Spring reading 2023

At various times this spring, weighed down and dragging inch by inch through the semester, even my reading felt unfulfilling—like I was plodding through book after book with nothing to enjoy or take away from them. But then I opened up my Goodreads reading challenge and started looking back through the 39 books I finished and was surprised—so many of them were excellent! It was an unusually rich season of reading.

This is why we reflect on the past. We need that perspective. Suddenly, my spring semester doesn’t look so much like the slog it often felt like, and I look forward to sharing the best of what I read.

So without further ado, my ten favorites in the broad fiction and non-fiction categories, plus some rereads and children’s books that I enjoyed. I hope y’all will find something good to read below.

Favorite fiction

For years I’ve fiddled with what order to put these in, usually falling back on “no particular order,” and only this spring did it occur to me to arrange them alphabetically by author. So please enjoy these ten favorites novels from this spring:

The Pale Blue Eye, by Louis Bayard—An absorbing, atmospheric, and brilliantly written historical mystery featuring one of my favorite real-life writers that is fatally compromised by one storytelling decision. Still glad I read it, though. Full review here.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie—I’ve mentioned here before that Agatha Christie’s work has been a strange gap in my reading for much of my life. Prior to last year, the only one of her novels I’d ever read was Murder on the Orient Express, and that was more than twenty years ago in high school. I’m starting to fix that. This is Christie’s debut novel as well as the first appearance of the great Hercule Poirot, and even beyond starting the career of one of the twentieth century’s greatest and most popular novelists, it’s rightly regarded as a classic of the mystery genre. I greatly enjoyed it.

Paths of Glory, by Humphrey Cobb—French soldiers assigned an impossible objective fail and are punished for it by a glory-hungry commander. I was prepared for Paths of Glory to be a straightforwardly cynical antiwar story, but it turned out to be a brisk, well-written, psychologically complex, and hard-hitting novel peopled with interesting characters and a subtle but sophisticated study of how morally compromised people take advantage of institutions to the detriment of everyone else. Considering how good Kubrick’s film adaptation is, I was surprised to find Cobb’s novel even better.

The Inheritors, by William Golding—A dark, thematically rich, and tragically moving story of a family of prehistoric Neanderthals coming into fatal conflict with a band of strange, technologically sophisticated, and cruel Homo sapiens. Almost certainly the best novel I read this spring. Full review from earlier this month here.

Trigger Mortis, by Anthony Horowitz—A newer James Bond novel written as a direct sequel to Goldfinger, which is both a daring experiment by Horowitz and the novel’s only serious flaw. It has an interesting plot, a good villain, and some excellent action and suspense, but Horowitz’s need to “fix” one of the outcomes of Goldfinger causes the pacing in the first half to lurch awkwardly. Otherwise excellent. Full length Goodreads review here.

Rogue Male, by Geoffrey Household—An English hunter sets himself the challenge of seeing if he could, just hypothetically, get close enough to a certain unnamed German dictator to get him in his gunsights. He can, and does, and gets caught. This is the story of his escape, his slow and steady recovery from torture, and his flight, all of which have to occur at the same time and hundreds of miles inside a hostile central European country preparing for war. Imagine a whole thriller with the continuous action, breathless pacing, and survivalist improvisation of the middle third of Buchan’s Thirty-Nine Steps. Rogue Male is that novel.

On the Marble Cliffs, by Ernst Jünger, trans. Tess Lewis—Part fable, part allegory, part fantasy, part satire, this is a typically unique and unclassifiable novel by Jünger. Set in a timeless coastal paradise called the Grand Marina, On the Marble Cliffs follows two brothers, world-weary former soldiers who have settled into a tranquil life of botany and zoological research. But throughout, a looming threat grows from the forests to the north, where a jovial and contemptuous brute known as the Head Forester rules an aggressive warrior society. Dark rumors reach the brothers of the rites practiced in the north and of the Head Forester’s intentions toward the Grand Marina and its people. Jünger published this shortly after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and though parallels with the rise and aggression of the Nazis will suggest themselves even from this brief description, Jünger intended the book as a more broadly applicable warning. It’s well worth reading—and heeding. I wrote about it earlier this year here.

Massacre at Goliad, by Elmer Kelton—A short, well-paced, and finely crafted historical adventure about two brothers from Tennessee making a new start in a region of northern Mexico called Texas. Nicely dramatizes the complexity of Anglo migration to Texas and the relationships between the new arrivals and the native Tejanos, and subtly works in a lot of great detail about the move toward revolution in Texas. Goodreads review here.

Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson—I realized after reading so much John Buchan last year that my own taste for Buchan had been prepared by a lot of childhood reading and watching of abridged Stevenson novels and their Disney adaptations. I have reread Treasure Island since then but had never read another childhood favorite, Kidnapped. I decided to fix that. While its second half never quite recovers the suspense and intensity of the betrayal, kidnapping, sword fights, shipwreck, and assassination in the first, it has strong and enjoyable characters and a sharp and satisfying conclusion. A great adventure novel, one of the quiet masterpieces of the genre.

