There are a lot of books I read that are nonfiction, but that can mean anything from a biography to a mathematical treatise.
Lloyd’s Best Books of 2023
These are the five books that I am most likely to recommend to someone else from the past year's reading, and I am glad to recommend them to you.
The Spectator Review
I will admit now that I did not read all eight collected volumes of what is essentially a daily cultural column.
The Way to Wealth Review
If "folk philosophy" was a genre, it is where I would shelve The Way to Wealth, which is essentially a short collection of the best snippets of advice and clever nuggets of wisdom published over the years in Franklin’s own Poor Richard’s Almanac.
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Review
That the sun lies at the center of the solar system with the planets moving about it and the whole arrangement determined by gravity seems obvious to us today, but that is because we are surrounding by depictions of the solar system in that configuration.
Non-Linear History
History takes a convoluted, torturous, meandering path, full of backtracking, sideways digressions, and seemingly meaningless tangents and dead-ends.
Laurus Review
If you are fascinated by faith, and constantly inquiring of history, like I am, then Laurus deserves a place near the top of your reading list.
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
WB Yeats, a famous Irish poet and playwright in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, undertook to collect the folktales of his homeland.
Who Were the Celts? Review
Duffy answers his titular question with a simple answer of “basically everyone,” which struck me immediately as being a bit overly broad and inclusive.
Animal Farm Review
On its surface, Animal Farm feels rather silly – the idea of animals, led by hyper-intelligent pigs, taking over a farm from humans who are entirely impotent to reclaim the small territory, is difficult to take seriously at times – but the reader must recall that Animal Farm is not so much a traditional novel as we think of the form as it is a fairy tale or a fable.
IGC Publishing 