A Year of Reading in Review #
Another year, another list of top picks! This year was exceedingly productive as far as meeting my reading goals. In total I read 30 books.
With so many great reads to pick from I would like to highlight the reading of three major philosophical works, Marx’s Capital, Spinoza’s Ethics and Deleuze’s Difference & Repetition.
As usual there is no order to the following list.
1. A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov #
This book was quite a challenging reading experience as there are two untrustworthy narrators both of which are actually one. However, the prose is beautiful and even seemingly simple sentences forced me to stop and ponder multiple times throughout.
A forceful haze of emotive writing.
2. Difference & Repetition by Gilles Deleuze #
Difference & Repetition is perhaps my favorite work of philosophy. The work entails an overturning of essence based ontology and contains a positive project of conceptualizing Difference not subjugated to identity. While dense and exceedingly complex at times I will forever push back against the oft quoted comment that the book is “dry”.
Insightful and imaginative prose alongside an incredible philosophical project.
3. Too Loud A Solitude by Hrabal #
Like Difference & Repetition I read this book for book club and enjoyed it immensely. While slim, it offers a ton to the reader and is ripe for rereading.
A thought provoking story of condensed size with an equal amount of both delight and disgust.
The Coming Year #
This year has started out on the rocky side but the reading must continue! I plan to uphold last year’s accomplishment of 30 books as that number feels both attainable yet challenging enough.