Spring reading 2021
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These seasonal reading lists kind of fell by the wayside last year, another victim of COVID, the shutdowns, and systemic whatever. I’m resurrecting them, both for my own sake and for y’all’s. I’ve had an unusually good spring of reading—43 books by my admittedly arbitrary cutoff date for the season—and I hope this recap of my favorites (and a few I did not like) will give y’all at least a few ideas if you’re looking for something good to read.
Before I start listing things, for the purposes of this reading list, “spring” will be defined as the period from New Year’s Day to the middle of my college’s break between the spring and summer semesters, May 8.
Non-fiction
Here, in no particular order, are my favorite non-fiction reads of the spring, with a few near-favorites that I’d still recommend highly:
This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga, by Peter Cozzens—A massive, exhaustively researched, and dramatically written account of the second bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Cozzens gives extensive coverage both to the high-level planning and maneuvering of the commanders on both sides, an important part of his narrative as Chickamauga was a terribly confusing battle, as well as the experiences of the soldiers themselves, many of whom lived through hair-raising and horrific firefights. Read this ahead of my family’s visit to the battlefield at the beginning of March. Really excellent.
Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy, by Jonathan Clements—A well-written and lively biography of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim: soldier, cavalryman, world traveler, secret agent, personal acquaintance of Tsar Nicholas II and Hitler, commander in chief of the Finnish military, president of Finland, and stalwart and implacable defender of his country. A Finn of Swedish ancestry who served in the Russian military, went to war against the Japanese, spied on the Chinese, narrowly avoided murder at the hands of the Bolsheviks, and fought both against and with the Germans in multiple wars, Mannerheim is an excellent life to study if you’d like to see some of the manifold complexities of the twentieth century. Clements does an excellent job of keeping this complicated story understandable and well-paced. It’s also lavishly illustrated with high-quality photographs. Highly recommended.
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, by Neil Postman—Another good cultural critique from Postman, building on his more famous Amusing Ourselves to Death. In this book Postman further develops his argument that our prioritization of technology and innovation has gotten the cart before the horse, meaning that we now let the technology dictate our needs rather than simply using it. This fact was clear in the early 1990s, when Postman published this book, and should be indisputable now. Deftly written and argued, thought-provoking, and bracingly frank.
George III: Majesty and Madness, by Jeremy Black—A very good short biography of a king mostly (mis)remembered in America as an insane tyrant. Black does an especially good job illuminating George’s complicated but upright personal character and the influence that it had on his approach to policy and the tone of his rule. Blog review forthcoming.
The Revolt of the Masses, by Jose Ortega y Gasset—An incisive and scathing critique of the era of mass culture—its origins, tendencies, prejudices, and its probable destiny—from the years just before Europe and the West blew itself apart. I blogged briefly about some of Ortega’s insights earlier this year.
The White Sniper, by Tapio Saarelainen—A very short biography of Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä, who during the Winter War of 1939-40 killed an estimated 500 Russians. Saarelainen, who got to know Häyhä in his old age and is himself a Finnish army sniper, supplements Häyhä’s story with appendices on sharpshooting, the locations of Häyhä’s deeds, and the rifles and ammunition used. This last may be a deeper dive than most general readers want, but Saarelainen’s portrait of Häyhä—a quiet, modest farmer, hunting guide, and dog breeder who proved skilled and tenacious under unimaginably bad conditions, who suffered mightily but uncomplainingly from his severe wounding late in the war, and who made no fuss about his heroic exploits in later life—is inspiring and worth your while.
Runners up:
The Politics of James Bond, by Jeremy Black—A wide-ranging and masterly examination of how real-life politics—especially the global politics of the early Cold War era, in which Britain seemed to play an increasingly marginal role—shaped the fictional James Bond both in book form and onscreen. This book only covers up to the release of The World is Not Enough in 1999. Black has recently published an updated edition which I hope to read soon.
Ship of Fate: The Story of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, by Roger Moorhouse—A short, briskly written, well-researched history from beginning to end of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the Nazi cruise liner whose sinking in 1945 was the deadliest in history. A horrific tragedy carefully and vividly presented. More detailed Goodreads review here.
CS Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law, by Justin Buckley Dyer and Micah J Watson—A very good scholarly look at Lewis’s political thinking and how natural law philosophy informed it. My friend Coyle of City of Man Podcast interviewed the authors a few years ago, which you can listen to here and here.
St Patrick of Ireland: A Biography, by Philip Freeman—An excellent short biography, especially helpful in describing the world in which Patrick lived and worked. Read more in my St Patrick’s Day reading recommendations here.
Fiction
Here, in no particular order, are several of my favorite fictional reads of the spring, plus a few near-favorites. Several of these I have already written about in my reflections on my COVID quarantine reading. I’ve linked to that post in the relevant places below.
The Son of Laughter, by Frederick Buechner—An earthy and poetic retelling of the biblical story of Jacob. Buechner succeeds in making this familiar story alien and fresh again. One of the best books I’ve read this year. Read more about it here.
Breakout at Stalingrad, by Heinrich Gerlach—A sweeping story of one of the biggest and bloodiest battles of World War II told through the lives of a handful of characters who begin on the periphery of the battle and are pulled—or, in many cases, pushed—deeper and deeper into the German collapse. Thrilling, disturbing, and very moving. I wrote a full review of this novel here.
Through the Wheat, by Thomas Boyd—Based on the author’s experiences as a Marine on the Western Front in the spring and summer of 1918, Through the Wheat is an engrossing, frenetic read and really draws you into the exhaustion and delirium of war—not only in combat, which is harrowing enough, but in the hard work and tedium of the before and after, too. As brutal, realistic, and direct as All Quiet on the Western Front, though perhaps—perhaps—not quite as bleak. Critically acclaimed upon its publication in the 1920s, Through the Wheat has been forgotten by the broader public but remained a classic among military men. It deserves to be better remembered.
