Summer Books

C.S. Lewis’s Oxford, a new life of Ayn Rand, David Bentley Hart’s fables, Dostoevsky and God, and more.

I am a little late with my quarterly round-up of forthcoming books that have caught my attention. Better late than never. There are very few fiction titles and almost no political books listed below. I can’t keep up with the former, and I don’t want to keep up with the latter.

With that by of introduction, let’s get to it. First, I am looking forward to Simon Horobin’s account of the influence of Oxford on the work of C. S. Lewis (July 27). The book will be published by Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Horobin is a fellow at Magdalen College and a professor of English. Here’s a snippet from the jacket: “This book examines the role Oxford, its colleges, libraries, chapels, clubs, common rooms, and pubs played in fostering the work of one of the twentieth century’s most influential writers. It brings to light several new archival discoveries, including letters, tutorial reports, and even an unpublished poem, as well as offering new insights into Lewis’s Oxford life, his transition to Cambridge, his Christian faith, and his contemporary global influence. It also takes a fresh look at his extensive involvement in Oxford’s various clubs and societies, including the Coalbiters, the Socratic Club, and, of course, the Inklings, whose distinguished members coalesced around him and his great friend, J.R.R. Tolkien.”

Also on the literary biography front, I am very curious to read Michael Coffey’s Beckett’s Children (OR Books, July 30), which is, according to the jacket copy, “a lyrical blend of personal memoir, father–son dialogue, and literary investigation that probes the works of Irish writer Samuel Beckett and American poet Susan Howe in search of traces of their long-rumored status as father and daughter.” It could be wonderful or terrible, which is part of the fun of a book like this.

I reviewed Joseph Farrell’s excellent Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa a few years ago for the sadly departed Weekly Standard. It was an account of Stevenson’s surprising move to Samoa and his life there. So, I am looking forward to Camille Peri’s account of the relationship between Stevenson and his wife (Viking, August 13), which also touches on the Stevensons’ time in Samoa: “From their first encounter in France in 1876, Fanny and Louis’s partnership transcended societal expectations to become a literary union that was progressive, eccentric, and tempestuous, but always animated by a profound mutual respect. Seeking creative freedom, inspiration, and better health for Louis, who battled chronic illness, they embarked on a whirlwind journey around the world, from the bohemian enclaves of Europe to the shores of Samoa, where they lived and joined the native islanders’ fight for independence from imperialist powers. Amid the currents of their stormy yet deeply loving relationship, Fanny wrote colorful accounts of her life, contributed to Louis’s work and kept him alive to pen classic novels such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that would go on to resonate with generations of readers.”

It’s hard to come by an honest account of Ayn Rand’s life and work. Perhaps Alexandra Popoff’s Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success (August 6), which is part of Yale’s Jewish Lives series, will provide one.

I am not a David Bentley Hart aficionado, but I am curious to read his collection of philosophical parables called Prisms, Veils (Notre Dame, July 1): “In Prisms, Veils: A Book of Fables, Hart explores the elusive nature of dreams and the enduring power of mythologies. Moving over themes ranging from the beauty of the natural world to the very nature of consciousness itself, each narrative is threaded through with Hart’s deep religious, cultural, and historical knowledge, drawing readers into an expertly woven tapestry of diverse allusions and deep meaning.”

Hart’s new book on consciousness will also be published this summer. It’s called All Things Are Full of Gods: The Mysteries of Mind and Life (Yale, August 27): “Writing in the form of a Platonic dialogue, Hart systematically subjects the mechanical view of nature that has prevailed in Western culture for four centuries to dialectical interrogation. Powerfully rehabilitating a classical view in which mental acts are irreducible to material causes, he argues through the gods’ exchanges that the foundation of all reality is spiritual or mental rather than material. The structures of mind, organic life, and even language together attest to an infinite act of intelligence in all things that we may as well call God.”

George Pattison is the former 1640 Professor of Divinity at University of Glasgow, and Oxford will publish his Conversations with Dostoevsky: On God, Russia, Literature, and Life in June, though it looks like the book is already available. I am much looking forward to reading this. Here’s a snippet: “Conversations with Dostoevsky presents a series of fictional conversations taking place between November 2018 and Spring 2019 in the narrator’s Glasgow apartment and elsewhere in the city. At the beginning of the conversations, the narrator has been reading Dostoevsky’s story A Gentle Spirit, which concludes with a dramatic statement of protest atheism. This statement suggests that love is not possible in a purely mechanical universe in which all living beings are condemned to death and ultimate extinction. The conversations spell out Dostoevsky’s response to this view and his advocacy of faith in God, Christ, and immortality. The themes discussed include suicide, truth and lies, guilt, determinism, literature, the Bible, Mary, Christ, Dostoevsky and film, ‘the woman question’, nationalism, war, the Church, the Jewish question, immortality, and God . . . The conversations in the first part of the volume are accompanied by a series of commentaries in a second part, which contextualize the issues discussed in the conversations with references to his novels, journalism, letters, and notebooks as well as engaging the relevant critical literature.”

