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A Humument

David Auerbach’s Books of the Year 2017

22 December 2017 / / 3 Comments

While the world went mad this year, I retreated a bit and did more reading than I had in some time. I have seen the pendulum of public sentiment cycle from complacency to hysteria and back twice now, and I am more fatalistic than ever about such cycles having to take their course. (My description of Thomas Pynchon’s “decoherence events” applies just as well to the Trump presidency as it does to September 11, 2001.) Being part of the collective public discourse this year was unhealthier than in any time I have ever seen.

I believe all the titles below deserve attention. The top books have been chosen based on personal significance and relevance. Appiah’s As If is a plea for a cosmopolitan pluralism (of provisional viewpoints, not of truths) based on a reading of the great Hans Vaihinger. It is a theoretical work that has far more relevance to technology than it first appears, as I try to explain in my forthcoming Bitwise: A Life in Code. Földényi’s Melancholy is a Burton-inspired chronicle that bests a thousand other intellectual histories of its kind. It spoke to me of what it is to be the sort of person who feels the need and drive to read all these books in the first place, and of the intangible benefits I gain from them. And the purportedly final version of Tom Phillips’ A Humument is a thing of beauty, drastically different from its previous editions in many regards, and one of the deepest texts of our time, fifty years after its first publication.

The greatest novel I read this year was Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon, the right novel for the right moment, but not one published in 2017.

In an attempt to provide a bit more apparent order, I have created a few subcategories for nonfiction. These are quite approximate; some books could have easily gone under a different heading. They are there to break the lists down into more manageable chunks.

When it comes to books, my eyes are bigger than my…eyes. Books under “Of Interest” are there either because (1) they are too out of my areas of knowledge for me to feel comfortable recommending them, (2) I have sufficient reservations about their content but feel they are too significant to ignore, or (3) I just haven’t read enough of them. I would feel terrible not noting Slezkine’s The House of Government, but I did not have time to read most of its 1100 pages.

Be well, read much, take care.

BOOKS OF MY YEAR

As If: Idealization and Ideals
Appiah, Kwame Anthony (Author)
Harvard University Press

Melancholy (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)
Foldenyi, Laszlo F. (Author), Wilkinson, Tim (Translator), Manguel, Alberto (Foreword)
Yale University Press


A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel (Sixth)
Phillips, Tom (Author)
Thames & Hudson

 

LITERATURE

Into the Cyclorama
Kim, Annie (Author)
Southern Indiana Review Press


Symphony for Human Transport
Samuels, Lisa (Author)
Shearsman Books


The Golden Cockerel & Other Writings
Rulfo, Juan (Author), Weatherford, Douglas J. (Translator)
Deep Vellum Publishing


Homesick for Another World: Stories
Moshfegh, Ottessa (Author)
Penguin Press


The World Goes On
Krasznahorkai, László (Author), Szirtes, George (Translator), Mulzet, Ottilie (Translator), Batki, John (Translator)
New Directions


The Manhattan Project
Krasznahorkai, László (Author), Rotem, Ornan (Photographer), Batki, John (Translator)
Sylph Editions


So Much Blue: A Novel
Everett, Percival (Author)
Graywolf Press


Katalin Street (New York Review Books Classics)
Szabo, Magda (Author), Rix, Len (Translator)
NYRB Classics


Beasts Head for Home: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia)
Abe, Kōbō (Author), Calichman, Richard (Translator)
Columbia University Press


Blackass: A Novel
Barrett, A. Igoni (Author)
Graywolf Press


The Essential Fictions
Babel, Isaac (Author), Vinokur, Val (Translator)
Northwestern University Press

Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr
Crowley, John (Author), Newcomb, Melody (Illustrator)
Gallery / Saga Press

Gap Gardening: Selected Poems
Waldrop, Rosmarie (Author)
New Directions


Judgment: A Novel (Northwestern World Classics)
Bergelson, David (Author), Senderovich, Sasha (Author), Murav, Harriet (Author)
Northwestern University Press


Found Life: Poems, Stories, Comics, a Play, and an Interview (Russian Library)
Goralik, Linor (Author), Morse, Ainsley (Editor), Vassileva, Maria (Editor), Vinokour, Maya (Editor)
Columbia University Press


Remains of Life: A Novel (Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan)
Wu He, Wu (Author), Berry, Michael (Translator)
Columbia University Press


Nest in the Bones: Stories by Antonio Benedetto
Di Benedetto, Antonio (Author), Broner, Martina (Translator)
Archipelago


