Saturday Links

A defense of Homer, a study of Rome’s emperors, Jesuit mapmaking, the open but unusable British Library, and more.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Good morning! I have been keeping track of the favorite books from 2023 of friends and acquaintances. The latest installment is John Wilson’s favorite non-fiction titles over at First Things. I’ll second the Peter Leithart and Nicholas Orme recommendations. Keep an eye out for John’s favorite fiction titles right here next week!

Anthony Domestico shares his favorite 2023 titles at Commonweal. I missed Dan Sinykin’s Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature, which sounds intriguing, even if the argument, Domestico notes, “can be pushed too far.”

Over at the Washington Examiner, I contributed to a Christmas reading feature. Christmas is a great time for those big Russian classics, but I recommend readers try something a little different this holiday season: Mikhail Zoshchenko’s hilarious Sentimental Tales, expertly translated and introduced by Boris Dralyuk. Hugo Gurdon recommends Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, Nicholas Clairmont suggests Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, and Dominic Green says we should all read  Ferdinand Mount’s English Voices: Lives, Landscapes, Laments.

Also in the latest issue of The Washington Examiner, I review Robin Lane Fox’s Homer and His Iliad, which I loved: “Homer and His Iliad is the best book on the Iliad in years and an exemplary work of historical and literary criticism. It is judicious, erudite, provocative, revelatory, and utterly convincing.”

Frances Wilson reviews Mary Beard’s Emperor of Rome, which she says “is the work of a lifetime, and a book to return to. Immersive, witty, alive on every page, it clarifies the past and illuminates the present.”