In hopes of preserving some of my reading experiences from the past year, I’d like to say something very briefly about what I’m considering to be the “5 Most Significant Books I’ve Read in 2021.” I’ve included, at the end, another 4 “honorable mentions.”
I’d like to begin with a question: When can you determine that a book has been “significant” to you? Some books that have deeply impressed me while reading leave little long-term traces in my mind and heart, while some that I’ve “pushed” myself through, or even openly criticized while reading, have stuck with me for years, sometimes even decades. I suppose we could consider a 1-month test; then a 6-month, 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year test.
At each stage, we could ask the following questions:
Which books continue to provoke the strongest emotional response, either a faint or strong echo of the original reading experience?
Which books contain characters or events that live in my memory in a similar way to (perhaps indistinguishable from) real persons and real events?
Which books, upon conscious reflection, are remembered in a spirit of gratitude?
Which books still affect the way I think about and react to the world, whether I’m thinking about them or not?
This is all just to say that some of these books, those read in the first half of the year, are open to at least a 6-month test, while others can barely offer themselves up for the 1-month test. But I choose to assess nonetheless.
The Evenings, by Gerard Reve. What a romp, this book is! It’s like a genuinely funny Waiting for Godot (as opposed to the humor I now receive from teaching Godot, which is a result of reflection and repetition.) This novel was also painfully piercing in its portrayal of small town life: its random focuses, its pettiness, but most of all, its boredom.
The Emigrants, by W. G. Sebald. Four meandering little character life sketches, told by outsiders seeking to know more about elusive and depressing characters. I am mesmerized by Sebald ─ have been since reading The Rings of Saturn. Also, he only wrote 4 novels! And I’m presently reading the third…
The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. A conversationally written take on what’s going wrong with our youth, from college campuses to high schools to childhoods. I found it equal parts depressing and refreshing. It’s depressing in its presentation of stories and facts, but refreshing in the sense that it’s helped me put into words a lot of what I’ve observed and thought about over the past 5 years. A seriously important book for today.
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, by Scott McCloud. Hands down the best “comic book” / graphic novel/book I’ve ever read. It helped me enormously in my understanding of “what to do” when I’m reading a graphic book. Simply awesome. On top of that, one of the best books on art and aesthetics in general. While I don’t agree with everything, it wasn’t presented in any sort of authoritative way. McCloud attempts, humbly, to define some terms, make some category distinctions, and offer some reflections. Even his own ideas are amenable to changes and reconfigurations.
Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart, by Jacques Philippe. This is one of the great Philippe texts, the one most obviously focused on one of his central themes: inner peace. Nowadays, I simply rotate between a few Philippe during my morning prayer/meditation. This was amazing.
Honorable Mentions
Maus, by Art Spiegelman
The song at the scaffold, by Gertrud von Le Fort
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, by George Saunders
The Abolition of Man, by CS Lewis
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