Making an End-of-Year List, Checking It Twice

Because without lists, there would be no civilization

Your author composing his annual top lists for the year.

It’s the end of the year, which means it’s list time. So Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and joyful tabulations and enumerations to all!

Books

Of the several dozen books I read this year, here are the crème de la crème. First to come are the ones I have already written about or mentioned here on the Substack, roughly in the order I read them:

1. The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (vol. 1) by Iain McGilchrist (2021). [See here and here.]

2. Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth by Peter Turchin (2015). [See here.]

3. Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts: Cosmic Monotheism and Terrestrial Polytheism in the Primordial History by Russell E. Gmirkin (2022). [See here and here.]

4. The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin by Gordon M. Hahn (2021). [Interview with Hahn here.]

5. The Caricature of Love: A Discussion of Social, Psychiatric, and Literary Manifestations of Pathologic Sexuality by Hervey M. Cleckley (1957). [See here, here, here, and here.]

6. The Socialist Phenomenon by Igor R. Shafarevich (1980). [See all my posts mentioning it here.]

7. Wisdom’s Children: A Christian Esoteric Tradition by Arthur Versluis (1999) (also The Wisdom of Jacob Bohme [2003]). [Quoted here and here.]

8. Chris Langan’s Major Papers 1989-2020 by Christopher M. Langan (2020). [I referred to Langan’s work here, here, and here.]

Next, the ones I didn’t write anything about:

1. Julius Caesar and the Roman People by Robert Morstein-Marx (2021). For classical history buffs, a must-read. Most portrayals of Caesar (ancient and modern) are bunk. M.-M. goes back to the evidence, with refreshing results. My new favorite book on the O.G. J.C.

2. The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom by James Burnham (1943). Picked this one up after Michael McConkey sang its praises. Worth it.

3. Red Plenty by Francis Spufford (2010). Found this one mentioned on a socialism reading list. A novel—kind of. Also a scholarly work on Soviet information technology and economics. Or a modern fairy tale. Whatever you call it, it’s an amazing work of fiction. A highlight for me was the almost psychedelic description of the operation of one of the USSR’s first computers.

Films

And as a bonus, here were my favorite films released this year (in no particular order, but The Northman was probably my favorite):

1. The Northman (2022). Robert Eggers’s mythological-realism Viking epic. Watch Alexander Skarsgård’s live transformation into a wolf-bear berserker. Hide your kids, hide your wives, because this dude delivers a performance that transmits high-dose testosterone directly through screen and into your bloodstream.

2. The Batman (2022). I like Batman.

3. RRR (2022). Next four are all over the top in some way. I haven’t watched any Tollywood before, so I thank Critical Drinker for this recommendation. Crazy action, drama, singing, dancing, and a bromance for the ages. Everything is dialed up to 11 in this one.

4. Top Gun: Maverick (2022). Tom Cruise may or may not be crazy, but that’s okay.

5. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). The craziest and most entertaining movie ever about an IRS audit.

6. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022). Nic Cage as Nic Cage. Nuff said.

As for older movies, I watched these for the first time (in chronological order):

1. Dersu Uzala (1975). One of Akira Kurosawa’s later films, set in Russia. Just a beautiful film.

2. The Duellists (1977). Ridley Scott’s first film, based on a Joseph Conrad short story. Visually stunning with great performances from Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel.

3. Hostsonaten [Autumn Sonata] (1978). Bergman’s characters have more realism and depth than a full decade’s worth of superhero blockbusters.

4. Idi i smotri [Come and See] (1985). Classic late Soviet war film, set in Belarus. One word: harrowing.

5. Dog Soldiers (2002). Another Critical Drinker recommendation. Special forces meet werewolves. (For fans of HBO’s Rome, this one stars Kevin McKidd, the actor who played Lucius Vorenus. His counterpart there, Ray Stevenson, who played Titus Pullo, plays the comically villainous British Governor in RRR.)

And finally, the TV shows I enjoyed the most (in alphabetical order):

1. Andor (2022-). Finally, a Disney Star Wars show with real characters, some emotional depth, and mature writing. Took them long enough!

2. Cobra Kai (2018-). Hilarious, heartfelt, and surprisingly wholesome. Come for Johnny Lawrence, and stay for everything else.

3. Reacher (2022-). If Miss Marple were a jacked 6’5’’, 250-pound, Army-police autist-hobo.

4. Terminal List (2022-). Paranoid conspiracy thriller starring Chris Pratt. Probably inspired by real events.

What about you? I’d love to read your end-of-year favorites in the comments.

Also, let me take the opportunity to thank all my subscribers. Thank you!