Books of the month — October 2023
Five books, briefly reviewed: Sergio del Molino's Un tal González, Ignatieff's Fire and Ashes, Luis Miller on polarisation, Ellenberg's Shape, and poetry.
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Un tal González. Sergio del Molino. I enjoyed this novel with a historical plot, or this history with the body of a novel. You can tell it works as a settling of accounts between the writer and his past self, back when revolution was the only option.
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Fire and Ashes. Michael Ignatieff. A very good reflection on the craft of politics. Read it with your own craft in mind and you will draw plenty of useful conclusions, because that craft contains much of what we do in any field, only hypertrophied. I especially liked the constant contrast between empathy —going door to door, talking to strangers— and narcissism: many of those same gestures were nothing more than a self-referential conversation.
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Polarizados. Luis Miller. I loved the framing and the quantitative evidence it rests on. It does not leave a good taste in your mouth, because the conclusion never shifts from the first page, and it offers no magic way out of the trend. Here is one suggestion: let time pass while reading books like this one, and so avoid thickening the poles. ;)
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Shape. The Hidden Geometry of Absolutely Everything. Jordan Ellenberg. Take it or leave it. It has its humour and some good quotations. The style wore me down. And the content is neither very much geometry nor very much everything. Rather focused on recent matters (Covid) and familiar ones (US elections), by now somewhat rehashed.
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La rama verde. Eloy Sánchez Rosillo. Make room on your shelf. Leave space for more Eloy to arrive. ;)