To be a true reader or writer today is to exist primarily in a state of longing and loneliness (sehnsucht, in the German term), because the vast majority of one’s closest associates are dead. Over the course of the 20th century the world of letters separated rather violently from the world of consequence, and so loving writing as writing requires either myopic self-delusion or an absurd appreciation for the spiritual residue of artistic impact. I don’t have the former in me, so it is the latter that drives me.
A remarkable amount of excellent archival issues came out this year, particularly in fiction and literature. The two placed in the pole position are not necessarily more deserving than many others. Rather, I chose them because they seemed to be most resonant with this year, despite being written decades ago. Both are very unorthodox Cold War retrospectives, both vaguely “documentary”-like, and yet animated by almost opposite sensibilities.
Ironically, I found Anniversaries to be a gloomier tale than Kolyma Stories, in the same way that gray is a gloomier color than black, or Faith is more enervating than Closer. Likewise, Johnson’s self-appearance in Anniversaries is more despairing than Shalamov’s varied appearances in Kolyma, because there is a certain abdication of moral authority Johnson took on in writing Anniversaries that is either disingenuous or terrifying. I think it’s the latter.
I have retained last year’s subcategories for nonfiction. They remain approximate. They are there to break the lists down into more manageable chunks. The books that posed the biggest dilemma were those on mind and cognition, which got divided between Humanities and Science depending on whether the bent was more theoretical or empirical.
Special notice must go to Jan Ziolkowski for choosing to publish the six volumes of The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity under Creative Commons and free for all to download. Like Adrian Piper’s Kantian study Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Ziolkowski’s book is a good deal closer to what academic work should be–visionary, monumental, singular–than most of what gets published by academic presses, and I hope that their publishing choice will help spread their work further.
You will notice one hell of a ringer after the top picks. After debating repeatedly, I decided to include my own book because I did spend more time with it than any other, and so it deserves to be called a book of my year. I could say more but I think I have already said it all here.
Books under “Of Interest” are there due to one or more of the following caveats: (1) I lack sufficient domain knowledge 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.
The picture above is by the wonderful Ella Baron.
Be well, read much, take care.
BOOKS OF MY YEAR
Kolyma Stories (New York Review Books Classics)
Shalamov, Varlam (Author), Rayfield, Donald (Translator)
(NYRB Classics)
Anniversaries (Boxed Set): From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl (New York Review Books Classics)
Johnson, Uwe (Author), Searls, Damion (Translator)
(NYRB Classics)
INEVITABLE MENTION
Bitwise: A Life in Code
Auerbach, David (Author)
(Pantheon)
LITERATURE
The Rehearsals (Dedalus Europe)
Sharov, Vladimir (Author), Ready, Oliver (Translator)
(Dedalus Limited)
The Collected Stories of Machado de Assis
de Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado (Author), Costa, Margaret Jull (Translator), Patterson, Robin (Translator), Wood, Michael (Foreword)
(Liveright)
Collected Stories
Schulz, Bruno (Author), Galchen, Rivka (Foreword)
(Northwestern University Press)
The Novel of Ferrara
Bassani, Giorgio (Author), McKendrick, Jamie (Translator), Aciman, André (Foreword)
(W. W. Norton & Company)
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Moshfegh, Ottessa (Author)
(Penguin Press)
Belladonna
Drndic, Daša (Author), Hawkesworth, Celia (Translator)
(New Directions)
Doppelgänger
Daša Drndic (Author)
(Istros Books)
The William H. Gass Reader
Gass, William H. (Author)
(Knopf)
Catastrophe: And Other Stories (Art of the Story)
Buzzati, Dino (Author)
(Ecco)
The Chandelier
Lispector, Clarice (Author), Moser, Benjamin (Translator), Edwards, Magdalena (Translator)
(New Directions)
Cathay: A Critical Edition
Pound, Ezra (Author), Billings, Timothy (Editor), Bush, Christopher (Introduction), Saussy, Haun (Foreword)
(Fordham University Press)
Letters, Dreams, and Other Writings (WAKEFIELD PRESS)
Varo, Remedios (Author), Carson, Margaret (Translator), Carson, Margaret (Introduction)
(Wakefield Press)
Stream System: The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane
Murnane, Gerald (Author)
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
A Hundred and One Nights (Library of Arabic Literature, 10)
Fudge, Bruce (Translator), Irwin, Robert (Foreword)
(NYU Press)
Doting (New York Review Books Classics)
Green, Henry (Author), Gorra, Michael (Introduction)
(NYRB Classics)
Nothing (New York Review Books Classics)
Green, Henry (Author), Prose, Francine (Introduction)
(NYRB Classics)
Phoresis
Greg Egan (Author), Gregory Manchess (Illustrator)
(Subterranean)
The Sacerdotal Owl and Three Other Long Tales
Bishop, Michael (Author)
(Fairwood Press)
HUMANITIES
The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity: Volume 1: The Middle Ages
Ziolkowski, Jan M. (Author)
(Open Book Publishers)
Lions (The German List)
Blumenberg, Hans (Author), Driscoll, Kári (Translator)
(Seagull Books)
Questioning Minds: The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner
Davenport, Guy (Author), Kenner, Hugh (Author), Burns, Edward M. (Editor)
(Counterpoint)
Keith Rowe: The Room Extended
Olewnick, Brian (Author)
(powerHouse Books)
Things That Bother Me: Death, Freedom, the Self, Etc.
