Belated 2013 Reading List (Including 1/14-4/14)

With all the nerve-wracking, enervating bullshit excitement that’s befallen us over the last few months, I forgot to post my 2013 reading list. When I took a closer look at my GoodReads page, I realized that this was probably for the better, as much of what I read that year was garbage.

Unfortunately, staying informed (especially with regard to how/what the other guy thinks – an absolute necessity, for what I hope are obvious reasons) requires wading through mountains of dung in search of the occasional diamond.  This, however, is no excuse for inflicting my suffering upon you, the Gentle Reader.

This year, I’ll stick to posting the best of my reading from 2013 and the first four months of 2014. Some of the titles below are out of print, but nearly all are readily available on Amazon, or at well-stocked used bookstores. (And if you’re anything like me, you need as much excuse to raid a used bookstore as you do to eat, sleep or breathe.)

Christianity in Crisis: 21^st Century  -- Hank Hanegraff
The History – Herodotus
The Civilization of Rome – Donald R. Dudley
The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted – Mike  Lofgren
The Art of Thinking – Ernest Dimnet
The Greek Experience – Sir. Cecil Maurice Bowra
Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home – David Philips
The Men Who Stare at Goats – John Ronson
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life – C.S. Lewis
Warfare in the Classical World – John Warry
Blood of Amber – Roger Zelazny
The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of  Disconnected and Unhappy Kids – Madeline Levine
Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium – Dick Meyer
Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan – Frank L. Holt
The Hand of Oberon – Roger Zelazny
Becoming a Writer – Dorothea Brande
What Have They Done With Jesus: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History – Why We Can Trust the Bible – Ben Witherington
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter – Thomas Cahill
Antiquity – Norman F. Cantor
Arabs, Christians, and Jews – James C. Hefley
Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages – Richard E. Rubenstein
Greek History, Literature, and Antiquities : An Introduction – A. Petrie
Sign of the Unicorn – Roger Zelazny
Brennan’s War –Matthew J. Brennan
Just As I Am – Eugenia Price
Classic Christianity: Life’s Too Short to Miss the Real Thing – Bob George
Scholar-Warrior: An Introduction to the Tao in Every Day Life – Deng Ming-Dao
The Fine Teachings and Perfect Wisdom of the Kings of Rock’n’Roll – Mark Edmundson
Slackjaw – Jim Knipfel
The Heartland – Stuart Legg
Rome and the Sword – Simon James
The Unknown Socrates --  William M. Calder
How Israel Lost: The Four Questions – Richard Ben Cramer
The Greeks – Anthony Andrewes
Separate and Unequal: The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem – Amir S. Cheshin
A Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government – Nakae Chomin
Alone With a Jihadist – A Biblical Response to Holy War --  Aaron D. Taylor
Winning the War Within --  Charles F. Stanley
The Zen Way to Martial Arts – Deshimaru Taisen
How to Win the Culture War: A Christian  Battle Plan for a Society in Crisis – Peter Kreeft
Acupuncture Without Needles – J.V. Cernery
Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy – Fawaz A. Gerges
A History of the Vikings – T.D. Kendrick
A Time to Dance – Bernard MacLaverty
The Greek Way – Edith Hamilton
Freedom in the Ancient World – Herbert J. Muller
The Celtic World – Barry Cunliffe
Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton
The Druids – Peter Beresford Ellis
Defiant Joy: The Remarkable Life and Impact of G.K. Chesterton – Kevin Belmonte
How We Got Our Bible – Thomas W. H. Griffith
The Metamorphoses – Ovid
The Divine Comedy III: Paradiso – Dante Alighieri
Protagoras – Plato
Unholy Wars: America, Afghanistan, and International Terrorism – John K. Cooley
Blood Brothers – Elias Chacour
The Gothic War: Justinian’s Campaign to Reclaim Italy – Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen
100 Wild Little Weird Tales – Martin Greenberg (ed.)
Thieves’ World – Robert Lynn Asprin (ed.)
Hollywood, Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon – the Case Against Celebrity – Andrew Breitbart
Works and Days/Theogony/The Shield of Heracles -- Hesiod
A History of the Vandals – Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen
With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful – Glenn Greenwald
Old World Encounters: Cross Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times – Jerry H. Bentley
Our Dumb World: The Onion’s Atlas of the Planet Earth
The Mad God’s Amulet – Michael Moorcock
The Germanic People: Their Origin, Expansion, and Culture – Francis Owen
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Divine Comedy II: Purgatorio – Dante Alighieri
The Aeneid – Virgil
The Complete Plays of Aristophanes
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream…Nightmare: 30 Terrifying Tales – Martin H. Greenberg (ed.)
