I sat down this week to consider my reading habits over the last year and to make reading goals for next year. As I did so, I started making lists, and I thought I’d share three of them. Here, in these lists, are fourteen of my favorite writers, magazines or journals, and books that I read in 2014. I thought about adding a film category, but I grew disenchanted with films this year.
My favorite writers for popular magazines and journals:
I place these names in no particular order; this is not a ranking.
Gracy Olmstead
Brad Birzer
George Scialabba (not as prolific this year)
Gerald Russello
Mark Bauerlein
Stephen Cox (UC San Diego)
Justin Raimondo
Joseph Epstein
Micah Mattix
Julie Baldwin
Bruce Frohnen
Jeffrey Tucker
Paul Gottfried
William Deresiewicz
My favorite books:
This is an eclectic mix. Genre has not factored into my decision. I enjoyed these very different books for very different reasons. Some are new; some aren’t. They’ve made the list because I liked them more than the other books I read this year.
Washington Square by Henry James
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
A Literary Education and Other Essays by Joseph Epstein
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop
Collected Poems: 1952-1993 by W.S. Merwin
Common-Law Liberty by James R. Stoner, Jr.
The Novel: A Biography by Michael Schmidt
The Morality of Pluralism by John Kekes
The Institutes of Biblical Law by R.S. Rushdoony
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham
Literary Criticism: From Plato to Postmodernism by James Seaton
Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe by Jeffrey Hart
The Meaning of Human Existence by Edward O. Wilson
My favorite popular magazines and journals:
This list was easy; I read every piece these publications run. I do not miss a single essay, article, or review in these outlets.
The American Conservative
The New York Times Book Review
Chronicles
The Freeman
Mises Daily
Pacific Standard
LewRockwell.com
The Imaginative Conservative
The University Bookman
Reason
The American Spectator
The New Criterion
First Things
The Front Porch Republic