2019 in Books

Nonfiction

Philosophical Papers Vol. 1+2 by Richard Rorty

I found some of these works to be excellent, but most to be beyond my scope. As such his writings on politics were of greater interest than some of his other commentaries – but even those weren’t without merit. A previous familiarity with Heidegger, Foucault, and Wittgenstein was why I was interested in the volumes, but my lack of knowledge of Davidson, Quine, Kuehn, and Derrida left me cold for large swaths.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

The 2017 edition published the year before Hawking’s death, updated from the mid-90s edition, provides a wonderful, concise, clear explanation of cosmological physics up to an including the LIGO detection of gravitational waves. An excellent primer on where physics stands today.

What is Civilization? by David Wengrow

An odd little work – the main section shows, through archaeology, how closely related Mesopotamia and Egypt really were. It is bookended by a premise and a very short second sections that tries, vaguely, to connect the ideas as a refutation to Huntington’s “clash of civilizations”.

Qur’an translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali

After reading the Bible and the foundational texts of Hinduism and Buddhism, the lack of the Qur’an was beginning to be a bit conspicuous. An interesting text, both in format and, to an extent, content; benefited by Ali’s copious commentaries and explanations.

The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg

A history which I’d long been familiar with, but had not read for myself. The peasant miller Menocchio’s ideas and worldview are truly fascinating in an era (late 1500s) when such thoughts were apparently uncommon – his inquisitors are astounded. But as Ginzburg deftly teases out, their origins in oral peasant culture and now-obscure works of the time were there all along, bubbling beneath the Church’s imposed dichotomous culture of orthodox and heretic.

In Pursuit of the Unknown by Ian Stewart

In this 2012 work Stewart explains 17 equations that changed the world. He ramps up quickly – chapter three is calculus – and sometimes covers concepts too hastily for a math dummy like me. Indeed, as he goes on, he expects ever greater familiarity, and doesn’t bother to explain much at all. It can be a little frustrating, but not too significantly – really an extra ten pages probably would’ve solved the problem.

Because Internet by Gretchen McCullough

The basic premise is simple: the internet has changed language. There are a lot of interesting examples and concepts put in, and it’s well-researched. A long-ish chapter on memes was interesting – but felt a little out of place. All in all, a good read if you look at it sooner rather than later, and it becomes a historical snapshot.

Stop Me if You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes by Jim Holt

An interesting little read – essentially an essay – on how jokebooks came about, and some theories on why we laugh. Not a bad use of time, but will almost certainly leave one wanting more. Notably, I thought while reading, it seems unlikely that Asia produced no humor throughout history…

East is a Big Bird by Thomas Gladwin

For those not already familiar with Micronesian sailing techniques… The first couple of chapters are standard, interesting, anthropology of life on Puluwat – an island in Micronesia. The next two, making up the bulk of the text, are a relatively exhaustive account of canoes and sailing methods – admittedly impressive dead-reckoning done by the stars. The final chapter, however, was a real curveball: comparing abstract and concrete systems of thinking, linking them to educational heuristics, and seeing how all of this navigating inverts middle class American stereotypes of the public education system and intelligence.

Fiction

The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue

A short saga from my on-going quest to read all 80 of the (Penguin) Little Black Classics (LBCs). Honestly, one of the most interesting sagas besides the Burnt Njal – which this work references.

Come close by Sappho

Yet another Penguin LBC, this time a collection of Sappho’s poetry – which I was previously unfamiliar with. Pleasant little verses.

Woman much missed by Thomas Hardy

An LBC that contains a complete poetry collection: Poems of 1912-1913 by Hardy. A collection of touching verses on the subject of his wife, recently passed.

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

My first Greene novel. An interesting account of Catholicism, well-told and very well-paced.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

I previously had only read “A Simple Heart” which was good, but hadn’t shown me what to expect from this excellent work of poetic realism. One of the best 19^th century novels I’ve encountered.

Three Novels: Malloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett

Three narrative monologues which become increasingly combative towards the reader. Admittedly, by the time you get to the third section, you’re in a realm of fiction you’ve likely never encountered before – and perhaps never again will. Is that worth a struggle that makes Joyce seem fairly easy, and a nihilistic lack of crescendo and awe? Personally, no.

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

I’ve been wondering what to think about this work. If Dave Chapelle hadn’t created the black, blind, white supremacist sketch, would it still be funny? Or if Spike Lee hadn’t directed BlackkKlansman? Or Richard Pryor written much of Blazing Saddles? Waugh is (very) white – so the humor of an otherwise well-written comic novel can be troubling when he deals with race. Key example that I wrestled with: There’s a civil war in an African nation, between communists on one side and fascists on the other – who insist they are pure Aryans, “we’re just swarthy”. If Chris Rock writes it, it’s hilarious. But I truly don’t know if it’s okay when Waugh does it, and I’m sort of leaning towards, no.

Returning Home: Tao-Chi's Album of Landscapes and Flowers by Shi Tao (Tao-Chi)

A very short album of reflective, somewhat melancholic poems, coupled with paintings by the author.

The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell

This tetralogy is okay, but not great. This first volume, ‘Justine’, tells of a passionate love-affair, an affair which is cast into significant doubt by the second volume, ‘Balthazar’. ‘Justine’ has an interesting and novel literary device worth mentioning – the protagonist comes across a novel already written about the woman he desires, and compares his affair with her to the other author’s. ‘Balthazar’ tells of the same time period, but from a friend’s perspective, who had better information than our original narrator. The third volume shifts entirely, and was probably my favorite. ‘Mountolive’ abandons the simple love story and adds yet another layer of complexity to the time period, this time with a new, omniscient, narrator. It was actually a pity in the final installment, ‘Clea’ to have to return to the original narrator – and distinct from the other novels, move forward in time. Indeed, ‘Clea’ seemed to me the weakest of the set.

The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer

Banned in South Africa for its anti-Apartheid themes, Gordimer places us in the mind of a conservative, bigoted, embodiment of white male privilege. The journey is not pleasant, but then, of course, it’s not supposed to be. The quality of writing, though, makes her Nobel Prize award understandable.