Newcomers: Book One
Kovacic, Lojze (Author), Biggins, Michael (Translator)
Archipelago


Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China
Guo, Xiaolu (Author)
Grove Press



Sisters of the Cross (Russian Library)
Remizov, Alexei (Author), Keys, Roger (Translator), Murphy, Brian (Translator)
Columbia University Press


Frontier
Xue, Can (Author), Gernant, Karen (Translator), Zeping, Chen (Translator), Khakpour, Porochista (Introduction)
Open Letter


The Construction of the Tower of Babel
Benet, Juan (Author), West, Adrian (Translator), West, Adrian (Introduction)
Wakefield Press


The War Nerd Iliad
Dolan, John (Adapter)
Feral House


Drilling through Hard Boards: 133 Political Stories (The German List)
Kluge, Alexander (Author), Hoban, Wieland (Translator)
Seagull Books


Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917-1922 (New York Review Books Classics)
Tsvetaeva, Marina (Author), Gambrell, Jamey (Translator)
NYRB Classics


Balcony in the Forest (New York Review Book)
Gracq, Julien (Author), Howard, Richard (Translator), Howard, Richard (Foreword)
NYRB Classics


Go, Went, Gone
Erpenbeck, Jenny (Author), Bernofsky, Susan (Translator)
New Directions



The Collected Poems of Li He (Calligrams)
He, Li (Author), Frodsham, J.D. (Translator), Rouzer, Paul (Preface)
New York Review Books


Chinese Poetic Writing (Calligrams)
Cheng, Francois (Author), Riggs, Donald (Translator), Seaton, Jerome (Translator)
New York Review Books


The Complete Old English Poems (The Middle Ages Series)
Williamson, Craig (Translator), Shippey, Tom (Introduction)
University of Pennsylvania Press


The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition
Pessoa, Fernando (Author), Pizarro, Jerónimo (Editor), Costa, Margaret Jull (Translator)
New Directions

 

HUMANITIES

Melancholic Habits: Burton's Anatomy & the Mind Sciences
Radden, Jennifer (Author)
Oxford University Press


The Warburg Years (1919-1933): Essays on Language, Art, Myth, and Technology
Cassirer, Ernst (Author), Lofts, S. G. (Translator)
Yale University Press


Dystopia: A Natural History
Claeys, Gregory (Author)
Oxford University Press


The Rift in The Lute: Attuning Poetry and Philosophy
de Gaynesford, Maximilian (Author)
Oxford University Press


David Jones
Dilworth, T (Author)
Jonathan Cape

The Messages We Send: Social Signals and Storytelling
Ferrari, G. R. F. (Author)
Oxford University Press

The Mind of the Book: Pictorial Title-Pages
Fowler, Alastair (Author)
Oxford University Press

The Natural and the Human: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1739-1841
Gaukroger, Stephen (Author)
Oxford University Press


Changing the Subject: Philosophy from Socrates to Adorno
Geuss, Raymond (Author)
Harvard University Press



Res Publica and the Roman Republic: 'Without Body or Form'
Hodgson, Louise (Author)
Oxford University Press


The Epic Distilled: Studies in the Composition of the Aeneid
Horsfall, Nicholas (Author)
Oxford University Press

I, Me, Mine: Back to Kant, and Back Again
Longuenesse, Béatrice (Author)
Oxford University Press


Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya
Chinchilla Mazariegos, Oswaldo (Author)
Yale University Press

Wilfrid Sellars and the Foundations of Normativity
Olen, Peter (Author)
Palgrave Macmillan

The Subject of Experience
Strawson, Galen (Author)
OUP Oxford


The Emotions in Early Chinese Philosophy (Emotions of the Past)
Virág, Curie (Author)
Oxford University Press

Hercules Segers: Painter, Etcher, A Catalogue Raisonn
Segers, Hercules (Artist)
nai010 publishers/Rijksmuseum

 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
Sapolsky, Robert M. (Author)
Penguin Books



After Digital: Computation as Done by Brains and Machines
Anderson, James A. (Author)
Oxford University Press


The Lazy Universe: An Introduction to the Principle of Least Action
Coopersmith, Jennifer (Author)
Oxford University Press



 

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Prisoners of Reason
Amadae, S. M. (Author)
Cambridge University Press





The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class
Currid-Halkett, Elizabeth (Author)
Princeton University Press