“Do Jane Austen novels . . . celebrate―or undermine―romance and happy endings?” That is apparently Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey’s question in Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness (Johns Hopkins, June 11): “Brodey argues that Austen's surprising choices in her endings are an essential aspect of the writer's own sense of the novel and its purpose. Austen's fiercely independent and deeply humanistic ideals led her to develop a style of ending all her own. Writing in a culture that set a monetary value on success in marriage and equated matrimony with happiness, Austen questions these cultural norms and makes her readers work for their comic conclusions, carefully anticipating and shaping her readers' emotional involvement in her novels.”

Could I read another book on George Orwell? Probably. Will I read Laura Beers’s Orwell’s Ghosts (Norton, June 11)? Probably not, though I am dutifully informing you of its forthcoming publication: “In Orwell’s Ghosts, historian Laura Beers considers Orwell’s full body of work―his six novels, three nonfiction works, and brilliant essays on politics, language, and the class system―to examine what ‘Orwellian’ truly means and reveal the misconstrued thinker in all his complexity. She explores how Orwell’s writing on free speech addresses the proliferation of ‘fake news’ and the emergence of cancel culture, highlights his vivid critiques of capitalism and the oppressive nature of the British Empire, and, in contrast, analyzes his failure to understand feminism.” Only saps fail to understand feminism, am I right?

I know I informed you of this book in the Spring Books post a couple of months ago, but let me call your attention to it again: Nicholas Jenkins, The Island: War and Belonging in Auden’s England (Belknap, June 11):

From his first poems in 1922 to the publication of his landmark collection On This Island in the mid-1930s, W. H. Auden wrestled with the meaning of Englishness. His early works are prized for their psychological depth, yet Nicholas Jenkins argues that they are political poems as well, illuminating Auden’s intuitions about a key aspect of modern experience: national identity. Two historical forces, in particular, haunted the poet: the catastrophe of World War I and the subsequent “rediscovery” of England’s rural landscapes by artists and intellectuals.

The Island presents a new picture of Auden, the poet and the man, as he explored a genteel, lyrical form of nationalism during these years. His poems reflect on a world in ruins, while cultivating visions of England as a beautiful―if morally compromised―haven. They also reflect aspects of Auden’s personal search for belonging―from his complex relationship with his father, to his quest for literary mentors, to his negotiation of the codes that structured gay life. Yet as Europe veered toward a second immolation, Auden began to realize that poetic myths centered on English identity held little potential. He left the country in 1936 for what became an almost lifelong expatriation, convinced that his role as the voice of Englishness had become an empty one.

This sounds like a nuanced exploration of Auden’s early work that will likely not be without faults.

The novelist and short story writer Brad Watson died suddenly in 2020. Norton is publishing a volume of his new and collected short stories (July 16) posthumously: “Brad Watson was a master of dark comedy, extraordinary lyricism, appalling grotesquerie, and unabashed vulnerability; a sublime prose stylist whose novels and stories drew upon the fecundity and moodiness of the South.”

I have already read Sally Thomas’s forthcoming collection of short stories, The Blackbird and Other Stories, which I highly recommend. There is no link available yet at Wiseblood or Amazon, but keep an eye out for it. It will be published in August.

Simon Morrison’s new biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is called Tchaikovsky’s Empire: A New Life of Russia’s Greatest Composer (Yale, August 27): “Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire’s worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky’s complex world.”

You may remember the name Inigo Philbrick from this newsletter. He is the young, handsome art dealer who committed the largest art fraud in American history, and he has just been released from prison. In All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art, Orlando Whitfield tells the story of Philbrick’s rise and fall.

Two books of travel literature caught my attention: Rosie Schaap’s The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country (Mariner, August 20) and Steve Hoffman’s A Season for That: Lost and Found in the Other Southern France (Crown, July 9). Here’s the jacket copy for Schapp’s memoir:

Rosie Schaap had a solid career as a journalist and a life that looked to others like nonstop fun: all drinking and dining and traveling to beautiful places—and getting paid to write about it. But under the surface she was reeling from the loss of her husband and her mother—who died just one year apart. Caring for them had claimed much of her daily life in her late thirties. Mourning them would take longer.

It wasn’t until a reporting trip took her to the Northern Irish countryside that Rosie found a partner to heal with: Glenarm, a quiet, seaside village in County Antrim. That first visit made such an impression she returned to make a life. This unlikely place—in a small, tough country mainly associated with sectarian strife—gave her a measure of peace that had seemed impossible elsewhere.

And here’s the promotional info for Hoffman’s book: “In this poignant, delicious memoir, American tax preparer and food writer Steve Hoffman tells the story of how he and his family move to the French countryside, where the locals upend everything he knows about food, wine, and learning how to belong.” Though I have a soft spot for books on France, Schaap’s book seems like the less clichéd one.