This Thing of Darkness, by KV Turley and Fiorella de Maria—Grieving war widow Evi Kilhooley, who is making ends meet by writing for a Los Angeles magazine, accepts an assignment to interview the dying film star Bela Lugosi. All is not as it seems—most obviously in the case of Lugosi, who continuously lies about his past, but of Evi and her relationship with Hugo, a fellow British expat, as well. Imagine a mixture of 10% Ed Wood, 10% LA Confidential, and 80% The Exorcist.

Special pre-summer mentions:

I read two John Buchan novels in preparation for the second John Buchan June: Huntingtower, Buchan’s first Dickson McCunn adventure, and The Dancing Floor, a Sir Edward Leithen adventure that takes him to a Greek island to thwart a murder plot by desperate neopagans. I excluded them from consideration for my top ten here, but be on the lookout for reviews in the first week or so of next month.

Favorite non-fiction

From this spring’s excellent and plentiful history and general non-fiction reading, my ten favorites arranged alphabetically by author:

The Nicene Creed: An Introduction, by Phillip Cary—I was excited to come across this book, as the creeds are a fascinating and important topic and Cary’s earlier book Good News for Anxious Christians proved helpful to me at an crucial time in my life. In this short handbook, Cary introduces the Nicene Creed to a lay audience with a good short historical overview followed by a line by line, article by article march through the statements of the creed. His explanation is deep but accessible and clearly, concisely written, making this book an ideal introduction to the history of Christianity and its theological core. I’m always looking for book recommendations on complicated but important subjects for students and this will be on the short list from now on. As a bonus, it’s beautifully designed and bound; another great offering from its publisher, Lexham Press.

A Short History of Finland, by Jonathan Clements—A brisk and readable 200-page history tracking the story of the Finns and Finland from the first rumors-of-rumors mentioned by Tacitus through the Viking Age, Christianization, the Reformation, successive control by the Swedes and Russians, its 20th century civil war and wars of self-preservation, to Finland’s application to join NATO in 2022. Clements covers a lot in this short book, giving time both to the political tides that have ebbed and flowed over Finland—and occasionally broken on it—as well as the development of the Finns themselves and the growth of their national self-awareness. His examination of Finnish culture and the Finnish attitude is one of the book’s strong points. Another is his care with nuance, especially with controversial topics like the three wars Finland fought within World War II. As with any short history, there were subjects I was left wanting to read more about, but Clements allocates his limited space well and includes a detailed bibliographical essay for anyone wanting to dive deeper.

Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction, by Eric H Cline—An excellent short guide to the history of the discipline of archaeology (why I read it) as well as the modern state of the field. Cline’s clear, solid writing, even on complicated concepts, and evenhanded approach to controversial topics make this well worth reading. Another one I’ll gladly recommend to students.

The Union that Shaped the Confederacy: Robert Toombs & Alexander H Stephens, by William C Davis—A very good dual biography of two antebellum Georgia politicians and friends, a real odd couple who paired powerhouse oratory and a truculent and dynamic personality (Toombs) with chronic ill health and a studious intellect (Stephens). Davis follows their political evolutions from unionist Whigs left behind by the shifting political situation of the 1850s through secession (Toombs pro, Stephens anti), their renewed friendship as framers of the Confederate constitution, their almost immediate frustrations with the government they helped to create, and their roles, both active (Toombs) and passive (Stephens) in the waging of war and the defeat of the Confederacy. A short, well-researched, and readable book about the political side of the war.

Napoleon, by Paul Johnson—When Johnson died earlier this year, I began his mammoth Modern Times—which I still haven’t finished—and this, his short, punchy entry in the Penguin Lives series. Johnson approaches Bonaparte with the same bracing attitude that he brought to the subjects of Intellectuals. It’s incisive, blunt, elegantly written, and hostile without being unfair. Exactly what I think Napoleon deserves, and a very good short biography.

Beethoven: The Universal Composer, by Edmund Morris—Johnson’s Napoleon set me off on a jaunt through several short biographies I’ve had waiting on the shelf. This was another excellent one, narrating the life of a childhood hero about whom I didn’t actually know much. Morris’s good writing, good research, brisk pacing, his ability to explain what is so special about Beethoven’s music and why to a technical naïf, and his admiring, charitable, but not uncritical feel for Beethoven the man all make this a worthwhile read. I posted a short excerpt about a critically ill-regarded composition here.

Ernst Jünger and Germany: Into the Abyss, 1914-1945, by Thomas R Nevin—A meticulously researched and informative but sometimes dry intellectual biography of the first half of a long, dramatic, and complicated life. I strongly recommend this if you have more than a passing interest in Jünger or the interwar intellectual world. For a sample of the kind of detail and surprises it contains, see this post from January.

