The Librarian of Celaeno’s Top 20 Book Recommendations, Part 1
An Annotated Bibliography: Nonfiction
Ever since I began this Stack, a number of people have flattered me by asking for me for advice regarding books. Most inquiries have related to specific subject matter apropos a note or essay I’d written or commented on at some point. But lately I’ve had several people ask for general recommendations- what books to read for the sake of reading. Having given the matter some thought, I’ve come up with the following list.
There are a few things I should note. One, this is a list of books that have had a profound influence on me personally and which I believe any fair-minded critic will regard as both well-written and edifying. It is, though, a very general list. I hope to follow this one with some more specific recommendations along more well-defined lines- the best Classics books, the best modern books, etc. Of course, I’m not trying to turn into Buzzfeed here, so I’m not going to go the route of sola listicles. But if people are interested I can offer further curated selections in the future. Two, I have tried to make this a secular list, not because religious books are not important to me (they very much are) but because if I admitted one then having any secular books on the list would give the implication that I regarded them as more important than other holy works. I hope to produce a reading list of Patristic literature all its own. Third, I have tried to list books that I feel might be more obscure to the general reader. You don’t need me to tell you the Iliad is important or that Shakespeare is worth reading. You will probably recognize at least a few of these, but hopefully not too many. I have also tried to avoid talking about works I’ve mentioned before, but some are just too important to not bring up again.
The twenty books I’ve chosen are split evenly between nonfiction and fiction. This first list consists of the former; the next will be wholly the latter. Here they are, in chronological order of publication:
Nonfiction
Cato Maior De Senectute (Cato the Elder On Old Age), by Marcus Tullius Cicero, ca. 44 BC.
This is a wonderful short meditation on how to be old, written by a man of 63 who would not see the end of 64. Divorced and grieving the death of his daughter, Cicero pours out his thoughts in an imaginary dialogue between his late friend Cato the Elder and two younger men, Scipio Aemilianus and Gaius Laelius Sapiens. What appears at first to be a reflection on age is really a guide to being young, as Cato explains that old age is very pleasant to a man who has lived a virtuous and disciplined life, and that the prospects of poverty and physical infirmity can be mitigated by the cultivation of discipline and friendship. I first read this book in my 20s, and the lessons very much struck home for me. I’ve never been of the opinion that a good youth is full of partying and selfishness, and the worst thing about our society is that it teaches men and women that those years never have to end, endlessly rationalizing their failure to accept the responsibilities proper to their age. If ever there was a single tome that could serve as a brief counter to our whole age, this is it.
Cicero looks a bit like Jeffry Tambor, but minus the creepy #MeToo vibe.
Get it here, along with some other gems. The Latin original is online here.
Humanist Educational Treatises, by Craig Kallendorf (trans.), circa 1402-1459 AD.
The I Tatti Library is the way, publishers- physically beautiful tomes featuring well-wrought translations with the original language on the facing pages, a kind of updated and slightly upscale-looking version of the wonderful Loeb series. I have several other volumes from this press but my favorite by far is this collection of four pedagogical essays: “The Character and Studies Befitting a Free-Born Youth,” by Pier Paolo Vergerio; “The Study of Literature,” by Leonardo Bruni; “The Education of Boys,” by Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II); and “A Program of Teaching and Learning,” by Battista Guarino. The early 15th century saw the birth of the Renaissance and no small amount of controversy about how to incorporate pagan wisdom into Christian society. These treatises, each in their own way (Bruni’s work deals with the education of women) draw upon both the cultural inheritance of the Classical Age and a Christian anthropology to create a program of study that is holistic, comprehensive, and above all formative, inculcating a rootedness and reverence for both God and ancestors in marked antipathy to the progressive nostrums of our own age. It is also a useful antidote to those who imagine a “classical” education is something that hearkens back to the 1950s and consists of performative pleated skirt LARPing and writing liberal twaddle- but in cursive!
Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835
This is a more famous work that doesn’t require much of an introduction. I include it because of the frequent recourse I have to this two-volume set of essays; no 19th century author was so prescient in his insights as de Tocqueville (another mark in favor of that Classical education) and even though his work focuses on America it really explores an emergent human type, one which would become dominant as the US became a global power. My students, who do not take to older works easily, are often fascinated by the concepts of tyranny of the majority and soft despotism. Know this book to know your world.
Alexis de Tocqueville noted that the study of the Classics was essential as a counterbalance to democratic tendencies.
Get it here, or read it online.
Miracles, by C. S. Lewis, 1960 edition.
I can unreservedly recommend the entire oeuvre of Lewis, and indeed I’ve selected two books for inclusion here. While the title would seem to make this a religious book, and it can be taken that way, it is fundamentally a work of philosophy, wherein Lewis makes famous the Argument from Reason, the notion that rational thought would be impossible in a necessarily deterministic materialist universe. It’s a more mature and substantial book than Mere Christianity and if you’re unfamiliar with philosophical argumentation it’s a great place to begin, as Lewis, master teacher that he is, is able to explain complex things in terms that lose nothing in his laymen’s prose. The 1960 edition reflects refinements in his arguments after interactions with the Thomist philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe.
The Discarded Image, by C. S. Lewis, 1964
This is the final book Lewis wrote before his death, published posthumously. Much as the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit overshadowed the substantial scholarly career of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’ success as a popular author and Christian apologist have meant that his work as a student and teacher of Medieval and Renaissance literature have been somewhat neglected. While not as prolifically academically published as Tolkien, Lewis was probably the most well-read man of his generation and belonged to the last cohort of academics who could appreciate literature as something other than a practice-field for obtuse theory. The book is a guide to his field written by an absolute master, presenting a ‘Medieval Synthesis’- a coherent worldview on the part of Medieval and Renaissance authors (and people generally) deriving from a centuries-long cultural fusion between the inheritance of the Classical world and Christian revelation; Lewis knows all those works as well. I’ve heard professors call it dated, but as far as I’m concerned, if you want to read old books, this is the best introduction you can get.