Strawson, Galen (Author)
(New York Review Books)
The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy in the First Millennium CE (The Oxford History of Philosophy)
Westerhoff, Jan (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot
Tobin, Vera (Author)
(Harvard University Press)
If Not Critical
Griffiths, Eric (Author), Johnston, Freya (Editor)
(Oxford University Press)
The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry
Griffiths, Eric (Author)
(OUP Oxford)
Forces in Motion: Anthony Braxton and the Meta-reality of Creative Music: Interviews and Tour Notes, England 1985
Lock, Graham (Author), White, Nick (Photographer)
(Dover Publications)
Nightmare Envy and Other Stories: American Culture and European Reconstruction
Blaustein, George (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
Radical Skepticism and the Shadow of Doubt: A Philosophical Dialogue
Hirsch, Eli (Author)
(Bloomsbury Academic)
Knowledge and Truth in Plato: Stepping Past the Shadow of Socrates
Rowett, Catherine (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
The Gestation of German Biology: Philosophy and Physiology from Stahl to Schelling
Zammito, John H. (Author)
(University of Chicago Press)
Almost Nothing: The 20th-Century Art and Life of Józef Czapski
Karpeles, Eric (Author)
(New York Review Books)
Husserl's Legacy: Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Transcendental Philosophy
Zahavi, Dan (Author)
(OUP Oxford)
Shakespeare's Theatre: A History
Dutton, Richard (Author)
(Wiley-Blackwell)
Naked: The Dark Side of Shame and Moral Life
Thomason, Krista K. (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
Translating Happiness: A Cross-Cultural Lexicon of Well-Being (The MIT Press)
Lomas, Tim (Author)
(The MIT Press)
Organized Time: Rhythm, Tonality, and Form (Oxford Studies in Music Theory)
Yust, Jason (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
Philosophy of Language, Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy (Philosophy of History and Culture)
Bo Mou (Author)
(BRILL)
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
The Emergence of Dreaming: Mind-Wandering, Embodied Simulation, and the Default Network
Domhoff, G. William (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect
Pearl, Judea (Author), Mackenzie, Dana (Author)
(Basic Books)
Statistical Inference as Severe Testing: How to Get Beyond the Statistics Wars
Mayo, Deborah G. (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)
The Order of Time
Rovelli, Carlo (Author)
(Riverhead Books)
The Third Lens: Metaphor and the Creation of Modern Cell Biology
Reynolds, Andrew S. (Author)
(University of Chicago Press)
The Emotional Foundations of Personality: A Neurobiological and Evolutionary Approach
Davis, Kenneth L. (Author), Panksepp PhD, Jaak (Author), Solms, Mark (Foreword)
(W. W. Norton & Company)
You'll See This Message When It Is Too Late: The Legal and Economic Aftermath of Cybersecurity Breaches (Information Policy)
Wolff, Josephine (Author)
(The MIT Press)
The Neuroscience of Emotion: A New Synthesis
Adolphs, Ralph (Author), Anderson, David J. (Author)
(Princeton University Press)
Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
Hossenfelder, Sabine (Author)
(Basic Books)
Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data
Mayer-Schönberger, Viktor (Author), Ramge, Thomas (Author)
(Basic Books)
The Philosophy of Quantitative Methods: Understanding Statistics
Haig, Brian D. (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
Mind the Body: An Exploration of Bodily Self-Awareness
de Vignemont, Frédérique (Author)
(OUP Oxford)
The Spontaneous Brain: From the Mind-Body to the World-Brain Problem (The MIT Press)
Northoff, Georg (Author)
(The MIT Press)
The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind
Gazzaniga, Michael S. (Author)
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Energy, Entropy, and the Flow of Nature
Sherman, Thomas F. (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
The Deep Learning Revolution (The MIT Press)
Sejnowski, Terrence J. (Author)
(The MIT Press)
Re-Engineering Humanity
Frischmann, Brett (Author), Selinger, Evan (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)
The Politics of Autism
Siegel, Bryna (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World
Schneier, Bruce (Author)
(W. W. Norton & Company)
HISTORY AND POLITICS
The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity
Appiah, Kwame Anthony (Author)
(Liveright)
Inhuman Land: Searching for the Truth in Soviet Russia, 1941-1942 (New York Review Books)
Czapski, Jozef (Author), Lloyd-Jones, Antonia (Translator), Snyder, Timothy (Introduction)
(NYRB Classics)
Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison
Wootton, David (Author)
(Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press)
Broken Lives: How Ordinary Germans Experienced the 20th Century
Jarausch, Konrad H. (Author)
(Princeton University Press)
The Minard System: The Complete Statistical Graphics of Charles-Joseph Minard