“Sully Prudhomme” from The Library of the World’s Best Literature by Sully Prudhomme

Prudhomme doesn’t have any definitive English translations of his collections on the market – not even old pieces you can try to dig up from his time. His poems can be found in the authorized Nobel Library, but also in this work, from 1917 (found on Bartleby, online), or amateur translation scattered online. The poems in this collection are sentimental, romantic, and fairly forgettable. Solely of interest to Nobel Laureate collectors.

Jean Christophe by Romain Rolland

This massive novel might have been a world classic – it blends together the naturalistic style and the psychological style which were the dominant forms of the late 19^th century. Such a synthesis would have been noteworthy, except, that the work was finished in 1912, and such a combination was quickly relegated to a minor footnote in literary development, as Modernism exploded upon the scene. Further, the work is weighed down by the difficulties of those years – a primitive 1800s nationalism, antisemitism, long-winded passages about “the will”, etc. For two years of dedicated study I went through this story, and can’t really recommend it. It has rightly been forgotten in an apt and ironical fashion: Jean Christophe is, as happens, the story of a composer whose music, initially praised, ends up being surpassed and forgotten.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

There are a few novelties in this work. But the characters I found very disagreeable, and the premise extraordinarily dull. If you liked Swift’s “Tale of a Tub” and “Gargantua and Pantagruel” (all of it), then you’d likely enjoy this work.

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

This was my first experience with Clarke, and, excepting some almost bizarre holdovers from the 1950s, the work was very good. It was an enjoyable premise, well-executed. A nice piece of sci-fi to cleanse the palette, but also to generate significant rumination.

Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

Probably the bleakest, most broken set of characters to inhabit the American canon. A short, brutal, tale of wretches who go so far into degradation as to pass by tragedy.

R.U.R. by Karel Capek

An interesting little sci fi play, certainly worth an hour of most readers' time. Beyond just the origin of the term ‘robot’, the work serves as an interesting cautionary tale of capitalism.

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Some years ago I read ‘Haroun and the Sea of Stories’ which I found pleasant but forgettable. Not so this work, which is, I think rightfully, a masterful blending of modernism and magical realism, and quite possibly an essential literary text of the 20^th century.

Hunger by Knut Hamsun

A critical Modernist text, from 1890, the work relays the thoughts of a Raskolnikov-type, but one whom you can actually relate to and enjoy his thoughts – as he faces the rack and ruin of starvation.

August: Osage County by Tracy Letts

A sort of ‘Long Days Journey’ meets ‘Who’s Afraid’, set in Oklahoma in 2007. Darkly comic, ultimately, of course, tragic, and not a bad option for something to read.

Lais of Marie de France

Intriguing little stories of courtly love, composed in the mid-1100s. A thoroughly pleasant collection, whose main story, Eliduc, I’d been familiarized with in high school.

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

I am fond of Gogol’s two short stories, “The Overcoat” and especially “The Nose”. The first volume is a very good work. The fragments of the second, unpolished, incomplete, and adding little of value, I think can and should be avoided – to only consider the work by the first, completed segment.

Youth and Typhoon by Joseph Conrad

Two unremarkable short novellas about life at sea that came with my copy of Heart of Darkness, but which I'd never gotten around to reading. One or two passages of good language, offset by more than typically racist depictions (especially Typhoon).

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

An enjoyable little novel of young bourgeois romance told with comic irony, when such a tone had not yet staled. Not as powerful as ‘A Passage to India’ which I read a few years ago, but certainly not off-putting, leaving me open to more Forster in the future.

I Hate and I Love by Catullus

Returning to the Penguin Little Black Classics I finally encountered the verse of Catullus, and his continual love / scorn for Lesbia. A fine small collection of poems.

A Death in the Family by James Agee

Parts are incredibly poetic, and moving, but the motifs are now so commonplace that I found the overall work difficult to stay interested in.

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

Another Penguin LBC, again of a poet I did not previously know. Rossetti’s poems are mostly forgettable, but there are a few choice selections.

Speaking of Siva

An LBC of four Indian poets: Basavanna, Akka Mahadevi, and Allama Prabhu from the 1100s, as well as an earlier author, Devara Dasimayya. All the poems are ontological and theological, regarding Shiva.

The Night is Darkening Round Me by Emily Bronte

A final LBC for the year, a selection of poems comprised melancholic eternities. If you’re into that sort of thing. Personally, it continued to confirm my distaste for Bronte.

Graphic Novels

Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar et al.

What if Superman landed in Ukraine instead of Kansas? While not as sophisticated as Gaiman’s ‘Miracleman: The Golden Years’, ‘Red Son’ is still very entertaining. Glad I finally read it.

Saga vol. 9 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

At this point the writing is still good, the character development is still good, but the plot is beginning to feel a bit formulaic and repetitive.

Top 5

Midnight’s Children

A Brief History of Time (2017 edition)

Madame Bovary

Childhood’s End

The Cheese and the Worms

Honorable Mentions

Dead Souls

Hunger

In Pursuit of the Unknown

August: Osage County

The Power and the Glory

A Decade of Music

I didn't much care for the music of this decade.

There was good, interesting stuff out there, but you had to dig for it. I think it was Rolling Stone who said that pop music was more ambitious than ever these past ten years: and that's true. But it was not any more innovative, and that's troubling. What made it ambitious was mingling with a few other existing forms, but the synthesis never created something boldly new.

The best example of this I can think of is Rihanna's album "Anti". Like many of the highly-praised pop albums, there's some interesting diversity on there. But the tracks that got all the attention, and radio-play, were the inane ones, like "Work". The lyrics are awful, as is the music. Of these offerings Beyonce's "Lemonade" was probably the best, and, consequently showed up near the top of many of the End of the Decade lists. From the list of albums I passed on, it may be one of the highest.

Still, my own list will have some of those mainstream offerings, of course. I mean, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" was incredible. Beyond the pop offerings, though, I went deeper in my search. Which musicians won MacArthur awards? Pulitzer prizes? The Pazz and Jop polls? Mercury prize?

