Cool picks! A lot I hadn’t heard of. I’d also recommend for anyone interested in the South The Leopard’s Spots by Thomas Dixon, the book Birth of a Nation was an adaption of. “Historians” today will say it’s sensationalized but Dixon lived Reconstruction and its certainly no more sensationalized than say Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Of course, Gone With the Wind is obligatory. It’s easily a top contender for the Great American Novel. And it is very “feminist coded.” People naysay it as overrated but they are simply mistaken.
A final pick is Notes From Underground by Dostoevsky. Though I do love reading I also have trouble finishing books, so both crime and punishment and demons have bookmarks at about a 100pgs in. Criminal, I confess. BUT Underground is breezily short and quite schizoid so right up my alley. One of the major scenes is seared into my brain, and reflect on it often. Until I write a long form piece on it, I will only add that it is a very prescient look into the psyche of a sensitive young(ish) man reckoning with bureaucracy and the schizophrenic undercurrents of Russian civil society and nihilism in the decades building up to the revolution.
I read "The Elementary Particles" a couple years ago, and the funniest scene was the teacher's inner monologue of resentment at the cool black kid in his class for wearing Nikes and (in the teacher's mind) having more impressive male parts
On the topic of Nixon, I highly recommend "NIxon and the World" edited by Fredrik Logevall and Andrew Preston because it consists of stand-alone essays covering different diplomatic issues throughout his presidency, so you can read in any order.
If you like historical fiction, I LOVED the Century Series by Ken Follet. Through the three books, it covers WW1, WW2, the 60s, the Berlin Wall, and a bunch of other stuff, following the same several families throughout.
If you're into medieval historical fiction, the Kingsbridge Series by the same author is great. I've been obsessed since 2005 and he keeps coming out with more.
Probably sad that the only book on this list that I've read is Starting Strength.
I would highly recommend "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War" by Pat Buchanan (yes, that Pat Buchanan). He really blows up a lot of the narratives around WWII that form the mythological underpinnings of the modern liberal empire.
Most dudes love reading about war. World War 2 is, of course, the best one (don't @ me, you know I'm right), but a lot of folks are kind of burned out on it. Fair play.
Enter the SCW, a buck wild conflict that set the stage for WW2. Most people know little about it beyond 'Franco won', but shit was entirely deranged.
Hugh Thomas's work will give you the ten thousand foot view of a conflict that people don't give nearly as much attention as they ought to.
Richard Pipes' trilogy on Russia -- under the tsars, the revolution, and the bolshies -- will also do a good itch scratching for those looking for some pre-WWII war content.
I read "Why Liberalism Failed' at one of my friend's request, and honestly I was very disappointed by it. I know a lot of people refer to it, but honestly I felt that Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" inadvertently did a better job at selling conservatism and casting shade upon the modern liberal state.
I have not yet read "The Righteous Mind," but you're not the first to speak highly of it, so I'll certainly have to get around to it sooner rather than later.
I appreciated Deneen's book because of how acutely aware he was of the political unlikelihood of any kind of Integralist Utopia coming about any time in the foreseeable future, and therefore chose to focus on the shortcomings and contradictions of the Liberal Project itself, in preparation for the future.
Here is my list. The first 4 books are my personal favorites of some of the authors you mentioned. The last 6 were chosen from my Kindle at random, but they were all books I found engaging.
1. Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman ( Funny!)
2. Creation by Gore Vidal ( 500BC . I learned a few things)
3. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough ( emotionally touching)
4. Clay's Ark by Octavia Butler ( my favorite book of her's. She was a wonderful writer)
5. Last Girl Before Freeway by Leslie Bennett's (Joan Rivera bio. Self hatred can take you far)
6. Nomadland by Jessica Bruder ( life is hard. Choose wisely)
7. The Late Shift by Bill Carter ( late night tv wars)
8. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton ( still a good red)
9. The Hot House by Pete Early ( a year at Leavenworth prison)
10. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein (my favorite Heinlein book. He was a weirdo . I don't connect with most of his books , but this one I really love)
I'd say Dorian Gray, which can easily be read in one sitting. Ideally the original magazine version, which is gaining increasing prominence. Even to this day, I have a hard time imagining there's been a better gay novel.
Superb narrative history. Very well-written, though surely more up-to-date research exists.
Maggie Nelson - On Freedom
I recommend this to this community in particular because the author is probably the academic libtard of your nightmares. But the second extended essay, "The Ballad of Sexual Optimism," is worth reading for men put off by the timid, contractual approach to consent favored by official dogma but who are too sensitive for the boorish, chud approach to women and sex that Walt criticizes.