Joseph Smith, by Robert V Remini—Another volume from the Penguin Lives series. Remini was one of the great historians of the Jacksonian era and he brings an expert understanding of the context of Smith’s life to this short biography. Situating Smith in his time and place—a world of democratic populism, commercialism and self-promotion, post-Enlightenment mysticism, highly emotive and apocalyptic revivalism, and even fortune hunting through dowsing—helps make a lot of sense of his life and the movement he spawned. One of the best such biographies I’ve read, and one I’ve already recommended to my US History students.

The Book of Eels, by Patrik Svensson, trans. Agnes Broomé—Part memoir, part science history, part naturalist essay, Svensson’s Book of Eels is the biggest surprise of my spring. I picked this up on a whim and was riveted from the first chapter. I was passingly familiar with the European eel from its occasional appearances in medieval history and literature (e.g. the death of Henry I), but I had no idea that so much about them was still mysterious. Though the book drifts into climate alarmism near the end and Svensson sometimes stretches a bit too far to connect the eel to major events and intellectual trends (e.g. was the adult Freud really fascinated with the unconscious because he spent a summer as a biology student dissecting eels looking for testicles?), the chapters on the eel’s life cycle, habitat, and behavior and the researchers who spent centuries—from Aristotle to the present—trying to learn more about them were worth the read. The additional memoir material, Svensson’s reflections on growing up fishing for eels with his father, make this an uncommonly rich and moving book.

The Legacy of the Civil War, by Robert Penn Warren—A fascinating and elegantly written centennial reflection on the place of the Civil War in the American imagination, politics, and character. Earlier this month I posted a short reflection on ideological moralism and political extremism inspired by Warren’s essay here.

Honorable mentions:

On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden & Gift of Living, by Alan Noble—A helpful, compassionate, but honest short reflection on pain, suffering, and mental anguish and the goodness and necessity of living life despite them.

If You Survive, by George Wilson—A lesser known World War II memoir by a ninety-day-wonder, a replacement officer who joined the 4th Infantry Division shortly after D-Day and fought through Normandy, across northern France, in the Hürtgen Forest, and finally in the Battle of the Bulge. Blunt, unembellished, and therefore powerful. Goodreads review here.

Rereads

Colonel Sun, by Kingsley Amis—The first Bond “continuation” novel written after Ian Fleming’s death. Bond journeys to Greece to rescue M, who has been kidnapped by a Chinese intelligence operative plotting to escalate tensions between the Soviets and the West. A slower burn than most of Fleming’s books, but Amis captures much of Fleming’s tone and world-weariness and very presciently creates a scenario in which Communist China is more dangerous than Russia.

Norwood, by Charles Portis—Portis’s first novel. Not my favorite of his five books, but a fun, short picaresque following the title character on an unpredictable cross-country jaunt with a lot of good individual episodes.

Gringos, by Charles Portis—I reread this in the Yucatan, where it takes place, and took it with me to the Mayan city of Tulum. A fantastic novel, and slowly overtaking True Grit as my favorite of Portis’s works. It is certainly his most complex and maybe his best-written. No description can suffice—go read it yourself. I blogged about it twice this spring, here and here.

At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, by Alexander McCall Smith—Two longer Prof Dr von Igelfeld misadventures, taking him to Oxford in one and South America in the other.

Children’s books

The Broken Blade, by William Durbin—A solid young adult historical adventure about French Canadian fur trappers on the Great Lakes. A great surprise.

The Luck of Troy, by Roger Lancelyn Green—A historical fantasy concerning Odysseus’s theft of the Palladion from Troy as told by Nicostratus, Helen of Troy’s son. A good old-fashioned retelling of some events late in the siege from an unusual perspective.

You Are Special, by Max Lucado, illustrated by Sergio Martinez—A beautifully illustrated children’s picture book with a good story and powerfully moving message. This is apparently one of Lucado’s best known books but was new to me. I loved it, and I loved reading it to my kids.

The Easter Storybook, by Laura Richie, illustrated by Ian Dale—Nicely illustrated Bible stories covering the life of Christ, one for each of the forty days of Lent. We picked this up after enjoying the Advent book by the same author-illustrator team.

Indescribable, by Louie Giglio, illustrated by Nicola Anderson—Another nightly read with our kids, this is a 100-chapter devotional on scientific topics—nature, animals, geology, astronomy, and more. Our kids are especially interested in animals and space, so this was an exceptionally enjoyable part of our bedtime routine for several months.

Conclusion

The summer is young but already passing swiftly away. I’ve started some good new books and am trying to finish up a few leftover from the spring, and I’m looking forward to more. I hope something on this list sounds good enough to check out in the coming months, and that you’ll enjoy both the read and your summer. Thanks as always for reading!