[Book Club]

"Mostly Classics" Project: Part 1

Some of the books I read in 2023 as part of my "Mostly Classics" book project.

Getting back into reading books

I was so busy in high school and a such a slow reader that I think I only actually got through a small handful of novels. And I probably didn't think very deeply about them. It felt silly to search for alternate meaning in every sentence of a book. What if the author meant exactly what was said and nothing else? (Although, now I realize that good writing - or really any art - is extremely intentional in its content and extensions via techniques like metaphor).

And when I was an engineering major in college and later in music graduate school, literature was not - surprise! - in the requirements list. I still read a ton. It was just news, online content like Quora, and the occasional best-seller nonfiction book, which exercises your thinking in limited ways. So I spent a good portion of my adult life feeling a conspicuous gap in language and literature arts.

Since I'm a slow reader, filling that gap seemed like a large task. I felt I just needed to sit and wait for inspiration to barrel through some books. My inspiration came eventually in the form of a realization I didn't need inspiration. It was ok to read slowly. There are millions of books published every year. At a fast pace of 50 books per year over the next 40 years, I would read a total of 2,000 books in the remainder of my life. That's a *very* small number relative to what's available. It's impossible to read everything. Instead, I'd benefit more from choosing my books very carefully and reading them at my own pace.

It turns out people have vetted books that have had out-sized influence on humanity. Super helpful. And there's tons of lists of these, like this one, this one, and this one. I figured these would be a good guide to choose my books, so I started a spreadsheet - like the nerd that I am - of books from these lists ordered by how interesting the book sounded (and sometimes how long it was :).

So around April 2023 I began this project, and I'm about 40 books in of mostly classics at the end of 2024. Below are the first few books I read with my own little rating that should be ignored. For most of the books that I wouldn't rate 5 stars, I still benefited from reading them.

And it turns out that my reading slowly was a good thing. In reading more difficult texts slowly while taking notes, I found a lot of richness, especially the philosophy. So it's all ok, fellow slow readers.

1. "Poetics" by Aristotle - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This was my first serious look at a philosophical text. This book is amazing. I cannot un-see how extraordinary it is that the elements of ancient Greek tragedy discussed in this book from 2,500 years ago still underlie great storytelling today in movies, tv shows, books, speeches, ads, you name it. It seems human emotion, which is the bedrock of storytelling, just hasn't changed much since the ancient Greeks.

As an example, I finished this book around the same time that the tv show "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" ended. I loved the final episode and Poetics explained, so poetically, part of why I enjoyed it so much: a cathartic release of the pity built over five seasons for Midge as a woman struggling in a male-dominated profession. This is amplified by the magnitude and of the events and the nature of Midge's character. It would have been hard for me to parse these things before reading this book.

The power of such a model for describing good art is that it can be also be used to produce it. As an artist myself, this book has influenced how I understand the function of art and in turn my intentions when I create art. Warning: the writing style is dry - typical of Aristotle - and I found the content ordered confusingly sometimes (scholars think some of his writings are compilations of his student's notes). But it's short and there is gold for anyone willing to wade in and dig for it.

2. "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond - ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The scope of this book is huge. Reading it felt like viewing a building in a city and suddenly zooming out to show the whole Earth. It gave me an appreciation for the difficulties in analyzing such a complex topic as the fate of human socities.

For example, I liked the idea of organizing causes linearly as proximate and ultimate. And I really enjoyed understanding how language evolution can be effectively used to understand how cultures merged. And someone who loves to cook, I found it interesting how the nature of certain plants native to specific areas inclined them toward agriculture and society development.

Although I found the book extensive and generally a great read, I couldn't shake the feeling of a relative lack of rigor in acknowledging or addressing potentially weak arguments compared to Dawin's Origin of Species (more on that below), for example, which similarly tackles a hugely scoped topic for an even less receptive audience. Just a quick google search after finishing GGS revealed a few criticisms of overly strong conclusions that you wouldn't know about from reading the book. For this I'll take away a star.

3. "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov - ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

I wanted a variety of genres so in the science fiction genre, I started here. It liked it fairly well, but I wanted to like this book more than I did. And I discovered why it is difficult to write great science fiction.

In good Science Fiction you have two goals: good science and good writing. I felt like the science in Foundation was great. I loved the idea of nuclear energy as a form or religion to control a society. But I just didn't enjoy the writing. I'll probably revisit some Asimov later, but for this book three stars.

4. "On the Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This book was fantastic. I feel like it should be required reading in school. I felt I had a pretty good grasp on evolution before reading it, but Darwin, even 150 years later, makes a strongly compelling argument that really sparkles against the very dull idea of evolution previously in my head.

Prior to reading this book, I would sometimes be annoyed reading the news when some complex evolutionary explanation for a phenomena was taken as the only possibility. It had the feeling that when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But Darwin helps the reader understand the sheer magnitude of the force that is the struggle for life such that it's clear there it is almost certainly the explanation for so many complex things we encounter in biology.

I also noticed that much of the evidence Darwin writes about is assuming a perspective of humans closely observing animals for lengths of time. In the 19th century most people were farmers and raised animals. So much of what Darwin's saying makes sense from that perspective. But in modern life few people interact with animals this way. It makes me wonder if this is a contribution for people's modern incredulity towards evolution.

Like with Aristotle's Poetics, there is some work involved in reading it such getting used to the 19th century language. But I think it's well worth the effort. Darwin was clearly an incredible scientist. Five stars.

5. "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This was recommended as a novel that isn't too long, and is very smart and kind of funny. I do think it was smart and a great book, but I didn't find it funny. I found it very sad. The silliness and madness of Bill Pilgrim seemed to stem from war trauma. And this seemed to primarily be a device for talking about things so horrible the reader couldn't handle them otherwise.

The book was very effective at de-glorifying war. I liked the use of non-linear timeline, which gave a break from the war horror. Five stars.