Instead of ranking, I'm just going to drop a bunch of albums here that I actually liked, and then a whole bunch that I didn't. The hope then, is that you can see this final list is based off of careful consideration, and depth of research.

Albums of the Past Decade I Liked

21, Adele - This has held up well, and will be seen as the 'Tapestry' of our era.
Art Angels, Grimes - If I am going to listen to pop, I want it to be trippy, dream-pop.
Channel Orange, Frank Ocean - A nice concept album that holds up lyrically and sonically.
Damn, Kendrick Lamar - "Pimp" may be the more important album, but for now "Damn" is the magnum opus, with all the benefits that implies.
The Electric Lady, Janelle Monae - As usually the case, the interludes add nothing, but the rest of the work is so strong it's okay.
Floral Shoppe, Macintosh Plus - One of the few interesting little innovations of the decade was this vaporwave classic. But it was more curiosity than movement.
Freedom Highway, Rhiannon Giddens - Very good folk/Americana offering in an otherwise blah decade for that genre.
Golden Hour, Kacey Musgraves - Rightfully heralded, the first interesting album to come out of country music in a long while.
Hadestown, Anais Mitchell - I loved this concept album, with guest appearances from people like Bon Iver and Ani Difranco. Not to be confused  with the Broadway album, which I've not heard.
Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda - Deserves all the love it got.
Heaven and Earth, Kamasi Washington - One of the more interesting jazz albums of recent years.
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, Florence + The Machine - A great tribute to the singer-songwriters of an earlier era: Ronstadt et al.
Ism, Steelism - A fun, relaxing, album by an underappreciated duo.
...Like Clockwork, Queens of the Stone Age - A solid blast of unpretentious California rock.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West - An indisputable masterpiece.
Radio Music Society, Esperanza Spalding - A nice jazz crossover; all in all a strong LP.
The Suburbs, Arcade Fire - This increasingly feels like the last great hurrah of the preceding decade.
Universal Beings, Makaya McCraven - Another of the interesting jazz albums of the decade.
The Untouchables, Casey Hurt - I saw this show in San Francisco and liked the music, so I got the cast album. It is the most idiosyncratic of all the choices.

And now, the research:

Albums of the Past Decade I Didn't Like

1989, Taylor Swift
American Dream, LCD Soundsystem
Anti, Rihanna
The Archandroid, Janelle Monae
Be the Cowboy, Mitski
Black Messiah, D'Angleo and the Vanguard
Blackstar, David Bowie
Blond, Frank Ocean
Blunderbuss, Jack White
Body Talk, Robyn
Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Born to Die, Lana Del Rey
Coloring Book, Chance the Rapper
Ctrl, SZA
Dirty Computer, Janelle Monae
El Camino, The Black Keys
Ghosteen, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
I Like It When You Sleep..., The 1975
Idler Wheel, Fiona Apple
Invasion of Privacy, Cardi B
It's Album Time, Todd Terje
Lemonade, Beyonce
Let England Shake, PJ Harvey
Life of Pablo, Kanye West
LP1, FKA Twigs
El Mal Querer, Rosalia
Masseducation, St. Vincent
Matangi, M.I.A.
Melodrama, Lorde
Modern Vampires of the City, Vampire Weekend
A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead
Morning Phase, Beck
My Woman, Angel Olson
Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Lana Del Rey
Puberty 2, Mitski
Pure Heroine, Lorde
Random Access Memories, Daft Punk
Red, Taylor Swift
Run the Jewels 2, Run the Jewels
A Seat at the Table, Solange
Settle, Disclosure
Sound & Color, Alabama Shakes
St. Vincent, St. Vincent
Take Care, Drake
Tell Me I'm Pretty, Cage the Elephant
Teen Dream, Beach House
Thank U Next, Ariana Grande
This Is Happening, LCD Soundsystem
To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar
Wasting Light, Foo Fighters
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Billie Eilish
Whokill, The Tune-Yards
Yeezus, Kanye West

There were more, that I'm forgetting, but that says more about the albums than their being on this list. Some of these were fine, just not anything special, some were very nearly good (Solange, Nick Cave, and Eilish got really close), and some were just bad.

Cultural Literacy

I've been thinking about which stories are, increasingly, universal. Namely, which tales, mythologies, and characters should be known by a large audience.

Of course, even with my interest in Asia, with its long literary history, and other cultures' oral histories, my list skews white and Western. Thanks to Disney, though, something like Hercules has now entered the global cultural consciousness. Hollywood helped the whole world become aware of a Western set of stories.

This doesn't include child-specific cultural literacy (Dr. Seuss, Goodnight Moon, Looney Tunes, Mickey Mouse, Peanuts, etc.)

That said, here are the stories I think most people do/should be aware of:

MYTHOLOGIES

Buddhism
Buddha's life

Celts
Arthur

Chinese
Monkey - Journey to the West
Daoism
Zodiac

Greeks
Iliad and spin-offs (Oresteia, Aeneid, Odyssey)
Pantheon and Hercules
Theban cycle
Zodiac

Hinduism
Basic Pantheon (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Lakshmi, Ganesh)
Baghavad Gita
Ramayana

Judeo-Christian
Genesis (Creation, Eden and Cain and Abel, Noah, Tower of Babel, Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael, Sodom and Gomorrah)
Exodus (Moses and the Exodus)
Jonah
Job
New Testament (Jesus' life and death, Revelations)

Norse
Pantheon
Ragnarok

West Africa
Mwindo

STORIES AND FOLKTALES

China
Outlaws of the Marsh
Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Europe
Aesop and La Fontaine (Grasshopper and the Ants, Fox and the Grapes, Tortoise and the Hare, Country Mouse and Town Mouse, Lion and the Mouse, Boy who cried Wolf)
Anderson (Little Mermaid, Emperor's New Clothes, Princess and the Pea, Ugly Duckling)
Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
Barrie (Peter Pan)
Brothers Grimm (Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Rumplestiltskin, Snow White)
Burroughs (Tarzan)
Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)
Cervantes (Don Quixote)
Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
Defoe (Robinson Crusoe)
Dickens (Christmas Carol)
Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)
Goethe (Faust)
Kafka (Metamorphosis)
Orwell (1984, Animal Farm)
Perrault (Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty)
Robin Hood
Rowling (Harry Potter)
Santa Claus
Shakespeare (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Shelly (Frankenstein)
Stevenson (Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
Stoker (Dracula)
Swift (Gulliver's Travels)
Tolkien (Hobbit, Lord of the Rings)
Wagner's Ring Cycle/Neibelunglied
Wells (Time Machine, War of the Worlds)