If this photo of C. S. Lewis absolutely ripping a heater doesn’t get me 10,000 views, something is wrong with this website.
The Monks of War, by Desmond Seward, 1972 (updated in 1996 and 2021)
This book is a perfect example of the sort of history I aim to write- erudite, engaging, and poignant, though I try to include a bit more humor. Seward is in turn the sort of historian I look to as a model; his command of language is profound, his authorial voice magisterial, and his research informs a gripping story. He is not an academic and it shows in all the good ways. I could have listed any of his other wonderful books- Henry V as Warlord, The Hundred Years War, Prince of the Renaissance- he even wrote a great biography of Metternich. But I chose his volume on the monastic military orders because it’s a personal favorite of mine; I drew on it when I wrote my essay about the Siege of Malta last year.
Comparative Mythology, by Jaan Puhvel, 1989
Puhvel is the foremost scholar in the tradition of Georges Dumezil active today, though he is very elderly. His most accessible work happens to be a brilliant short volume that neatly summarizes the theories of Dumezil, supplemented by his own research. Though the trifunctional hypothesis and Dumezil’s comparative method are not in vogue with scholars at the moment, for my part I regard their body of work as essential to understanding Indo-European lore and myth more generally. In an area of study plagued by pseudoscholarship and benighted nonsense nothing is more important that solid research by people who’ve put in the work.
A Short History of Byzantium, by John Julius Norwich, 1998.
If you can, by all means purchase the full three-volume history by the always-excellent Norwich, sadly recently passed away. I didn’t because when they were first published I was in high school and lacked the funds. I could, however, afford the handsome hardcover abridged edition that came out the year after I graduated. I can’t say exactly what it was that drew me to the subject; I’d read little about the Eastern Roman Empire to that point. Perhaps its exoticness was attractive. But I fell in love. I went on to specialize in Late Antiquity in graduate school, to study Ancient and Koine Greek, and most importantly, to move on to Orthodoxy. It taught me that a well-written history can change lives.
Above, Viscount Norwich. True story: I was reading an article in Takimag where Taki Theodorocopolous was describing recent parties he’d attended with Norwich and Paul Johnson, another favorite author of mine. I wrote him an email describing how I liked all three of them as writers and he graciously responded with more details. Class act.
From Dawn to Decadence, by Jacques Barzun, 2000.
Jacques Barzun was born in France in 1907, attended college at Columbia, and worked there as a history professor and administrator until his retirement in 1975. Along the way he became America’s most prolific cultural historian and wrote dozens of books and articles. But leaving his academic post just seems to have given him more energy, and it was not until the year 2000, at the astonishing age of 93, that he wrote his 800 page magnum opus. Yes, at an age when most people have been dead for twenty years he wrote more history than most people have willingly read in their lifetimes. It’s a masterpiece, bringing to bear all the tremendous erudition of a lifetime of scholarship with a touch light enough for even the most casual reader. I assign it as a textbook for my European History II college classes and the kids generally enjoy it. Barzun, for his part, kept working right up until he passed away in 2012 at 105.
Athenaze, 2nd Edition, by Maurice Balme and Gilbert Lawall, 2003
There’s nothing wrong with the 3rd edition, but this version is special to me as it was my first introduction to the Ancient Greek. I can remember seeing it for sale at Borders for months before I took the plunge and bought it; it wasn’t cheap and it certainly wasn’t an easy read. I read it sitting on a barstool at the restaurant where I worked, racking my brain trying to figure out if I was even making progress. My public school education failed me. The authors simply assumed I knew what a participle was and what the word ‘nominative’ meant. I realized I would need special training if I was going to do anything with Greek, and I took yet another chance, took out some student loans and somehow got admitted to the Classics program at the hard-to-get-accepted-to flagship state school (protip- major in something no one else wants to do). Imagine my happy surprise that they used the exact book I’d been working with. I got C’s in all my classes but one (B in Biblical Greek) but I was prouder of that than the A’s I got in everything else. Would that I had had the funds to keep going.
Athenaze is the transliteration of Αθηναζε, the archaic, semi-locative end result of Αθήνας + δε, making an adverb meaning “Athens-ward,” or “toward Athens.” Ironically the book doesn’t really get into all that and it took me forever to figure it out. Also, it’s a minor plot point in The Secret History, which I’ll cover in Part II.
Thanks for reminding me that I spend too much time doing things other than reading proper books
Of these I'm ashamed to say I've only read the three Norwich books on Byzantium (not to sound like a complete wanker but I used to 'savour' long passages from them over a glass of Turkish tea while sailing across the Bosphorus on morning/evening ferry commutes ok I stop now)
I gave Cicero as a Christmas gift and have been meaning to get around to reading more Lewis. Puhvel and Seward books seem interesting also. I've read bits of Tocqueville...
At present I'm reading Mommsen's history of Roman republic (abridged for schools and colleges--and still I can sense a slight straining of my capabilities). After I get through it I will get stuck into the *real* stuff though.
Thanks, looking some of these up. I always felt like Mere Christianity was CS Lewis cribbing from Chesterton's Orthodoxy. Not taking anything away from Lewis, I admire him a great deal. But from my understanding Mere Christianity was a series of radio addresses that were later collected as a book, and it makes sense to me that he may have used Orthodoxy as an outline of sorts.