This time last year I published ‘2022: The year in words’ (only my second Substack post). An annual reflection and rounding up of what I've read and wrote seems like a good habit to get into, so here is the second instalment….
It wasn’t a vintage year for me personally and for much of the world. So I am going to start with a book that is born of both despair and hope: I was thrilled to see my old friend Dougald Hine (with whom I co-edited Despatches from the Invisible Revolution back in 2011) published a book that consolidates his already substantial reputation as one of the most interesting thinkers on climate change. At Work in the Ruins challenges us to think beyond climate change as scientific problem that science can address. Dougald's approach, here and in his other writings, is to offer an odd consolation through suggesting that we accept that the collapse is coming and the stories we tell are no longer adequate for what lies ahead. While this view is often dismissed as 'doomerism' and I suspect things aren't quite as irredeemable as Dougald thinks, At Work in the Ruins is an essential text.
Spurred by the memorial trip I participated in to the region in Poland where my ancestors came from, I did quite a lot of reading on the Holocaust, Nazism and the Second World War this year. Probably too much, in fact. Most of what I read was too specialist and grim to be worth recommending (you really don't need to read this biography of Odilo Globocnik or this history of the Chelmno extermination camp unless you are really committed). And reading both volumes of Ian Kershaw's massive two volume biography of Hitler back to back was not a smart move mental health wise. Happily, Luke Turner's excellent Men At War: Loving, Lusting, Fighting, Remembering 1939-1945 helped me understand better why men are so drawn to the Second World War. And I did take a certain gleeful pleasure in reading Richard Wolin's philosophical exposé Heidegger in Ruins which reveals that Heidegger was even more deeply implicated in Nazism that previously thought.
Time, circumstances and exhaustion have meant that I didn't read many strictly academic books this year that are worth noting in this roundup, but I would be failing in my duty as a husband if I didn't mention my wife's new book (her first) Polyamory and Reading the Book of Ruth. Deborah is much more of a pure scholar than I am and the book draws on deep reading of difficult texts. However, the subject of polyamory is very much one to watch as it becomes more common and spoken about. Deborah's book lays the groundwork for a progressive Jewish response to a challenge very few Jews are ready to engage with.
One of my favourite books of the year was John Preston's Watford Forever: How Graham Taylor and Elton John Saved a Football Club, a Town and Each Other which I reviewed for The Quietus.
Reading for pure enjoyment, there was some great new works in sci-fi that I devoured in 2023, including Dave Hutchinson's Sanctuary, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Memory (both welcome additions to a series), In Ascension by Martin Macinness and The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz. Christopher Priest is sometimes treated as a scifi author but his new novel Airside really belongs in a category of its own; its eerie aimlessness divided readers and critics; I found it mesmerising.
I've been reading a lot of Australian crime fiction over the last few years and Garry Disher's Days End plus Jane Harper's The Exiles didn't disappoint.
Standout weirdest book I read this year was Terry Hayes new blockbuster The Year of the Locust. I will be writing about this in a future newsletter.
In terms of my reading of articles essays and reviews, frankly 2023 is a bit of a blur, or at least the weeks and months since the outbreak of the Gaza war have been. I read voraciously and anxiously but this isn't conducive to revelling in good writing. Also, looking through Pocket (the app I use to save long-form writing to read later) there doesn't seem to be much of a discernible pattern beyond the war. Still, it was great to finally read an exposé of Rabbi Walter Homolka in an English-language publication here.
As for my own writing, 2023 was, as usual, an eclectic year....
My book on Denial was published in an Italian edition (the first time a sole-authored book of mine has been translated into another language). Sadly, health problems prevented me from promoting the book at literary festivals in Turin and Genoa.
My 'Independent Export Report' for the European Commission was published in March. I worked on The field of research on contemporary antisemitism and Jewish life: Working towards a European research hub as part of my role at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, which has subsequently expanded; I have been Senior Research Fellow there since July. The European Commission report might seem dry and niche but I developed a completely new methodology to determine the size and nature of an entire academic field. It was genuinely geeky fun to work on.
Music-wise, the journal Riffs published 'An Experiment in Musical Comprehension', a collaboration with the author Ann Morgan in which we challenged each other to listen deeply to unfamiliar work the other chose. I had a blast working on it and I think Ann enjoyed it too.
I wrote for The Quietus a few times this year, a music publication that's a pleasure to write for. They gave me the opportunity to write about my long-term musical loves Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel. The Quietus also let me write a sort-of defence of Metallica's St Anger and for that alone I am grateful to the editor, John Doran!
My article on baseball in Poland for the New European might seem to be the most random topic I have explored this year. However it is part of a much bigger story about the Holocaust, Poland and my relationship to my ancestors. I am proud of it.
It's been a quieter year for me in terms of writing about current events. The Gaza war has been difficult to respond to and also difficult to place articles on, even in publications I've written for before. Still, I raised my head tentatively above the parapet in a personal piece for the New Statesman as well as other articles in the Jewish News, The Battleground and in this newsletter (here and here).
Talking of which, I started this Substack newsletter just over a year ago and, while I haven't been able to establish a regular schedule I have published 26 newsletters so far. I have enjoyed having an outlet for my miscellaneous interests and I am grateful to those who read it and comment on it. Hopefully this will continue to grow, slowly but surely. In the meantime, here are my three favourite newsletters of the year:
Here’s hoping that 2024 is marginally less awful than 2023.