India
Kalidasa (Recognition of Shakuntala)

Japan
Zatoichi

Middle Eastern
"1001 Arabian Nights"

United States
Batman
Baum (Wizard of Oz)
"Fakelore" (John Henry, Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed)
Fitzgerald (Great Gatsby)
Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Melville (Moby Dick)
Spider-man
Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men)
Superman
Twain (Huckleberry Finn)

Cinema and Television
Avengers
Back to the Future
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
Doctor Who
The Godfather
Indiana Jones
James Bond
Jaws
Jurassic Park
King Kong
Metropolis
Muppets
Princess Bride
Psycho
Simpsons
Stark Trek
Star Wars
Terminator
The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin)
2001: A Space Odyssey

What do you think? What am I missing?

Nobel Prize for Literature Updated

The winners for 2018 and 2019

I wanted to take a moment and review which Nobel-awarded authors I’d read, and what I'd read by them. Also, I promised I’d update this in my last post, since the original was put online all the way back in 2012, when I’d read only 20% of the Nobel laureates… That has changed.

So, as of today's announcement, I have read works by:

Sully Prudhomme (1901). I’ve read his ‘Selected Poems’.

Theodor Mommsen (1902). I’ve read ‘A History of Rome Under the Emperors’.

Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1903).  I’ve read ‘Poems and Songs’.

Frederic Mistral (1904). I’ve read ‘Mireio’.

Jose Echegaray (1904). I’ve read ‘The Great Galeoto’.

Henry Sienkiewicz (1905). I’ve read ‘Quo Vadis’.

Giosue Carducci (1906). I’ve read ‘Barbarian Odes’.

Rudyard Kipling (1907). I’ve read ‘Just-So Stories,’ ‘Kim,’ and selected poetry.

Rudolph Eucken (1908). I’ve read his ‘Collected Essays’.

Selma Lagerlof (1909). I’ve read ‘The Wonderful Adventures of Nils’.

Paul Von Heyse (1910). I’ve read ‘Barbarossa and Other Tales’.

Maurice Maeterlinck (1911). I’ve read ‘The Blue Bird’.

Gerhart Hauptman (1912). I’ve read ‘Before Daybreak’, ‘The Weavers’ and ‘The Beaver Coat’.

Rabindranath Tagore (1913). I’ve read his essays ‘Nationalism’ and his poetry collection ‘Gitanjali’.

Romain Rolland (1915). I’ve read ‘Jean-Christophe’.

Verner von Heidenstam (1916). I’ve read ‘The Charles Men’.

Karl Gjellerup (1917). I’ve read ‘The Pilgrim Kamanita’.

Carl Spitteler (1919). I’ve read his ‘Selected Poems’.

Knut Hamsun (1920). I’ve read ‘Hunger’ and intend to read ‘Growth of the Soil’.

Anatole France (1921). I’ve read ‘The Gods Will Have Blood’.

Jacinto Benavente (1922). I’ve read ‘The Bonds of Interest’.

William Butler Yeats (1923). I’ve read ‘The Tower’.

Wladyslaw Reymont (1924). I’ve read ‘The Peasants: Autumn’.

George Bernard Shaw (1925). I’ve read ‘Pygmalion’, ‘St. Joan’ and ‘Major Barbara’.

Grazia Deledda (1926). I’ve read ‘Reeds in the Wind’.

Henri Bergson (1927). I’ve read ‘Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic’.

Sinclair Lewis (1930). I’ve read ‘Main Street’.

Erik Karlfeldt (1931). I’ve read ‘Arcadia Borealis’.

Ivan Bunin (1933). I’ve read ‘The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories’.

Luigi Pirandello (1934) I’ve read ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’.

Eugene O’Neil (1936). I’ve read ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’.

Roger Martin du Gard (1937). I’ve read ‘The Thibaults’.

Frans Sillanpaa (1939). I’ve read ‘People in the Summer Night’.

Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1944). I’ve read ‘The Fall of the King’.

Gabriela Mistral (1945). I’ve read ‘Madwomen’.

Herman Hesse (1946). I’ve read ‘Siddhartha’.

Andre Gide (1947). I’ve read ‘The Immoralist’.

T.S. Eliot (1948). I’ve read ‘Prufrock and Other Observations’, ‘Ash Wednesday’, ‘The Waste Land’ and ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’.

William Faulkner (1949). I’ve read ‘The Sound and the Fury’, ‘As I lay Dying’, ‘Light in August’ and ‘Go Down Moses’ and the short story ‘A Rose for Emily’.

Bertrand Russell (1950). I’ve read ‘A History of Western Philosophy’ and the essay ‘Why I Am Not a Christian’. I intend to read ‘The Philosophy of Leibniz’.

Par Lagerkvist (1951). I’ve read ‘Barabbas’.

Winston Churchill (1953). I’ve read his speeches and intend to read ‘The Second World War’.

Ernest Hemingway (1954). I’ve read ‘The Old Man and the Sea,’ ‘The Sun Also Rises’ and the short story ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ and intend to read ‘A Farewell to Arms’.

Halldor Laxness (1955). I’ve read ‘Independent People’.

Juan Ramon Jimenez (1956). I’ve read ‘Platero and I’.

Albert Camus (1957). I’ve read ‘The Stranger’, ‘The Fall’ and ‘The Plague’, and the essay collections ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ and ‘The Rebel’.

Boris Pasternak (1958). I’ve read ‘My Sister, Life’.

Salvatore Quasimodo (1959). I’ve read ‘The Incomparable Earth’.

Saint-John Perse (1960). I’ve read his ‘Eloges’.

Ivo Andric (1961). I’ve read ‘The Bridge on the Drina’.

