2022 Book of the Year

The year has not quite ended, and I suppose it is possible for me to finish another book by year’s end, but I doubt that will happen. I managed to read 19 books this year, not quite my goal of two per month, but a better effort than that of 2021. Here is my report.

1. Books that were a waste of time

There were two. The first was The Radio Operator, by Ulla Lenze. This is a work of fiction, originally appearing in German, that is based loosely on real events during World War II. Maybe it was better in German, but I doubt it. The second was On The Road, by Jack Kerouac. This was a big hit in the 1950s. For the life of me, I don’t know why. A colleague at school suggested that the reason may have been its shocking (to the 1950s crowd) description of sex, drugs, and the bits and pieces of profanity scattered about. It is tame stuff by today’s standards, so it came across as episodic and, well, pointless. If only I had those hours back!

2. Massive books that, ultimately, were worth the effort.

There were three. I reviewed Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, by Steven E. Koonin, in a previous blog post, so enough said about that one. The Second World Wars, by Victor Davis Hanson, was a new way of looking at World War II. Hanson assumed that the reader already had a passing familiarity with the history of that war. He focused on the real reasons for the Allied victory, which to oversimplify, were two: American’s industrial capacity, and the Soviet Union’s ability to sacrifice millions of its citizens. I do recommend this book quite highly.

The third book in this category was a bit of a surprise. Written by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health was quite a piece of work. The footnotes must have numbered in the thousands. Kennedy took a magnifying glass to Anthony Fauci’s entire career in public health. Fauci’s record is that of failure, going back to his days trying to find an AIDS vaccine, through to the present. Kennedy made clear that Fauci was more concerned with Big Pharma than he was with the public health. Why? Follow the money. He spent a lifetime on the federal payroll, and retired a millionaire. If what Kennedy says is true (and again, he documents everything), then we were fools ever to take this guy’s advice about anything.

3. History and Pseudo-history

There were nine. The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies, by Jason Fagone, actually dealt with a husband and wife team of code-breakers who started as amateurs and ended up as the go-to professionals in the business. Elizebeth (not a misspelling) Smith Friedman, a Quaker school teacher and Shakespeare expert, and her husband William Friedman, a geneticist with a fascination for codes and ciphers, became the experts on code-breaking during both world wars. It was a pleasant read.

So was The Taking of Jemima Boone: Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap That Shaped America, by Matthew Pearl. (Why do books need such long subtitles?) Pearl engaged in a little hyperbole when he claims this kidnapping shaped America, but it fascinated me. I had no idea that Daniel Boone’s daughter had been kidnapped by Indians, or recovered, and for that matter, that Daniel Boone himself was kidnapped for a few months sometime after rescuing his daughter. I guess my understanding of the history of Daniel Boone was shaped by an early 1960s television show starring Fess Parker.

The book did vaguely remind me of something else I had read: The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper. I had to re-read that novel. It does seem to have been loosely based on the kidnapping of Jemima Boone.

Having moved to the western North Carolina mountains this year, I felt compelled to learn a bit about the history of this region during the war for Southern independence. The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War, by John C. Inscoe and Gordon B. McKinney did a nice job of filling that gap in my knowledge. And having moved to the Old North State, I took the opportunity to see an historic site that I had wanted to see all my life: Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hill, and the site of the Wright Brothers’ first flight. That was a thrill, which pushed me to buy The Wright Brothers, by the late David McCullough. It was an excellent read.

I am not a big fan of Abraham Lincoln, but the Jon Meacham biography And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle gave me a new appreciation of the 16th president. The Night of the Assassins: The Untold Story of Hitler’s Plot to Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin, by Howard Blum, was entertaining, but I knew the outcome of the plot, and it really never seemed to amount to enough for a book. I enjoyed Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings, by Earl Swift much more than I enjoyed The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses, by Dan Carlin.

4. Politics

American Marxism, by Mark Levin was a well-researched and well-written book. It was not easy reading, but worth the effort. A somewhat easier read was On Being Conservative, by Michael Oakeshott. If you want a single work that offers good justifications for the conservative habit in politics, try Oakeshott.

By far the best book in this category was The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge. Unlike other presidential (or other political) memoirs that I have read, Coolidge writes with modesty. Like the man himself, his autobiography has the virtue of brevity. He told the reader about himself, but didn’t spend chapter after chapter on the minutiae of each of his presidential decisions.

5. Just plain fun

Somerset Maugham is one of my two favorite British authors (the other being P. G. Wodehouse), so it was a pleasure to read The Painted Veil. The book is nearly 100 years old, but holds up well. And my final selection is A Mathematician’s Apology, by G. H. Hardy. There is very little math in it. As per the title, Hardy attempts to explain why he saw mathematics as a field worth devoting his life to, if I may be allowed to end a sentence with a preposition. Mathematics as art: I see that.

6. The Book Of The Year

In my opinion, it has to be The Wright Brothers. And yes, I know it was published six years ago, but since this is my blog, I can pick any book I wish for the Book of Any Year!

Happy reading in 2023!