Books Worth Your Time, Vol. 4

A humanizing biography, the epic science fiction of the decade, the wild words (and worlds) of Paul Kingsnorth, etc.

Welcome to this ongoing series, in which I highlight great books I think you might want to read.

Going forward, I’ll make this roughly a monthly posting.

Goddess of the Market by Jennifer Burns

I suspect that the intersection of Ayn Rand fans and readers of Walking Away is empty, and so it may seem odd that I am recommending Goddess of the Market,¹ the most recent biography of Rand. Jennifer Burns is an historian to watch if you are interested in the history of American conservatism, economics, or political philosophy, having recently followed up Goddess of the Market with a biography of Milton Friedman.

Goddess of the Market is everything you want from a biography of a figure like Rand. It humanizes her, makes her relatable and sympathetic, but it does not whitewash some of the rather vile teachings embedded with Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Nor does it gloss over the ways these teachings were lived out within Rand’s inner circle. (It turns out that a philosophy based on self-interest leads to treating other persons as pawns and playthings.)

One of the great discoveries in my reading journey over the past few years was finding that I enjoy biographies. I even enjoy biographies of figures I don’t personally like. Goddess of the Market is a perfect example of this.

Note: After I wrote this post, I saw that I had previously recommended this book in the first volume of Books Worth Your Time. Since the number of readers of this newsletter has more than doubled since then, I hope you’ll forgive the repetition. I’ll recommend 5 additional books in this post, too.

The Ethics of Authenticity by Charles Taylor

When I think of living philosophically sophisticated social theorists, I think of two men: Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor. Both are known primarily for one long, synoptic book: After Virtue for MacIntyre and A Secular Age for Taylor. Both are essential reads for understanding the world we call home.

But both philosophers have written other books, and they are all worth reading. The Ethics of Authenticity is a slim volume, compiled from a series of lectures Taylor delivered, all on the modern conception of authenticity. Authenticity is one of those knotty modern concepts that we all seem to be familiar with, yet very few of us have ever thought critically about it. We swim in these conceptual waters, but like most fish we don’t even notice them.

Sun Eater by Christopher Ruocchio

Fans of my YouTube channel may know that I am a fan of Christopher Ruocchio’s Sun Eater series, a nearly-finished space opera packed full of philosophical themes.

Nicholas Kotar, himself a writer of fantasy, calls Sun Eater the best epic science fiction of the decade.