John Steinbeck (1962). I’ve read ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and ‘Of Mice and Men’.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1964). I’ve read ‘Being and Nothingness’, ‘Nausea’, the plays ‘No Exit’, ‘The Flies’ ‘Dirty Hands’ and ‘The Respectful Prostitute’, the short story ‘The Wall’, and the essays ‘Portrait of an Anti-Semite’, ‘Self-Deception’, ‘Marxism and Existentialism’ and ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’.

Giorgos Seferis (1963). I’ve read his ‘Logbook II’.

Nelly Sachs (1966). I’ve read ‘O the Chimneys’.

Miguel Asturias (1967). I’ve read ‘El Senor Presidente’.

Kawabata Yasunari (1968). I’ve read ‘The Sound of the Mountain’.

Samuel Beckett (1969). I’ve read ‘Waiting for Godot’ and the trilogy ‘Molloy’, ‘Malone Dies’ and ‘The Unnamable’.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1970). I’ve read ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’.

Pablo Neruda (1971). I’ve read ‘Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair’ and ‘The Yellow Heart’.

Harry Martinson (1974). I’ve read ‘Chickweed Wintergreen’.

Eyvind Johnson (1974). I’ve read ‘The Days of His Grace’.

Eugenio Montale (1975). I’ve read ‘Cuttlefish Bones’ and ‘The Occasions’.

Saul Bellow (1976). I’ve read ‘The Adventures of Augie March’ and intend to read ‘Herzog’ and ‘Henderson the Rain King’.

Vicente Aleixandre (1977). I’ve read ‘A Longing for the Light’.

Odysseas Elytis (1979). I’ve read ‘The Axion Esti’.

Czeslaw Milosz (1980). I’ve read his ‘Selected Poems’.

Elias Canetti (1981). I’ve read ‘Crowds and Power’.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1982). I’ve read ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, the short story ‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings’ and the essay ‘Words Are in a Hurry, Get Out of the Way’.

William Golding (1983). I’ve read ‘Lord of the Flies’.

Jaroslav Seifert (1984). I’ve read his ‘Selected Poems’.

Claude Simon (1985). I’ve read ‘The Georgics’.

Wole Soyinka (1986). I’ve read ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’.

Joseph Brodsky (1987). I’ve read ‘To Urania’.

Naguib Mahfouz (1988). I’ve read ‘Children of Gebelawi’.

Camilo Jose Cela (1989). I’ve read ‘The Family of Pascal Duarte’.

Octavio Paz (1990). I’ve read ‘Eagle or Sun?’ and ‘A Tale of Two Gardens’.

Nadine Gordimer (1991). I’ve read ‘The Conservationist’.

Derek Walcott (1992). I’ve read ‘Omeros’.

Toni Morrison (1993). I’ve read ‘Beloved’ and intend to read ‘Song of Solomon’.

Kenzaburo Oe (1994). I’ve read ‘Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness’.

Seamus Heaney (1995). I’ve read ‘North’.

Wislawa Szymborska (1996). I’ve read ‘View with a Grain of Sand’.

Dario Fo (1997). I’ve read ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’.

Gao Xingjian (2000). I’ve read ‘Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather’.

V.S. Naipaul (2001). I’ve read ‘A Bend in the River’ and intend to read ‘A House for Mr. Biswas’.

Imre Kertesz (2002). I’ve read ‘Kaddish for an Unborn Child’.

J.M. Coetzee (2003). I’ve read ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’.

Elfriede Jelinek (2004). I’ve read ‘The Piano Teacher’.

Harold Pinter (2005). I’ve read ‘Betrayal’.

Tomas Transtromer (2011). I’ve read ‘The Great Enigma’.

Mo Yan (2012). I’ve read ‘Life and Death are Wearing Me Out’.

Alice Munro (2013). I’ve read ‘Dear Life’.

Patrick Modiano (2014). I’ve read ‘Missing Person’.

Svetlana Alexievich (2015). I’ve read ‘Voices from Chernobyl’.

Bob Dylan (2016). I’ve…read? ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’, ‘Bringing It All Back Home’, ‘Blonde on Blonde’, ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, ‘Blood on the Tracks’, ‘Time Out of Mind’, ‘Modern Times’, ‘Love and Theft’, ‘Desire’, ‘The Basement Tapes’, ‘John Wesley Harding’, and ‘Nashville Skyline’.

Kazuo Ishiguro (2017). I’ve read ‘Never Let Me Go’.

So I’m familiar with 96 of 117, or 82%. I’d like to read them all (italics for the works I own):

Henrik Pontoppidan (1917). I am currently reading ‘Lucky Per’.

Sigrid Undset (1928). I want to read ‘Kristin Lavransdatter’.

Thomas Mann (1929). I want to read ‘Buddenbrooks’ and ‘The Magic Mountain’.

John Galsworthy (1932). I want to read ‘The Forsyte Saga’.

Pearl S. Buck (1938). I want to read ‘The Good Earth’.

Francois Mauriac (1952). I want to read ‘The Desert of Love’.

Mikhail Sholokhov (1965). I want to read ‘And Quiet Flows the Don’.

Shmuel Agnon (1966). I want to read ‘To This Day’.

Heinrich Boll (1972). I want to read ‘Billiards at Half-Past Nine’.

Patrick White (1973). I want to read ‘Voss’.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978). I want to read ‘A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories’.

Jose Saramago (1998). I want to read ‘Blindness’.

Gunter Grass (1999). I want to read ‘The Tin Drum’.

Orhan Pamuk (2006). I want to read ‘My Name is Red’.

Doris Lessing (2007). I want to read ‘The Golden Notebook’.

J.M.G. Le Clezio (2008). I want to read ‘The Interrogation’.

Herta Muller (2009). I want to read ‘The Hunger Angel’.

Mario Vargas Llosa (2010). I want to read ‘The War of the End of the World’.

Maryse Conde** (2018). I want to read ‘Segu’. ** Winner of the “New Academy Prize” when the Nobel Committee dropped the ball. So I count her.

Olga Tokarczuk (2018). I want to read ‘Flights’.