Marx's Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital
Roberts, William Clare (Author)
Princeton University Press


A Brief History of Economic Thought
Roncaglia, Alessandro (Author)
Cambridge University Press


Paths to Fulfillment: Women's Search for Meaning and Identity
Josselson, Ruthellen (Author)
Oxford University Press


The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead
Joas, Hans (Editor), Huebner, Daniel R. (Editor)
University of Chicago Press


The Enigma of Reason
Mercier, Hugo (Author), Sperber, Dan (Author)
Harvard University Press


Shame: A Brief History (History of Emotions)
Stearns, Peter N. (Author)
University of Illinois Press


The Truth about Language: What It Is and Where It Came From
Corballis, Michael C. (Author)
University of Chicago Press


 

HISTORY AND POLITICS


Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A.
Danielle S. Allen (Author)
Liveright


The Water Kingdom
Ball, Philip (Author)
Vintage


False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East
Cook, Steven A. (Author)
Oxford University Press


Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration
Eisen, Lauren-Brooke (Author)
Columbia University Press


The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America
Fitzgerald, Frances (Author)
Simon & Schuster


The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace: But Will War Rebound?
Gat, Azar (Author)
Oxford University Press


A History of Judaism
Goodman, Martin (Author)
Penguin Press


The Killing Wind: A Chinese County's Descent into Madness during the Cultural Revolution
Hecheng, Tan (Author), Mosher, Stacy (Translator), Jian, Guo (Translator)
Oxford University Press


One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps
Pitzer, Andrea (Author)
Little, Brown and Company


The Habsburg Empire: A New History
Judson, Pieter M. (Author)
Harvard University Press


The Transformation of American Liberalism
Klosko, George (Author)
Oxford University Press


Politics in the Roman Republic (Key Themes in Ancient History)
Mouritsen, Henrik (Author)
Cambridge University Press



Sold People: Traffickers and Family Life in North China
Ransmeier, Johanna S. (Author)
Harvard University Press




Classical Greek Oligarchy: A Political History
Simonton, Matthew (Author)
Princeton University Press



The Cold War: A World History
Westad, Odd Arne (Author)
Basic Books

 

COMICS

Poppies of Iraq
Findakly, Brigitte (Author), Trondheim, Lewis (Author), Dascher, Helge (Translator)
Drawn and Quarterly


Satania
Vehlmann, Fabien (Author), Kerascoet (Illustrator)
NBM Publishing


It Don't Come Easy
Dupuy, Philippe (Author), Berberian, Charles (Author), Dascher, Helge (Translator)
Drawn and Quarterly


The Green Hand and Other Stories
Claveloux, Nicole (Author), Smith, Donald Nicholson (Translator), Clowes, Daniel (Introduction)
New York Review Comics


Voices in the Dark
Lust, Ulli (Author), Brownjohn, John (Translator), Knight, Nika (Translator), Beyer, Marcel (Draft Writer)
New York Review Comics


My Favorite Thing Is Monsters
Ferris, Emil (Author), Ferris, Emil (Artist)
Fantagraphics Books

Pascin
Sfar, Joann (Author), Gauvin, Edward (Translator)
Uncivilized Books


Beanworld Volume 4: Hoka Hoka Burb'l Burb'l
Marder, Larry (Author), Marder, Larry (Illustrator)
Dark Horse Books


The Interview
Richards, Jaime (Translator), Manuele Fior (Author)
Fantagraphics Books


Yvain: The Knight of the Lion
Anderson, M.T. (Author), Offermann, Andrea (Illustrator)
Candlewick


Demon (4 Book Series)
Shiga, Jason (Author), Shiga, Jason (Illustrator)



The Customer is Always Wrong
Pond, Mimi (Author)
Drawn and Quarterly


The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir
Bui, Thi (Author)
Harry N. Abrams

 

OF INTEREST





How the Mind Comes into Being
Butz, Martin V. (Author), Kutter, Esther F. (Contributor)
Oxford University Press




Herder's Hermeneutics: History, Poetry, Enlightenment
Gjesdal, Kristin (Author)
Cambridge University Press





Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy
Haskel, Jonathan (Author), Westlake, Stian (Author)
Princeton University Press


The Quantum Revolution in Philosophy
Healey, Richard (Author)
Oxford University Press


Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941
Kotkin, Stephen (Author)
Penguin Press


Pompey, Cato, and the Governance of the Roman Empire
Morrell, Kit (Author)
Oxford University Press


