grigor Suny Princeton University Press
Eternal Ephemera: Adaptation and the Origin of Species from the Nineteenth Century Through Punctuated Equilibria and Beyond Niles Eldredge Columbia University Press
China Under Mao Andrew G. Walder Harvard University Press
Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947 Bruce Hoffman Knopf
The Third Reich in History and Memory Richard J. Evans Oxford University Press
The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East Eugene Rogan Basic Books
The Art of Peacemaking: Political Essays by István Bibó (World Thought in Translation) István Bibó Yale University Press
Very Different, But Much the Same: The Evolution of English Society Since 1714 W. G. Runciman Oxford University Press
The English Bible and the Seventeenth Century Revolution Christopher Hill Endeavour Press
State Power in Ancient China and Rome (Oxford Studies in Early Empires) Oxford University Press
The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism David M. Kotz Harvard University Press
The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution David Wootton Harper
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World Andrea Wulf Knopf
Universal Man: The Lives of John Maynard Keynes Richard Davenport-Hines Basic Books
The Country of First Boys: And Other Essays Amartya Sen Oxford University Press
The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve (Evolution and Cognition) H. Clark Barrett Oxford University Press
Back to the Garden: Nature and the Mediterranean World from Prehistory to the Present James H. S. McGregor Yale University Press
The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore Michael Dylan Foster University of California Press
Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the Twentieth Century Konrad H. Jarausch Princeton University Press
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