Peter Handke (2019). I want to read ‘Short Letter, Long Farewell’.

Nobel Literature Rankings

The first work by a Nobel Laureate I read was in 3rd grade: Rudyard Kipling’s Just-So Stories. The next were, from grade school, in 7th grade, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and in 8th grade Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha. Afterwards, in Freshman year Lit, I read short stories by Hemingway, Marquez, and Faulkner. Sophomore year brought me Par Lagerkvist, George Bernard Shaw, and Albert Camus, and a new interest in classic literature. By the end of high school the list included Sartre and Solzhenitsyn. But In college I was so busy with the "Western Canon" I only encountered (for school) one new Nobel voice: Bertrand Russell. In my own time, though, I read a couple more, never assigned to me: Steinbeck, O’Neill, and Eliot. I also listened to Bob Dylan.

Upon leaving grad school, however, my familiarity with the Laureates was relatively minor, if still better than most: I’d read 16 authors (including Dylan).

That number is now 95. When the 2019 winners are announced, I will post my updated list of read works.

It is an important year for the Nobel Prize for Literature. After going off the rails in 2018 they are returning with two new laureates, for both the past and current years. Since I began a dedicated course of reading the winners, around 2011 or 2012, I’ve been able to categorize them into the following, remarkably subjective, groups:

No Memory,
Vague Memory,
Average,
Good, and
Amazing

So let’s see how they fare:

No Memory

Aleixandre
Benavente
Bergson
Bjornson
Brodsky
Carducci
Echegaray
Eucken
Jensen
E. Johnson
Karlfeldt
Milosz
Perse
Prudhomme
Quasimodo
Reymont
Seferis
Seifert
Syzmborska
Von Heidenstam
Von Heyse

You are easily forgiven if you don’t know these obscure European authors (many poets, many Scandinavian). This group is heavy on the early winners of the prize, when the award was given for ‘idealism’ rather than innovation or influence. As such - not being influential or innovative - these authors are largely forgotten. I am fortunate, in this regard, to speak English – as that's one of the few languages that's bothered to translate them, and they are otherwise virtually unknown outside their native language. They represent a barrier, and an unpleasant one, to those who would follow me on my journey to read them all: both as a time-sink, and as a linguistic wall. The well-educated woman whose native language is Urdu, say, would likely find it impossible to complete the Nobel list – due to these largely forgotten, and totally forgettable, voices.

Vague Memory

Bunin
Cela
Deledda
Elytis
Gide
Gjellerup
Hauptmann
Heaney
Martinson
F. Mistral
G. Mistral
Mommsen
Montale
Naipaul
Sachs
Sienkewicz
Simon
Spitteler
Tagore

If pressed, I could tell you a bit about these authors. Carl Spitteler, for example, wrote pastoral poems about belfries. Hauptmann wrote German plays about the oppressed proletariat. Mommsen wrote Roman history, and Sachs about the Holocaust. Some of these authors were even enjoyable reads: Cela’s novel and Montale’s poetry, for example, I found to be worthwhile when I read them. But all the same, they weren’t strong enough to provide clear memories – all that’s left are fragments, images, themes, and scenes. You could pick over these, if you want, but what you'll find is a very mixed bag.

Average

Andric
Bellow
Canetti
Coetzee
France
Fo
Gordimer
Hesse
Jelinek
Jimenez
Kenzaburo
Kipling
Lagerlof
Lewis
Maeterlinck
Martin Du Gard
Mo
O’Neill
Pirandello
Rolland
Steinbeck
Yasunari
Yeats

Two types of work fall in this middle set. The first: Totally fine. Probably not a bad use of your reading time. The second: Maybe not so good, but still, for whatever reason, more memorable than the preceding works. Average novels, poems, and plays: Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, William Butler Yeats’ The Tower. Some enjoyable (Jimenez’ Platero Y Yo), some not (Rolland’s Jean Christophe) – but not a bad set to start with, if, for some inscrutable reason, you are interested in taking on this burden for yourself, or if you’re just looking for some pretty good books to read to perhaps diversify your literary palette.

Good

Asturias
Churchill
Dylan
Faulkner
Gao
Golding
Hemingway
Ishiguro
Kertesz
Lagerkvist
Laxness
Modiano
Neruda
Pinter
Russell
Shaw
Sillanpaa
Transtromer
Walcott

A really fun category, there are lots of gems here. I think the most enjoyable part of this selection is the mix of well-known and unknown. Few English readers, I suspect, have encountered the Finnish Frans Sillanpaa, but his People in the Summer Night is a tremendous read. So too the French author Patrick Modiano’s novel Missing Person, or Gao Xingjian’s short story collection Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather. And if there are well-known names on here you’ve not tackled yet, this is my endorsement to finally take a crack at the poems of Pablo Neruda, or the novels of William Faulkner. These authors made great strides not likely to be soon forgotten.

Amazing

Alexievich
Beckett
Camus
Eliot
Mahfouz
Marquez
Morrison
Pasternak
Paz
Sartre
Solzhenitsyn
Soyinka

These writers have produced at least one work that is, to my mind, essential – canon. Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl. Camus’ The Plague. Mahfouz’ Children of Gebelawi. Morrison’s Beloved. And so on. These are the works likely to stand the test of time, the high-water marks of our global literary output in the past century. If you want to know which were the specific works I read that gave me this feeling, you can see them in my next post, where I will detail my Nobel reading so far, in this upcoming, inordinately suspenseful, Nobel Literature Prize years.

"Yet Now There Are Only Ten"

So there was a Democratic debate the other night. And, before I go any further, just note that I am a Democrat, and will be happy if any of these candidates beats Donald Trump.

However. Now that we're down to ten front-runners, something in my mind said, "Hey. You just watched the Dark Crystal series on Netflix and are clearly a disturbed person. Why not match the candidates to the Skeksis?"

So I did. You're welcome.

The choices are based on the ten Skeksis of the movie, and assigned based on last night's debate. Here's a handy visual guide for remembering them:

And of course, the nightmare-fuel:

Let's start there:

The Emperor. Bernie Sanders.

