New video coming this week! In the meantime, let me know what you're reading.
I spent a long time last week of A. A. Long's "Hellenistic Philosophy," which is wonderfully helpful if you're interested in Greek philosophy beyond Plato and Aristotle. I'll read Ted Gioia's "The History of Jazz" this week.
Michael Sugrue (@dr.michaelsugrue) has died. He was a great lecturer, and he helped teach thousands, maybe even millions, about philosophy.
May he rest in peace.
We're so close to the end of the year, so I want to ask: what's the best book you've read all year?
Looking through my journal, I couldn't pick just one book. So let me just talk about a few.
I read a few stand-out science fiction books. In addition to revisiting Le Guin's 'The Dispossessed', I read Iain M. Banks for the first time. I loved both 'Use of Weapons' and 'Player of Games.' And this was the year I discovered Christopher Ruocchio and his 'Sun Eater' series. Plus, Samuel Delany's 'Babel-17' was a great example of a short, impactful science fiction novel that still had tons of big ideas to chew on.
In philosophy, there were some unexpected favorites. I started to read more Nietzsche, and I think I've fallen in love. 'The Gay Science' in particular has been great to thumb through. I didn't finish my Hegel reading for the year like I'd hope, but that's on the agenda soon.
A few other favorites from the year: 'The City & The City' by China Miéville, 'That One Should Disdain Hardships' by Musonius Rufus, Rilke's 'Letters to a Young Poet,' Hesiod's 'Theogony,' and Jennifer Burns' 'The Goddess of the Market.'
On top of that, I started reading comics and manga again.I could talk about those for hours, but this post is already too long.
How many books have you read this year? And which one was your favorite?
(Editing to note that spam accounts are trying to scam people in the comments. I'm banning them as fast as I can.)
I’ll be joining @thefantasynuttwork tomorrow evening (8:30PM Eastern) to talk books, philosophy, journaling, and so on. Should be fun!
youtube.com/live/O2Mo94Kgs8A?si=D1mDTi0ELXXiTRJw
I released my video on Ursula K. Le Guin today. I'm incredibly proud of it. But it seems to be floundering, and YouTube isn't recommending it to my subscribers.
If you like Le Guin, or are interested in seeing how science fiction evolved, or like how philosophy and science fiction interact, I think you'll like this video.
Read good books.