One of my intentions for this year is to read more non-fiction. Fiction is a different matter – if one of my favourite authors publishes a new book I will read it, simple as that – but non-fiction I have to make a concerted effort to take on.
And yet I find reading non-fiction is the best way of educating yourself, so it tallies well with my ambition to improve intellectually. To quote a colleague who is something of a renaissance man: “I just want to make sense of the world”.
To this end I have a number of books that I’ve ordered (as seen above), on religion, personal efficiency, investment philosophy, human society and contemporary politics, plus a book on rhetorics (in the shape of famous speeches). That should see me through most of the year, but if you have any must-reads that you want to recommend, don’t be shy! I look forward to your suggestions, and will come back with reviews in due time.
I can’t resist replying. I’m in a Swedish intensive course this week and we had someone come in today to tell us all about a book called Factfulness by Swedish author Hans Rosling. Don’t know if you’ve read it but it sounds fascinating plus it reminded me to some extent of The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker, although the latter is much broader (and I can highly recommend it too). Both books are about how things in the world may look bad but they’re not half as bad as people seem to think they are, on the contrary.
It can’t hurt to start this particular year on an optimistic note!
I actually gave Factfulness to someone dear to me for Christmas – guess I’ll have to borrow it once they’re read it!