Christopher Lasch - The Culture of Narcissism
It's really as good as people say it is. Incredibly prescient. Most of the middling thinkers of the "dissident right" seems comparatively banal and unoriginal once you've read Lasch.
Ray Huang - 1587, A Year of No Significance.
Another good history that deals with the decline of the Ming dynasty.
Oh good, this one is easy, at least as pertains to a couple books.
Modern Times, by Paul Johnson. The definitive and comprehensive history of the 20th century. Maybe not as relevant now, since we've pretty much moved on from communism. Still, for someone coming of age in the 80s, an invaluable education as to how we got here.
Witness to Hope, by Weigel (biography of John Paul II). Probably the most interesting one for Walt, for while he's busy theorycrafting it's also important to remember that the Holy Spirit is still around, and He gets a vote too as to how things turn out. Among other things, it's very unlikely to successfully game out a situation all the way to the end.
Anything by Tom Wolfe, especially Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full. Maybe already commonplace for this audience, maybe not. In any event, Walt should be thinking of Tom Wolfe as the archetype or progenitor of the non-schlocky successful Right Wing Artist he keeps talking about. Maybe Walt has already written about this and I missed it.
C. M. Kornbluth's short stories (collected in "His Share of Glory.") Many are relevant to this age of idiocracy. (Idiocracy was inspired by Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons.")
Jack Vance's "The Demon Princes." It's a conservative (vitalist?) utopian series disguised as a quirky revenge story. It's a future where the Singularity didn't happen -- because shadowy forces made sure to keep humans human.
Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry stories. Think James Bond defending a rotting Terran Empire. (But keep in mind that the earliest Flandry stories predate the earliest Bond stories.) Any attempt to make right wing science fiction movies should definitely mine Anderson's works.
Cool picks! A lot I hadn’t heard of. I’d also recommend for anyone interested in the South The Leopard’s Spots by Thomas Dixon, the book Birth of a Nation was an adaption of. “Historians” today will say it’s sensationalized but Dixon lived Reconstruction and its certainly no more sensationalized than say Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Of course, Gone With the Wind is obligatory. It’s easily a top contender for the Great American Novel. And it is very “feminist coded.” People naysay it as overrated but they are simply mistaken.
A final pick is Notes From Underground by Dostoevsky. Though I do love reading I also have trouble finishing books, so both crime and punishment and demons have bookmarks at about a 100pgs in. Criminal, I confess. BUT Underground is breezily short and quite schizoid so right up my alley. One of the major scenes is seared into my brain, and reflect on it often. Until I write a long form piece on it, I will only add that it is a very prescient look into the psyche of a sensitive young(ish) man reckoning with bureaucracy and the schizophrenic undercurrents of Russian civil society and nihilism in the decades building up to the revolution.
Gore Vidal is a fantastic writer for those who sympathize with his described contrarian ‘gentleman bitch’ style. One of my favorites.
Anything written by Eric Kaufmann
I read "The Elementary Particles" a couple years ago, and the funniest scene was the teacher's inner monologue of resentment at the cool black kid in his class for wearing Nikes and (in the teacher's mind) having more impressive male parts
On the topic of Nixon, I highly recommend "NIxon and the World" edited by Fredrik Logevall and Andrew Preston because it consists of stand-alone essays covering different diplomatic issues throughout his presidency, so you can read in any order.
If you like historical fiction, I LOVED the Century Series by Ken Follet. Through the three books, it covers WW1, WW2, the 60s, the Berlin Wall, and a bunch of other stuff, following the same several families throughout.
https://a.co/d/04JpWVi1
If you're into medieval historical fiction, the Kingsbridge Series by the same author is great. I've been obsessed since 2005 and he keeps coming out with more.
https://a.co/d/08S0HyZi
I put a bunch of these on my Amazon wishlist to get later! Nice list, very varied.
I just finished "The Devil You Know" by Charles M. Blow about reversing the Great Migration. It was a good and interesting read.
https://a.co/d/0iYeuTOY
Probably sad that the only book on this list that I've read is Starting Strength.
I would highly recommend "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War" by Pat Buchanan (yes, that Pat Buchanan). He really blows up a lot of the narratives around WWII that form the mythological underpinnings of the modern liberal empire.
"The Spanish Civil War" by Hugh Thomas.
Most dudes love reading about war. World War 2 is, of course, the best one (don't @ me, you know I'm right), but a lot of folks are kind of burned out on it. Fair play.
Enter the SCW, a buck wild conflict that set the stage for WW2. Most people know little about it beyond 'Franco won', but shit was entirely deranged.
