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Time for Christmas shopping 2020! So many good books were published this year, despite everything. Everyone should read Putin's People by @CatherineBelton, on the deep roots of Russia's current ruling class. I reviewed it for @TheAtlantic here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/catherine-belton-putins-people/614212/
I also loved The Fifth Sun, by Camilla Townsend, which won the Cundill Prize. You think you know who the Aztecs are... but you don't. You think you know about the Conquest of Mexico...but you don't. https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/fifth-sun-new-history-aztecs-wins-cundill-history-prize-326689
Really unexpected pleasure for me was Roderick Beaton's Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, the history of the contemporary *idea* of Greece. There are lots of parallels to the modern history of other countries, you will be surprised https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greece-Biography-Modern-Roderick-Beaton/dp/0241312841
a conversation with @holland_tom convinced me to buy "Dominion", a kind of history of the idea of Christianity, up to and including the present. It's also very amusing, of course... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dominion-Making-Western-Tom-Holland/dp/0349141207/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=dominion&qid=1608326384&s=books&sr=1-2
Everyone else read Marilynne Robinson's 'Gilead' years and years ago, but I somehow missed it. Caught up with it this year as well as with the other books in that series, including 'Home' and the latest, 'Jack.' Definitely start with the first but read the others too
am also enjoying the @BarackObama memoir, which is unlike any other presidential memoir you've ever read. saying this not just because he has good taste - he also liked 'Jack', as well as the Glass Hotel by @EmilyMandel - but because the writing is so clear and frank
finally got my copy of LIBERTIES, a new journal edited by Leon Wieseltier, filled with essays that are determined to last longer than a news cycle
https://libertiesjournal.com/
https://libertiesjournal.com/
and for a glimpse into a recent past that seems hopelessly far away, read The Man Who Ran Washington, by @sbg1 and @peterbakernyt... https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Ran-Washington-Times/dp/0385540558