With his death-rattle voice it was ever more clear that Sanders is the mighty fallen. Actually, I am hoping that his decrepitude put the fear in his supporters the same way the death of the Emperor scared me as a child. Since he announced I've been worried about giving him any power.

The Chamberlain. Joe Biden.

"Pleeeeeeease: make peace?" Talking about Ohio and trying to get everyone to get along, if Biden gets into the White House he may be as ineffectual as Obama was in squandering a super majority. Half-measures, like his healthcare or his defense of working with segregationists, remind one of the wheedling, unpleasant, Chamberlain.

The General. Kamala Harris.

Harris hasn't found her voice yet, which is bothering folks, it seems. In the first debate she was personal, the second on the offensive, and the third, this past week, trying to lighten up and tell jokes. These shifts are reminiscent of the General, who can go from ecstatic to wrathful in moments. But serious business.

The Scientist. Elizabeth Warren

The most clever of the Skeksis, the one who actually gets things done, the one who can summon strength from the Crystal but who the others, unaccountably, consider weak. She has the same aspect of frustration with her plans that the Scientist shares, in having to get results for a bunch of undeserving...

The Ritual Master. Julian Castro.

Someone said that Castro was built in a lab to be a Vice President. The Ritual Master has a certain gravitas and presence, and he stands out among the Skeksis, as Castro stands out on stage, but the power, like the Vice Presidency, is more shadow and illusion than real.

The Gourmand. Cory Booker.

Since Booker was the only candidate who got a question about food (his vegan lifestyle) during the debate, it seems appropriate that he be the Gourmand - even if he is the physical antithesis of the corpulent Skeksis.

The Scroll Keeper. Beto O'Rourke.

O'Rourke got some needed coverage for his campaign, due to the deference of his rivals after the response to the El Paso shooting. The Scroll Keeper fits, then, because he doesn't do a lot, or really have much of a purpose, but he stands out in the field of Skeksis all the same. Last night Beto stood out, although I doubt his campaign has much of a future.

The Ornamentalist. Pete Buttigieg.

The most youthful-looking of the Skeksis, and not otherwise particularly memorable. I don't think the Ornamentalist has hardly any lines in the movie, nor did Buttigieg.

The Treasurer. Andrew Yang.

From some old source material: "the Treasurer counted gifts, not time." He is also described as having difficulty communicating, which certainly fits Yang. I doubt he has much time left.

The Slave Master. Amy Klobuchar.

I do not like Klobuchar, and so she fits, for me, the description of the least well-known of the Skeksis, the Slave Master, who "remains evilly silent most of the time, except for occasional sneers and hisses." Klobuchar, of course, is not actual *evil* - none of the candidates are. She would be a far superior President to Trump. But she's my least favorite.

Ten Years Since Grad School

So I got my MAT degree in 2009. One of the best gifts I got when I graduated was from my sister: Tom Moon's 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. When I got it I'd listened to about 250 of the recordings. A decade later, and I am quite close to finishing the list. Indeed, at this point, I only have 31 left to listen to.

Why post now, and not once I'd finished the list? Well, one reason is the ten-year mark. But, also, there's a lot of context needed for these last recordings. In ten years I lived in Boston, Berkeley, Connecticut, Monterey, Pacifica, Reno, Singapore, and Vallejo. In each of these places I scoured their libraries. When I moved, I always got a library card and raided their CDs. I even scoured the music resources of the UC Berkeley Library, for some of the rather rare tracks. For years I've been going on YouTube, periodically checking as increasingly rare albums were eventually uploaded. 31 recordings, despite all that, have eluded me.

These last 31 recordings are real bastards. They are not *impossible* to find - but they clearly aren't easy, either. Consider a Hungarian artist Moon recommends, whose album was released as a cassette in the 1980s. That shit is not accessible (luckily it has, quite recently, been released in a digital format).

Long story short: since the last ones will probably still take a while to eventually track down, I'm posting now.

Breakdown of my findings: I generally agree with Moon's list. I enjoyed 666 out of 969 recordings, or 68%. Which I think is rather good.

Even with 31 still missing, I still completed a few categories:

Out of 46 recordings labelled 'Blues' I liked 29, 63%.
Out of 43 recordings labelled 'Vocals' I only liked 21, 48%.
Out of 37 recordings labelled 'Folk' I liked 25, 67%.
Out of 32 recordings labelled 'Hip Hop' I liked 22, 68%.
Out of 25 recordings labelled as 'Pop' I liked 13, 52%.
Out of 17 recordings labelled 'Electronica'  I liked 15, 88%.
Out of 15 recording labelled 'Musicals' I liked 9, 60%.

So for most, a majority. I suppose this tells you more about my tastes than anything. But in all I've found it to be a very rewarding experience, and I'm still excited for polishing it off.

15 Books to Help You Understand Now

To understand our current era requires a certain breadth, as everything around us seems increasingly interconnected. But, in a world of dizzying change and ever-faster news cycles, what sources can you turn to to get your bearings? Whileit's possible to fashion a list of 100 such critical titles, and there are a *great* many classics that were left off such a condensation, I picked the following works based on having 1) actually read them, and 2) an emphasis on univerals over particulars. What I mean by the latter is, that when trapped in a whirlwind, as tempting as it is to focus on an individual piece of debris, you're better off by understanding the mechanics and laws of the overall cyclone itself. Universal books try to explain the big, background ideas, themes, and developments of our world, instead of getting bogged down in minutiae of the hot new thing of the moment. Those sorts of books are the ones I chose, (The value of teaching a man a pattern versus teaching a man to recognize patterns, to adapt the old fishy saying.)

As such, here are 15 books to help you take stock of where we are now.

Politics

These Truths - Jill Lepore, 2018

Lepore's massive work traces how America ended up in this political moment: the post-2016 American political state. She focuses on the political history, rather than cultural, military, economic, or other such - which is why I categorize it as a political work instead of a history of the United States. If you're scratching your head wondering why all this Trump, alt-right, Fox News, abortion v. guns stuff came to be, then this work will answer your questions.

