Year's Reading

I omit some books I didn't care for. By category, fiction first:

• House Full of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday. Worth reading, though it has on it the marks of the first novel.
• Changing Places and Small World by David Lodge, the first two of a trilogy set in the academic world. Both are very funny, with much of the fun being of the boys behaving badly type, academic division. I suppose that I should go on and read Nice Work.
• A Conspiracy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I liked this novel better forty years ago.
  
• The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud.
  
• The Bell by Iris Murdoch.

Philosophy:

• Of Human Freedom and The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays (1794-1796) by F.W.J. Schelling. These helped me with the next,
• The Science of Knowledge by Fichte, a book I had attempted to read at intervals over almost forty-five years.
• Minima Moralia by Theodor Adorno.
• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls.
•  On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry. I don't know that I agree with her argument that exposure to beauty increases our tendency to work for justice; but I greatly enjoyed the book.
• Natural Goodness and Virtues and Vices by Philippa Foot.
• On Man and Citizen by Thomas Hobbes.
  
• Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzche.
• From Parmenides to Wittgenstein (essays) by G.E.M. Anscombe.

 History:

• The War of the Running Dogs by Noel Barber, a history of the Malaysian insurgency.
• The Ukrainian Night by Marci Shore, essentially an oral history of the Maidan in 2014 and the events around it.
• To Lose a Battle: France 1940 by Alistair Horne.
  
• Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization.
• The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957 by Frank Dikötter.

Miscellaneous:

• The Walls Around Us by David Owen--most amusing for anyone who has ever worked on an old house.
• The Flight to Italy by Goethe, a travel diary and selected letters from his visit to Italy in 1786 through 1788.