Every year on this thing I do a recap of the project, and while it's very early in the late night and I'm knackered having been travelling back from London most of today before going to a pub quiz (priorities), 2016 has been an absolute shitter* of a year, I'm sure many will agree, and I wanted to get its review over and done with, because in terms of books I've read it's actually been a pretty good year. My blog has endured its third year of my spewage of thoughts about stuff I've read cover-to-cover, and while this year has seen the fewest completed books since the project started, I feel this year I've read a lot of really good books - certainly ones that were right for me to read, being where I currently am, in terms of life and worldviews and everything.
Excuse #1 for this relative lack (actually there are no 'excuses' as I don't owe this blog anything, it's a personal project, but whatever) is that lots of the time I'd usually spend reading I've spent writing (more info here - link also, incidentally, leads to the book that page-by-page brought me the most immediate joy all year). Excuse #2 is that through a variety of complex causes that I've given up trying to decipher, for a lot of last year I was (mildly? moderately? dunno, wasn't diagnosed but wasn't well - but these things come in waves) a bit off-key, and I ended up reading quite a few books about happiness. These included:
- Happiness by Design, by Paul Dolan - blandly good for the well-structured mind.
- Status Anxiety, by Alain de Botton - slightly-less-blandly slightly-less-good for the slightly-less-well structured mind, or anyone with general angst.
- The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck, by Sarah Knight - samey and not as blunt as you'd probably like it to be if you like the title.
However, the two books** that genuinely deeply helped me in this time were:
- Kierkegaard's Works of Love - a must-read for Christian intellectuals.
- Emily Dickinson's selected poems - just pure transcendent beauty.
Anyway, time to start handing out singular end-of-year recommendations from out of the twenty-nine (a contestable figure given some of the 'books') I read last year.
- Best word-to-picture ratio - the Snowman, by Raymond Briggs.
- Best novel*** - How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, by Mohsin Hamid.
- Another must-read for Christian intellectuals - Paradoxology, by Krish Kandiah.
- Highly-recommended for Christians who feel they are on the verge of becoming more mature in their faith - Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, by Paul Tripp.
- A commonly-praised extremely boring 'classic' that I recommend you avoid - Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.
- Must-read for anyone with, or wanting, a leadership role in groups of any kind, especially activism - the Consensus Handbook by Seeds for Change.
- Disarmingly universal religious-smelling poetry - the Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran.
- Strongly recommended for anyone interested in psychoactive substances - Drugs Without the Hot Air, by David Nutt.
- Strongly recommended for literally everyone - Teaching Critical Thinking, by bell hooks.
I've read books about Jeremy Corbyn and Kanye West (both of which I'd recommend if their names stir anything within you), but core to much of my non-fiction book choice is an attempt to build up a coherent holistic understanding of how the world works and how it needs to change. And this year, through my studies**** as well as my independent reading I feel I have, for the time being, settled on a system of ideas which more or less make sense of the world and give me tangible goals and ideals in a political-economic-social sense: degrowth.
- Prosperity without Growth, by Tim Jackson, is an excellent case for this radical and unpopular but ecologically-urgent and sociopolitically-appealing idea.
- Kathryn Tanner's the Economy of Grace lays out a Christian view of economics which seems to me highly congruent - but further reading is probably required on that, as it is on most topics one is trying to learn the truth about.
Accessible, digestible, applicable truth, now more than ever, is oh-so-important, and if you are a regular reader (you're probably someone I know anyway) then please at the end of 2016 may I implore you, having witnessed the horrors capable of being brought about by mass ignorance, to think for yourself, to read for yourself, to run away with ideas and fight them until you know where you stand, because the truth is always out there but it is rarely simple, and never irrelevant.
Peace & love,
Isaac J. Stovell
[edit - I've just realised that my last post of 2016 promised that this post would include a longer explanation of my writing project, but honestly I can't be bothered at the moment and will provide one of these once my plans are more properly in place.]
* I know I don't usually swear on this blog, but if you're more offended by the term 'shitter' than you are by the current state of the world given how it's changed in 2016, go read an online overview of everything that's happened this year and have a good long think. And then, because it has been a stressful year, here's a brilliant thing to offset the upset.
** Except the Bible, obviously, but as I said in this blog's founding post, that doesn't count. Also, this book was a good help in bringing together calming behavioural practices that help reinforce one's rest in the truth of the gospel.
*** Hands-down. I usually really struggle to pick one. Helps that I didn't read many novels last year but honestly that one is just brilliant.
**** I'm shortly entering my final semester (before a dissertation) of a part-time Masters in Global Political Economy, and honestly, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this course but also how much I'm looking forward to not being a student any more.
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