The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost
Nolan, Cathal J. (Author)
Oxford University Press


A History of Law in Europe: From the Early Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century
Padoa-Schioppa, Antonio (Author), Fitzgerald, Caterina (Translator)
Cambridge University Press


The Cambridge History of Communism: Volume 1, World Revolution and Socialism in One Country 1917–1941
Pons, Silvio (Editor), Smith, Stephen A. (Editor)
Cambridge University Press



The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution
Slezkine, Yuri (Author)
Princeton University Press




No Future: Punk, Politics and British Youth Culture, 1976–1984
Worley, Matthew (Author)
Cambridge University Press


The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775-1848
Israel, Jonathan (Author)
Princeton University Press


The Sorcerer's Apprentice: An Anthology of Magical Tales
Zipes, Jack (Editor), Frank, Natalie (Illustrator)
Princeton University Press

Books of the Year, Essays

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3 Comments

  1. La lettrice immaginaria

    22 December 2017 at 07:31

    Thomas Pynchon is always great. I loved Bleeding Edge, which I read twice (your article is outstanding and I’m glad to having read it). FOr “Mason & Dixon” I’m waiting for a better state of mind.
    Your definition of the world does fit very well. And the pendulum of complacency and hysteria is a good description of what’s been going on also in other countries. I write from Italy and we live in a bubble of mystification from every point of view (including food hysteria, but this is another point…). I hope to read “Melancholy” soon – on the theme I have read Jean Starobinsky in Italian some time ago, it’s devoted to melancholy in literature and Burton is quoted everywhere. I look forward to reading your article Bitwise.

    Reply
  2. David Alex

    23 December 2017 at 00:21

    Nice, I’ve gotten some good recommendations from you in the past and am sure I will again. I’ve only read a handful of these (Amadae, Abe, Nagle and The Manhattan Project) so far.

    Liked Beasts Head for Home but man, we really need a full translation of Kabe, not just the excerpt in Beyond the Curve. Look forward to reading Ottessa Moshfegh’s last two books, McGlue is one of my favorites of the decade so far.

    Prisoners of Reason was a slog (repetitive and esoteric in its thoroughness) but well worth it. I think Amadae’s criticism of the conceptual fuzziness surrounding neoliberalism somewhat misses the point (my inexpert opinion is that its distinction from neoclassicism is fuzzy because both responded to the collapse of the thirty-year compromise over new deal policies and the subsequent party realignment. Her focus also leaves little role for the backlash against the civil rights movement). Relatedly her intellectual history often feels more like straight up philosophy, for example where she takes at face value that NUTS won out over MAD as policy mostly because its internal logic was stronger. (I’m sorry if these critiques seem random, for a comparison when I read Objectivity Is Not Neutrality it always struck me that Haskell consistently took philosophers seriously while remaining firmly grounded in doing history and historiography.) On the other hand there’s a lot to be said for really getting inside the theory to take it apart. The central thesis, about the importance of Cold War Grand Strategy and its underlying assumptions about rational agency to the current condition of the state and the social contract, is convincing and as far as I can tell, original.

    One thing I found very interesting is how little she talks about libertarianism. At first I suspected that this is partly because Amadae herself identifies as a (lower case) classical liberal and wants to save her heavy ammunition for the authoritarian implications of modelling everything as a prisoner’s dilemma, but my current reading is that she’s left a lot of ground for a reassessment of what libertarianism actually is, apart from how it’s often represented by its followers. Maybe this work has already been done and I just don’t know about it yet, but I for one had previously mostly taken it at face value when libertarian or an-cap acquaintances and writers identified as “Classical Liberals” while largely subscribing to the homo strategicus concept of rationality. I can no longer do that, thanks to this book.

    One last thing, her dismantling of Richard Posner is my favorite part, and is no less devastating for how polite she is.

    Reply
  3. Grant Barber

    7 January 2018 at 12:52

    You read all these?! Front to back?! You are my hero; can we be friends? So our reading of the past year didn’t actually overlap that much, but damn we’re in the same ballpark. Thoroughly enjoying second volume of AR Ammons Collected Poems right now. But David Jones’Dillworth, Krasznahorkai, Everett, Erpenbach, Pessoa (in that great new edition)…and now I have War Nerd Illiad book and Tower of Babel one back on my ‘must look at’ list. Can I urge you to look at Trebuchet by Danniel Schoonebeek, and Prose Architectures by Renee Gladman?

    Reply

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