It must not be a maxim or axiom, nor does it qualify as conjecture, that most persons only read books occasionally and it is when a particular topic has them captivated. Cooking instructions can count as might an introduction to Japanese language obtained for a first Oriental trip, requisite attention to financial markets arguably has higher intensity. However, there are some who prevaricate about whether they have read specific titles and others who just seem to look at all their pages.

Perhaps the majority of past-career journalists pay little heed to the yearly winners of big prizes, such as the Pulitzer, Booker, National Book Award, or Nobel. In most cases, there tends to be merit to those awards. Such books can potentially influence or enrich one’s communications. And when persons have been deficient toward their roles they can be harshly defensive, if not neurotic–not exactly the same as a store manager who vapes on the job. More like the guy who is trying to produce a fourth title on Nietzsche, despite everything that has been written about the philosopher since 100 years ago: if you confront him, he might be violent.

Anyhow, reading books tends to be done by binging here.  Occasionally something such as Palliser’s The Quincunx or maybe cliffhanger-at-end-of-chapters Dean Koontz novels can jump start. Neither is at hand. 

Here are titles that have accumulated into a short stack, incidentally none are known to be endorsed by Financial Times or Bloomberg:

• Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye
• A History of Money, a Novel by Alan Pauls
• American Sphinx, The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis
• Imperial Twilight, The Opium War and the end of China’s Last Golden Age by Stephen Platt
• Alexander Hamilton, the Illustrated Biography by Richard Sylla
• Truth in Context, An Essay on Pluralism and Objectivity by Michael P. Lynch

At least four of those above are written by PhD professors. They probably are enlightening and well-organized. However, readers might feel that, despite commercial success of their books, which seems an exception to reliance on university presses as opposed to a rule, those folks can, in some instances, amount to dead weight, or worse. 

Reference Peter Kreeft, PhD who, with a multinational pederasty scandal as a backdrop, has never produced anything that is widely endorsed by mainstream philosophers, meaning those who do not specialize in Christianity. Yet he would cash in on academic status beyond tuition-financed pay, time off, and health care benefits! The better academics who do not necessarily teach job skills–and maybe are harder for universities to recruit–might be comparably helpful. Still, to plod, if not labor, through their pages may not pay off in any way. 

Why bother? Questions are persistent about international relations with China. Imperial Twilight could be a pertinent, and detailed perspective, on Hong Kong. The racist type of slavery in the United States continues to be a troubling part of history, though that is what there was for captured combatants before it. Opiates have an unfortunate history also and perhaps there are parallels with bondage. Still, present-day concentration camps in China are troubling, irrespective of unjust wars, in the name of the free trade of an addictive drug, that are centuries past.

Lynch and Pauls each use under 200 pages and may not have powerful current issues working against them. The latter is probably better to his reader; and as with NDiaye, there may be terms gained in translation. Lynch, being of the same school as President-elect Biden, maybe provides a helpful lens for present-day thought. He appears better-regarded than Kreeft–that must be worth something?

Contemporary use of the philosophical term “Existential” might be traced through Bernie Sanders, as a long-term public servant of a state that is home to a highly competitive liberal arts college that can be identified with foreign language programs. His past enthusiasm with Russian culture has in fact been politically topical. Upon hearing “Existential crisis” on debate stages, Biden might have incorporated the surprisingly-popular phrase into his own discussion of environmental issues. Perhaps not? Maybe we would know about the ancient Greek philosophers if Aristotle’s student Alexander had not been among the most brilliant generals of antiquity? 

Even if a successful candidate only references it through the wording of his challenger, philosophy can be relevant to productive reading. Digression about it might not be. Pauls, before Lynch, and before Biden should be sworn in in 2021, can be efficacious. Others’ works can wait.

** the author owns shares of ERIC