Rendgen, Sandra (Author)
(Princeton Architectural Press)
Marx and Marxism
Claeys, Gregory (Author)
(Bold Type Books)
W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America
The W.E.B. Du Bois Center at the University of Massachusetts (Author), Battle-Baptiste, Whitney (Editor), Rusert, Britt (Editor)
(Princeton Architectural Press)
Economy and Society: Selected Writings
Polanyi, Karl (Author), Thomasberger, Claus (Editor), Cangiani, Michele (Editor)
(Polity)
The Great Flowing River: A Memoir of China, from Manchuria to Taiwan (Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan)
Pang-yuan, Chi (Author), Balcom, John (Translator)
(Columbia University Press)
A History of Judaism
Goodman, Martin (Author)
(Penguin Press)
Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War
Scharre, Paul (Author)
(W. W. Norton & Company)
Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s
Stern, Eliyahu (Author)
(Yale University Press)
Napoleon: The Spirit of the Age: 1805-1810
Broers, Michael (Author)
(Pegasus Books)
The Open Sea: The Economic Life of the Ancient Mediterranean World from the Iron Age to the Rise of Rome
Manning, J. G. (Author)
(Princeton University Press)
Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual (The United States in the World)
Bessner, Daniel (Author)
(Cornell University Press)
From Humanism to Hobbes: Studies in Rhetoric and Politics
Skinner, Quentin (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)
Nation Building: Why Some Countries Come Together While Others Fall Apart (Princeton Studies in Global and Comparative Sociology)
Wimmer, Andreas (Author)
(Princeton University Press)
Asperger's Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna
Sheffer, Edith (Author)
(W. W. Norton & Company)
Consciousness Demystified (The MIT Press)
Feinberg, Todd E. (Author), Mallatt, Jon M. (Author)
(The MIT Press)
COMICS
Mort Cinder (The Alberto Breccia Library)
Breccia, Alberto (Author), Oesterheld, Héctor Germán (Author)
(Fantagraphics)
Garlandia
Mattotti, Lorenzo (Author), Kramsky, Jerry (Author), Mattotti, Lorenzo (Artist), Kramsky, Jerry (Artist)
(Fantagraphics Books)
The Arab of the Future 3: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1985-1987
Sattouf, Riad (Author)
(Metropolitan Books)
Hasib & The Queen of Serpents: A Thousand and One Nights Tale
B., David (Author)
(NBM Publishing)
Piero
Baudoin, Edmond (Author), Madden, Matt (Translator)
(New York Review Comics)
The Don Rosa Library Gift Box Set #5: Vols. 9 & 10
Rosa, Don (Author)
(Fantagraphics)
The Song Of Aglaia
Simon, Anne (Author), Allen, Jenna (Translator)
(Fantagraphics)
Weegee: Serial Photographer
de Radiguès, Max (Author), Mannaert, Wauter (Illustrator), Dascher, Helge (Translator)
(Conundrum International)
Von Spatz
Haifisch, Anna (Author)
(Drawn and Quarterly)
About Betty's Boob
Cazot, Vero (Author), Rocheleau, Julie (Illustrator)
(Archaia)
The New World: Comics from Mauretania
Reynolds, Chris (Author), Seth (Editor), Park, Ed (Foreword), Seth (Designer)
(New York Review Comics)
Berlin
Lutes, Jason (Author)
(Drawn and Quarterly)
All The Answers
Kupperman, Michael (Author)
(Gallery 13)
OF INTEREST
Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal
Rauchway, Eric (Author)
(Basic Books)
A Nation Like All Others: A Brief History of American Foreign Relations
Cohen, Warren I. (Author)
(Columbia University Press)
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South
Balko, Radley (Author), Carrington, Tucker (Author), Grisham, John (Foreword)
(PublicAffairs)
Physics Avoidance: and other essays in conceptual strategy
Wilson, Mark (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
Searching for Boko Haram: A History of Violence in Central Africa
MacEachern, Scott (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
Crusade and Jihad: The Thousand-Year War Between the Muslim World and the Global North (The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series)
Polk, William R. (Author)
(Yale University Press)
Against Dharma: Dissent in the Ancient Indian Sciences of Sex and Politics (The Terry Lectures Series)
Doniger, Wendy (Author)
(Yale University Press)
The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire
Mitchell, A. Wess (Author)
(Princeton University Press)
Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods
Meisner, Dwayne A. (Author)
(Oxford University Press)
The Secret World: A History of Intelligence (Henry L. Stimson Lectures)
Andrew, Christopher (Author)
(Yale University Press)
The British in India: A Social History of the Raj
Gilmour, David (Author)
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts, and Seas Have Shaped Asia's History
Amrith, Sunil (Author)
(Basic Books)
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
Quammen, David (Author)
(Simon & Schuster)
21 December 2018 at 22:04
These are great. I’m so glad you put both Vera and Eli on your list!
15 December 2019 at 20:58
Wow. What a great list! I hope you do one for this year, too.