There are a couple of books of cultural history or cultural “biography,” as they are sometimes called, that may prove interesting. First, there is William T. Taylor’s Hoof Beats (California, August 6) about “how horses altered the course of human history”: “From the Rockies to the Himalayas, the bond between horses and humans has spanned across time and civilizations. In this archaeological journey, William T. Taylor explores how momentous events in the story of humans and horses helped create the world we live in today. Tracing the horse's origins and spread from the western Eurasian steppes to the invention of horse-drawn transportation and the explosive shift to mounted riding, Taylor offers a revolutionary new account of how horses altered the course of human history.”

There’s also Evan Friss’s history of the American bookstore (Viking, August 6): “An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations.”

Theodore H. Schwartz writes about the origins of brain surgery in Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery (Dutton, August 13): “We’ve all heard the phrase ‘it’s not brain surgery.’ But what exactly is brain surgery? It’s a profession that is barely a hundred years old and profoundly connects two human beings, but few know how it works, or its history. How did early neurosurgeons come to understand the human brain—an extraordinarily complex organ that controls everything we do, and yet at only three pounds is so fragile? And how did this incredibly challenging and lifesaving specialty emerge?”

Steve Tibble provides a new history of the Knights Templar (Yale, August 20): “The Knights Templar have an enduring reputation—but not one they would recognize. Originally established in the twelfth century to protect pilgrims, the Order is remembered today for heresy, fanaticism, and even satanism. In this bold new interpretation, Steve Tibble sets out to correct the record. The Templars, famous for their battles on Christendom’s eastern front, were in fact dedicated peace-mongers at home. They influenced royal strategy and policy, created financial structures, and brokered international peace treaties—primarily to ensure that men, money, and material could be transferred more readily to the east. Charting the rise of the Order under Henry I through to its violent suppression following the fall of Acre, Tibble argues that these medieval knights were essential to the emergence of an early English state.”

I think Adam Kirsch’s On Settler Colonialism (Norton, August 20) will offer a nuanced critique of “the discourse” and will prove to be an important book: “This short book is the first to examine settler colonialism critically for a general readership. By critiquing the most important writers, texts, and ideas in the field, Adam Kirsch shows how the concept emerged in the context of North American and Australian history and how it is being applied to Israel. He examines the sources of its appeal, which, he argues, are spiritual as much as political; how it works to delegitimize nations; and why it has the potential to turn indignation at past injustices into a source of new injustices today. A compact and accessible introduction, rich with historical detail, the book will speak to readers interested in the Middle East, American history, and today’s most urgent cultural-political debates.”

Pepper Stetler critiques the use of IQ tests in A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother's Reckoning with the IQ Test (Diversion, August 20): “When Pepper Stetler was told that her daughter, Louisa, who has Down Syndrome, would be regularly required to take IQ tests to secure support in school, she asked a simple question: why? In questioning the authority and relevance of the test, Stetler sets herself on a winding, often dark, investigation into how the IQ test came to be the irrefutable standard for measuring intelligence. The unsettling history causes Stetler to wonder what influence this test will have over her daughter’s future, and, if its genesis is so mired in eugenics, whether Louisa should be taking it at all.”

The title may be a bit corny, but Pascal Bruckner’s The Triumph of the Slippers: On the Withdrawal from the World (Polity, July 1) seems interesting: “From our couch, we can enjoy remotely the pleasures once offered by the cinema, the theatre and the café. Everything, from food to love to art, can be delivered to your door. Armed with a smartphone and a Netflix account, why would anyone risk life and limb to venture out to the cinema?  Compulsory confinement, the nightmare of the pandemic years, seems to have been replaced by voluntary self-confinement. Fleeing from the cities, working remotely, relinquishing travel and tourism, we risk becoming reclusive creatures that cower at the slightest tremor. In this witty and spirited book, Pascal Bruckner takes aim at today’s voluntary seclusionism and the self-inflicted atrophy that comes with it, tracing its philosophical contours and historical roots.”

What caused the 2008 financial crisis? Todd Sheets explains in 2008: What Really Happened (Encounter, August 6): “In 2008: What Really Happened, Todd Sheets presents comprehensive original research that unravels these apparent contradictions and shows what spawned the housing bubble, why it grew to such dangerous proportions, and how this created the potential for a panic. He then details the missteps that triggered the panic, the factors that caused the financial markets to seize up, and the specific responses that finally returned the markets to equilibrium. In addition to debunking numerous myths, Sheets also exposes the history behind the people and institutions that drove these events and sets forth measures to help investors, executives, directors, regulators, and policy makers avoid repeating the mistakes that led to the worst financial crisis in nearly a century.”

Lastly, I am much looking forward to Crossway’s new translation of John Calvin’s On the Christian Life (July 30): “This fresh translation of what is often referred to as Calvin’s ‘Golden Booklet’ features an all-new introduction, robust citations, and explanatory footnotes―introducing a new generation of readers to a classic work of Christian spirituality.”

If there are any forthcoming books you are “awaiting with impatience,” as the French say, list them in the comments. Happy reading!