Reading, Watching, Listening: January 2025

In January, we finished The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt. I’ll be sharing the final wrap-up post about that this Monday. In February we’ll read Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. Here is the schedule:

• February 10: Introduction to Le Guin’s life and work

• February 17: Chapters 1-3

• February 24: Chapters 4-6

• March 2: Members-Only Zoom Call, 8PM Eastern

• March 3: Chapters 7-9

• March 10: Chapters 10-13

• March 13: Members-Only Zoom Call, 3PM Eastern

The read-alongs are free. Sometimes I write some extra posts for paid subscribers, and the Zoom calls are exclusively for those who financially support me, but the main read-along posts are available to everyone. I invite you to buy a copy of The Dispossessed and get involved with our discussion.

Today, I’ll be sharing what I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to this month (in other words, what I’ve been ‘consuming.’) This is the start of a conversation — let me know about books, movies, and so on down below.

The best book that I read in January, by far, was Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges. It is shameful that I’ve not read much Borges before — for some reason, the fact that so many people kept recommending him made me think that he must not be that good. (I’m not proud of that reaction, but it was the thought that kept occurring to me.)

So, let me state this plainly: Ficciones is a masterpiece. Every story near-perfect, and quite a few simply are perfect. "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" are the best stories, and it is a bit of a shame that they are both in the first half, but that is a minor complaint.

One mark a great book is that it inspires you to read more books, and not necessarily books by the same author. A great book lights a fire in your soul, and you want to keep that fire burning. You do that by read more great books. I’ll certainly need to read more Borges soon — and it has also made me want to read 100 Years of Solitude again, along with the works of Italo Calvino, who I’ve long loved.

If you are at all interested in weird fiction, philosophical flights of fancy, or work that blends genre and literature, Borges is for you.

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I made very little progress on Plotinus this month, but I’m back into it. I’ll be posting on The Plod next week with some thoughts on a few of the sections.

Speaking of books I need to read in February, I’m looking forward to these new books on the intellectual life: Open Socrates by Agnes Callard and On Close Reading by John Guillory. Since I also want to revisit A.G. Sertillanges’ The Intellectual Life, I thought they would make nice complementary reads.