HHhH, by Laurent Binet—Both the story of Czech resistance fighters plotting to assassinate one of the most evil men in the Third Reich and the story of the author’s struggle to tell the story. Brilliantly done. I wrote a full review of this novel here.
The Eighth Arrow: Odysseus in the Underworld, by J Augustine Wetta, OSB—Odysseus and Diomedes, finding themselves temporarily freed from their place in hell, must find a way out. Forces Odysseus can’t even begin to understand work on him throughout his journey, and he finds himself slowly changed. A thrilling, moving, mythic, funny, and theologically rich riff on Homer by way of Dante. This has been my biggest surprise of the year. Read more about it here.
The Shootist, by Glendon Swarthout—A short and strongly written novel about a gunfighter’s confrontation with mortality. The frontier has closed, the age of the Wild West is passing, and JB Books learns that the pain he has been in for weeks is advanced prostate cancer. He settles down in an El Paso boarding house to await the end, mulling what he has to show for his life, whether he knows anyone at all who doesn’t want to use him for their own ends, and whether he can make something of himself yet. Poignant and unsparing, one of the best Westerns I’ve read.
Runners up:
The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo—Read to my kids. A fun fantasy adventure that isn’t afraid to let in some real darkness, the better to show how brightly hope and grace shine. Inspired this blog post about writing dialect in fiction.
A Man at Arms, by Steven Pressfield—A Greek mercenary formerly of the Roman legions is recruited to track down a messenger carrying a seditious letter written by one Paul the Apostle. Read more about it here.
Glitz, by Elmore Leonard—A wounded cop on medical leave falls hopelessly in love with a doomed hooker and finds himself stalked by a vengeful ex-con he once arrested. The book got off to a confusing start but the story came together very quickly after the first few chapters. Worth sticking with.
52 Pickup, by Elmore Leonard—A Detroit businessman crosses swords with murderous extortioners. One of the most involving and fast-paced of Leonard’s crime novels that I’ve read. Read more about it here.
The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald—My first time ever reading this classic. It’s great. Read more about it here.
Rereads
Here are a few books I revisited this spring, most of which I listened to as audiobooks on my commute. These are marked with asterisks.
The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh
Goldfinger, by Ian Fleming*
For Your Eyes Only, by Ian Fleming*
The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope*
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Thunderball, by Ian Fleming*
I’ve been listening back through the original James Bond series for about a year and a half now thanks to some excellent audiobook performances on Audible. Goldfinger is read by Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville; the short story collection For Your Eyes Only, one of my favorites in the series, by Samuel West; and Thunderball by Jason Isaacs of The Patriot, the Harry Potter series, and many other movies. I’ve been keeping fairly detailed notes on these as I finish them; you can read these short reviews on Goodreads via the hyperlinks above.
Three to avoid
Most of what I got to read this spring was good, but, alas, not all of it. There were a number of good-not-great or mediocre books in there, but the following three actively annoyed me:
Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners, by Dane Ortlund—An overlong, plodding, extremely repetitive meditation on two or three New Testament references to Jesus’s heart. Explicitly modeled on Puritan navelgazing. Recommended for Calvinists who are easily impressed by parallel sentence structure and clumsy metaphors. Goodreads review here.
Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi, by Rob MacGregor—That the adventure in this novel is somehow both dull and too complicated is bad enough, but the character referred to throughout as “Indiana Jones” does not feel like any plausible younger version of the man we know from the movies. There are several more books in this series but I doubt I will move on to any of them, which is a shame.
Later, by Stephen King—One of my quarantine reads. A briskly written supernatural adventure that unfortunately falls back into too many of King’s well-worn ruts. Nevertheless reasonably enjoyable until the ending, which is utter crud. More in my blog post about quarantine reading.
Of these three, only the last may be worth your while as pure entertainment. But I would recommend avoiding all of them.
Special mention—a worthy picture book
I want to give specific attention to Rosemary Sutcliff’s Black Ships Before Troy, a picture book illustrated by Alan Lee that tells the story of the Trojan War, specifically focusing on the events in Homer’s Iliad. I read it to my kids at bedtime over several weeks—it was wonderful. Full review here.
Currently reading
I’ve got several books I’ve been plugging away at for the last several weeks that I didn’t finish in time to count as “spring reads,” but which I nevertheless want to acknowledge. These include:
Battleground Prussia: The Assault on Germany’s Eastern Front 1944-45, by Prit Buttar—A massive history of one of the grimmest and most unremittingly brutal phases of World War II. Research for a project I’ve been mulling over for four years now.
Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, by Jordan Peterson—The follow-up to Peterson’s first book, which I read a couple years ago.
Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh—One of the first novels by Waugh that I read, this is a blistering and hilarious satire of the news media. Currently reading it to my wife before bed every night.
Politics, by Aristotle—Reading for the forthcoming season of Core Curriculum.
The Hitler of History, by John Lukacs—An excellent historical and historiographical study of Hitler and aspects of the study of Hitler’s life. I’ve blogged about this book before here.
These have all been good so far, especially the two historical works by Buttar and Lukacs, and I’d recommend any of them.
Coming up this summer
After a trying and difficult spring I’m hoping for a somewhat more sedate and relaxed summer. We’ll see about that. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to some more good reading, particularly the first in a popular fantasy series that I’ve finally been persuaded to try. We’ll see about that, too.
Thanks for reading! Hope y’all have a great summer and have found something here to enjoy.
