I've been reading a lot of books this year. I am going to briefly review them.
Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll. I joined a book club where we read on biography a month. This was March's selection. This covers the period of '63 through '66 of a high school basketball star who slowly slides into a junkie lifestyle. The writer became a well known poet and this book was probably finished at least a decade after the events described so the writing has an interesting rhythm to it. There is a lot of old slang dating back to the Beats. The stories are pretty interesting, there's a lot of the underworld there, teenage delinquency, sex and so on.
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. I am a big fan of the Mongols and their achievements. This book is probably a little biased in their favor. It's a good overview of the history of their conquests and a look into their society. I am not the biggest fan of this writer. I found his History Of Money a little unsatisfying too but the material here is so important to any understanding of world history that I think this book should be mandatory.
Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Edward Luttwak. Now this is an excellent history book. There aren't as many books about the Byzantines as about some other topics even though they were just about the only empire west of China who kept a proper history and were unmatched in sophistication for almost a thousand years. This is not merely a military history but gives fascinating insights into diplomacy, economics and other areas of not only the Byzantines (who called themselves Romans) but their neighbors. Of course there's a lot of material on weapons and strategy for military buffs. The writing style is fresh and the author isn't afraid to make bold pronouncements. Though he does hammer at the central point quite a bit which briefly stated is that the Byzantines avoided decisive battles because they would lose highly trained troops that take a long time to replace and even in the best case of total victory they may weaken their enemy too much and thus make it easier for other enemies to sweep in. This is the paradox of strategy where winning becomes losing and the paradoxical nature of strategy is Luttwak's central idea in all his writings.
I Love You More Than You Will Ever Know by Jonathan Ames. Another book club selection. A collection of short essays. There's some humor here. The author is very self-centered and quite neurotic. So the enjoyment of this book is largely dependent on how much you can identify with him.
Jesus And Yahweh The Names Divine by Harold Bloom. An interesting look at the two central personages of Chistianity and Judaism. It is done from a literary criticsm standpoint. One of the books conclusions is that talk of Judeo-Christian culture does not make sense as Yahweh and God The Father are completely irreconcilable and The Old Testament makes too much of a break with the Tanakh. I have to confess that a large part of the book escapes me due to my unfamiliarity with the Bible. Bloom doesn't fully develop his points and there is a lot of allusion and brief tangents.
Plowshares into Swords: From Zionism To Israel by Arno Mayer. A history of Zionism that emphasises the Zionists continous failure to engage with the Palestinian population. Attacks a lot of myths perpetrated by Zionist boosters. However it is not a scholarly work and more of a polemic.
The House Of Wittgenstein by Alexander Waugh. The Wittgensteins were an interesting family that found themselves in the center of a lot of events of the 20th Century. The book isn't that great but there's enough interesting material.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. A memoir centered on the act of running, something Murakami does nearly every day. He claims it helped him to become a writer by giving him endurance and focus. I like the simple, brief sentences and the very slight humor. It gives the sense of the writer as a very kind, admirable person.
You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier. A very important book for this time even though I find a lot of the arguments undeveloped. Quite often I find him doing a lot setup only for the argument to peter out before he arrives at a point to my satisfaction. However as just about the only voice willing to critique the dominant ideologies of digital culture his task is not easy. The essay he published in Harper's doesn't hit on all the points he brings up in the book but does cover quite a few of them in a more condensed form.
The Violence of Financial Capitalism by Christian Marazzi. I didn't finish this yet and I can't find it anymore. I think the translation is bad as I have no idea what he is trying to say a lot of the time. It gives a fairly good overview of the events that brought about the financial crisis but I was looking for more insight into the structure of the post-Fordist economy.