Physics 

A Brief History of Time: Updated Edition - Stephen Hawking, 2017

Hawking is peculiar, since, as his book points out, he was often wrong about his biggest ideas. Really, the physicist who bested him time and again, is Kip Thorne, so why not read his book? Hawking's work remains the classic, then, because it remains the best description of our current understanding of cosmological physics. The updated version is a must, for both taking into account the discoveries of the past few years, and admitting and explaining his previous errors. His unanswered questions will be the forefront of the next quarter-century.

Economics

Capital in the 21st Century - Thomas Piketty, 2013

It's been a while since anyone tried to create an economics tome this ambitious. In a way Piketty's work may simply serve as a shot across the bow - whether it will become forgotten in a generation, or required reading, remains yet to be seen. The purpose of the work, though, is to try and explain how wealth inequality - the greatest economic challenge of our time - came to be, and what steps could be taken to reign it in.

Technology

Connections - James Burke, 2007

Technology is overwhelming in our world - easier than ever to use (give a toddler an iPad for proof) but we don't really fathom how any of it works. And the digitization and proliferation of screens in the past half century having become synonymous with 'technology' is a problem in of itself. In Connections Burke shows how technology drives change, and teases out the fascinating stories of how we got here, trapped in the bewildering array of devices and technological gizmos which keep us alive, and which we are helpless to try and understand.

Biology 

Endless Forms Most Beautiful - Sean B. Carroll, 2005

While the most exciting developments, these days, are in genetics, there is a broader background story happening in Biology. Evolutionary Biology and Developmental Biology are starting to synthesize - creating 'evo devo'. If that sounds like too much jargon already, no worries - Carroll guides you through it all easily, and explains how genetics is fitting into the singular world of both evolution and embryology.

Poetry 

The Great Enigma - Tomas Transtromer, 2004

Transtromer was a deserving Nobel Laureate for his universally-approachable works found in this collection. There's plenty to love here, whether you are wary of poetry or got your doctorate in the field. Consider one of his last poems, translated by Robin Fulton:

Snow Is Falling

The funerals keep coming

more and more of them

like the traffic signs

as we approach a city.

Thousands of people gazing

in the land of long shadows.

A bridge builds itself

slowly

straight out in space.

Childhood 

Three Seductive Ideas - Jerome Kagan, 2000

We spend about a quarter of our lives as children, and of course spend even more time trying to understand them if we become parents, or work with them as adults. Kagan's book is an excellent work on the field of developmental psychology, and the risks we have as a society of chasing the newest study, which so often gets debunked only much later. The three ideas he tackles were all phonies, but, two decades later, people are still chasing the notions of infant determinism, pleasure-seeking behaviorism, and whether temperament changes over time.

Social Science 

Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond, 1997

In case you've not taken AP World History, or been in college, since 1997, Diamond's work is the most important piece of writing in the Social Sciences in decades. From an anthropological perspective, Guns Germs and Steel looks at the role of geography in trade of ideas and agriculture, as well as the three key forces that had the Eurasians dominate the global South. Clear, well-written, and essential.

History 

Voices from Chernobyl - Svetlana Alexievich, 1997

Prior to her win in 2015, no historian had gotten the Nobel prize for writing history in decades. But that's perhaps because Alexievich's prose did something new for the field. Ironically I made this list even before HBO's hit show 'Chernobyl', based on this book, brought her to more prominent attention. Voices is one of the best works of history I've ever read, and destined to remain a classic.

Novel 

Beloved - Toni Morrison, 1987

Novels haven't changed much since the advent of the post-modern form. After the heyday of experimentation of the late 18- to mid-1900s, prose has been fairly dormant, regarding innovations. All the same, some virtuoso voices have come forth, and Nobel Laureate Morrison's most famous work, Beloved, is as powerful now as it was thirty years ago. Taking advantage of the magical realism that originated in Latin literature, the novel stakes out important territory regarding race in America.

Chemistry 

The Periodic Table - Primo Levi, 1975

Chemistry is hard to get into. It can be difficult to visualize the chemical reactions that are surrounding us and the millions of chemical combinations we experience daily. Levi's remarkable work, deemed one of the greatest pieces of nonfiction of the 20th century (the Royal Institute named it the best science book. ever.), allows us to see the world through a chemist's eyes, explaining, via memoir, fiction, and a bit of science, to understand the world chemically. If you only read three books on this list, make this one of them.

Art 

Ways of Seeing - John Berger, 1973

The now-classic work was, fittingly, based on a television series. Personally, I strongly prefer Berger's 'About Looking' (1980), but Ways of Seeing was a landmark and remains a good book to read if reading books about art makes you queasy. The focus is on how we see art, and what, of course, counts - referring to things like advertising and creating important distinctions that have value today in a world that is still mass media-driven.

Environment 

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson, 1962

Why not pick something more recent, more timely? Something that specifically deals with our existential threat of climate change? Because, at its heart, humanity's interaction with the environment was fundamentally altered with this book. DDT may no longer be a scourge, but most of the book doesn't deal with those specifics, instead fleshing out a view of the environment that we take for granted today - including our role in affecting it. 

Drama 

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett, 1953

Interesting, isn't it, how drama hasn't shifted all that significantly since Godot's debut over 65 years ago. There have been dramatic masterpieces since then, of course (Angels in America by Tony Kushner comes to mind). But for a remarkable on-the-page experience, Godot continues to deliver as the greatest dramatic work since Modernism began defying both prose and theatrical conventions nearly a century ago. 

Philosophy 

The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, 1949

Most dated on the list, but it remains one of the most important. De Beauvoir's partner, Jean-Paul Sartre, wrote one of the defining tomes of existentialism, Being and Nothingness. And that book's still eminently readable and important - but in strict philosophical terms, increasingly outdated. Indeed, for current philosophical trends, angling towards language, Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations should, by rights, be the obvious choice for this list. But de Beauvoir's landmark second-wave feminist text has more to offer, I think, than either of those volumes, and is far more prescient in achieving the goal of understanding now: all the more surprising, perhaps, when regarding the role of women in our society today compared to our perceptions of their lives in the 1940s. Lengthy, and at times challenging, admittedly parts haven't aged super well, but very rewarding for the dedicated reader.