With the turning of the year, it’s about time for my annual post on my favorite books I read over the course of this past year. I’m posting it a bit later into the new year this time around due to living pretty internet-free over a couple weeks I spent in Greece (which was amazing!) during the holiday season. But without any further ado, here’s my favorite works I read this past year (book titles are hyperlinked to longer Goodreads reviews for interested parties).
10. Demon in Democracy by Ryszard Legutko
I got the privilege of reading this book for a book club, so the discussion may have biased me a little on this book and I’m not sure how much I agree with all of its points. But as a book questioning the sustainability of Enlightenment-era liberal democracies, it sparked a lot of thoughts on my end and was quite good, nit-pickings aside.
9. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu
It was a toss-up between this book and the first in the trilogy, The Three-Body Problem. But there was a bunch to love about this series between its creative worldbuilding, thought-provoking themes, and superb plots. The characterization wasn’t phenomenal, but for idea-driven sci-fi, it was great!
8. Rhetoric of Love by Douglas Jones
This is a bit more textbook-y than the other works on the list and I probably wouldn’t have necessarily picked it up if I wasn’t a Rhetoric teacher (or a partial Rhetoric teacher at any rate). However, it fundamentally shifted several parts of my beliefs on how to best persuade others. Like with Demon in Democracy, even when I disagreed with the work, it made me think. It being written by an old high school teacher of mine was an added bonus. [Read more…] about Top Ten Books Read in 2019