Baptism and Fullness: The Work of the Holy Spirit Today – John R. Stott
Aristotle: Founder of Scientific Philosophy – Benjamin R. Farrington
Code of the Samurai: A Modern Translation of the Bushido Shoshinshu of Taira Shigesuke – Yuzan Daijoji
Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand – Nathaniel Branden
The Three Theban Plays: Oedipus the King, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus – Sophocles
The Seven Deadly Sins Today – Henry Fairlie
The Outlines of Mythology – Lewis Spence
Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta – Gore Vidal
The Celts – Gerhard Herm
Spiritual Warfare in a Believer’s Life – Charles H. Spurgeon
Three Tales – Gustave Flaubert
Electra and Other Plays – Sophocles
The Fall – Albert Camus
The Last Days of Socrates –Plato
Tudor England: 1485-1603 A Bibliographical Handbook – Mortimer Levine
Islam and the West – Bernard Lewis
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia – Ahmed Rashid
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories – Virginia Woolf
For the Good of the Cause – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Greek Civilization and Character – Arnold Joseph Toynbee
The Bacchae and Other Plays – Euripides
The Historical Atlas of the Celtic World  -- Ian Barnes
On Free Choice of the Will – St. Augustine
Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle
The Problem of Pain – C.S. Lewis
The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures – Daniel E. Fleming
Myths and Legends of the Ancient Near East – F.G. Skinner
Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning – Viktor E. Frankel
Roman Fever and Other Stories – Edith Wharton
Medea and Other Plays – Euripides
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats – T.S. EIlot
The Celts – T.G.E. Powell
A Hero of Our Time – Mikhail Lermontov
Human Science and Human Dignity – Donald MacCrimmon MacKay
Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
Buddhism and Zen – Senzaki Nyogen
Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party – William H. Schmaltz
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq – Sheldon Rampton
Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense – David Cay Johnston
A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Mental Illness and Leadership – S. Nassir Ghaemi
Heroes and Villians: Inside the Minds of the Greatest Warriors in History – Frank McLynn
Greek Tragedies, Vol. II: The Libation Bearers, Electra, Iphigenia in Tauris, Electra, and The Trojan Women – Richard Lattimore (ed.)
The Civilization of the Middle Ages –Norman F. Cantor
Aristotle for Everybody – Mortimer J. Adler
The Rise and Fall of the Shah – Amin Saikal
The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life – Hannah Whitall Smith
The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance: Skeptics, Libertines, and Opera – Edward Muir
Makers of the Western Tradition: Portraits from History, Vol 1 – J. Kelley Sowards
The Philosophers of Greece – Robert Sherrick Brumbaugh
The Man Who Knew Too Much – G.K. Chesterton
On Christian Doctrine – St. Augustine
The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism – Ahmed Rashid
The Art of War – Niccolo Machiavelli
Greek Tragedies, Vol 1: Agamemnon,  Prometheus Bound, Oedipus the King, Antigone,  and Hippolytus – Richard Lattimore (ed.)
Short Stories – Edith Wharton
Herakles – Euripides
The Hungering Dark – Frederick  Buechner
The UnDutchables – Colin White
Dark Imaginings – Robert H. Boyer (ed.)
Mohammed and Charlemagne – Henri Pirenne
Christian Liberty: Living for God in a Changing Culture – Rex M. Rogers
The Messianic Character of American Education – R.J. Rushdoony
In the Name of the Father: The Story of Gerry Conlon and the Guildford Four – Gerry Conlon
Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia – Ahmed Rashid
The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 11 – Lester Del Rey (ed)
The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 4 – Lester Del Rey (ed.)
1066: The Year of the Conquest – David Howarth
How the Irish Saved Civilization – Thomas Cahill
Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism – Douglas R. Groothuis
Luther’s Small Catechism With Explanation – Martin Luther
The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 2 – Lester Del Rey (ed.)
The Da Vinci Deception – Erwin R. Lutzer
New World Order – William T. Still
Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis – William Bonner
The Irish Famine: An Illustrated History – Helen Litton
Breaking the Da Vinci Code: Answers to the Questions Everyone is Asking – Darrell L. Bock

And it would be downright un-American of me not to shill BeanPods Press’s latest anthology, First Love. At a mere $8.50 (plus postage; see our website for details), it’s a steal. So order your copy now! Who knows? It might eventually become a collector’s item.

OK, enough hawking for one day.

Take care, y’all.

Ooops! Mea culpa! Anywhere you see the name "Lester Del Rey", substitue "Lin Carter". Been readin' 'em both since high school, and I still can't tell 'em apart at times. :-)