Hugh Thomas's work will give you the ten thousand foot view of a conflict that people don't give nearly as much attention as they ought to.
Richard Pipes' trilogy on Russia -- under the tsars, the revolution, and the bolshies -- will also do a good itch scratching for those looking for some pre-WWII war content.
The epics of the classical period (Iliad; Odyssey; Aeneid; 1 and 2 Samuel; Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War)
Rilke's Duino Elegies
- "Demons" by Dostoevsky
- "Submission" by Houellebecq
- "Enemy of the Disaster" by Renard Camus
- "Why Liberalism Failed" by Patrick Deneen
I read "Why Liberalism Failed' at one of my friend's request, and honestly I was very disappointed by it. I know a lot of people refer to it, but honestly I felt that Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" inadvertently did a better job at selling conservatism and casting shade upon the modern liberal state.
I have not yet read "The Righteous Mind," but you're not the first to speak highly of it, so I'll certainly have to get around to it sooner rather than later.
I appreciated Deneen's book because of how acutely aware he was of the political unlikelihood of any kind of Integralist Utopia coming about any time in the foreseeable future, and therefore chose to focus on the shortcomings and contradictions of the Liberal Project itself, in preparation for the future.
Here is my list. The first 4 books are my personal favorites of some of the authors you mentioned. The last 6 were chosen from my Kindle at random, but they were all books I found engaging.
1. Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman ( Funny!)
2. Creation by Gore Vidal ( 500BC . I learned a few things)
3. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough ( emotionally touching)
4. Clay's Ark by Octavia Butler ( my favorite book of her's. She was a wonderful writer)
5. Last Girl Before Freeway by Leslie Bennett's (Joan Rivera bio. Self hatred can take you far)
6. Nomadland by Jessica Bruder ( life is hard. Choose wisely)
7. The Late Shift by Bill Carter ( late night tv wars)
8. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton ( still a good red)
9. The Hot House by Pete Early ( a year at Leavenworth prison)
10. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein (my favorite Heinlein book. He was a weirdo . I don't connect with most of his books , but this one I really love)
I'd say Dorian Gray, which can easily be read in one sitting. Ideally the original magazine version, which is gaining increasing prominence. Even to this day, I have a hard time imagining there's been a better gay novel.
>This book helped me realize why I never seem to fit in among the upper middle class professionals I work with
I was under the impression you were born in a well-off family?
My parents were elite educated and made good money but extended family were white trash
C. V. Wedgwood - The Thirty Years War
Superb narrative history. Very well-written, though surely more up-to-date research exists.
Maggie Nelson - On Freedom
I recommend this to this community in particular because the author is probably the academic libtard of your nightmares. But the second extended essay, "The Ballad of Sexual Optimism," is worth reading for men put off by the timid, contractual approach to consent favored by official dogma but who are too sensitive for the boorish, chud approach to women and sex that Walt criticizes.
Christopher Lasch - The Culture of Narcissism
It's really as good as people say it is. Incredibly prescient. Most of the middling thinkers of the "dissident right" seems comparatively banal and unoriginal once you've read Lasch.
Ray Huang - 1587, A Year of No Significance.
Another good history that deals with the decline of the Ming dynasty.
Oh good, this one is easy, at least as pertains to a couple books.
Modern Times, by Paul Johnson. The definitive and comprehensive history of the 20th century. Maybe not as relevant now, since we've pretty much moved on from communism. Still, for someone coming of age in the 80s, an invaluable education as to how we got here.
Witness to Hope, by Weigel (biography of John Paul II). Probably the most interesting one for Walt, for while he's busy theorycrafting it's also important to remember that the Holy Spirit is still around, and He gets a vote too as to how things turn out. Among other things, it's very unlikely to successfully game out a situation all the way to the end.
Anything by Tom Wolfe, especially Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full. Maybe already commonplace for this audience, maybe not. In any event, Walt should be thinking of Tom Wolfe as the archetype or progenitor of the non-schlocky successful Right Wing Artist he keeps talking about. Maybe Walt has already written about this and I missed it.
C. M. Kornbluth's short stories (collected in "His Share of Glory.") Many are relevant to this age of idiocracy. (Idiocracy was inspired by Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons.")
Jack Vance's "The Demon Princes." It's a conservative (vitalist?) utopian series disguised as a quirky revenge story. It's a future where the Singularity didn't happen -- because shadowy forces made sure to keep humans human.
Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry stories. Think James Bond defending a rotting Terran Empire. (But keep in mind that the earliest Flandry stories predate the earliest Bond stories.) Any attempt to make right wing science fiction movies should definitely mine Anderson's works.