Nonfiction > Fiction?
A few years ago, during an interview with Phillip Roth, the conversation turned to reading habits. Roth admitted to interviewer Jan Dalley that his reading habits had changed significantly as he’d aged. “I’ve stopped reading fiction,” he said. “I don’t read it at all. I read other things: history, biography. I don’t have the same interest in fiction that I once did.” Dalley then asked him why, and he replied enigmatically: “I don’t know. I’ve wised up.”
This year marked a new reading milestone for me: for the first time in my life, I read more nonfiction than fiction in a year. Although I read about 19 novels or short story collections this past year—the same count as the year before—I read more nonfiction than I had in the past (27 books). Steadily, the amount of novels and short story collections I’ve read has gone down the last few years, from 22 in 2023 and 2022, to 24 in 2021 and a whopping 33 in 2018. I’m not sure I’ve “wised up” in any way, but I suppose I’ve changed.
Although I have no evidence for this, I suspect this kind of dynamic often happens to certain types of readers as they age. Certainly it happened to Phillip Roth, although at a much later age and after a lot more fiction reading than I have. Literature, Barthes famously said, is the question minus the answer, and perhaps as we get older we are looking more for answers than questions. Similarly, Javiar Marías once said that literature “doesn’t properly illuminate things, but like the match it lets you see how much darkness there is.” Now, if it may be a sort of metaphor to make my point, I find myself using the flashlight option on my phone all the time.
Another explanation may be my profession. I’m not a full-time writer (I’m not sure I’d even say part-time. What’s less than part-time but more than nothing?). Reading books that I thought could help me in my job—such as a book about problematic government technology implementations, or administrative law—exert some kind of pressure to read more nonfiction. I’m drawn to the practical benefits of understanding policy issues, legal topics, or the context of something I may encounter in my professional life.
Another explanation may be focused more on the reasons I read fiction. I don’t read hardly any science fiction, fantasy, or genre fiction; not because I look down on them, but only because I don’t find the work terribly engaging. (Caveat: I keep coming back to “The Lord Of the Rings” over and over.) My interest has always been with literary fiction, and that’s not always page-turning or easy to settle down with after a long day of work and child care or during a beach vacation. Nonfiction is often just as mentally demanding, and so some of the pure pleasure in reading fiction in that way is diminished.
But it is also true that I have not found as much fiction as engaging as I once did. I’m probably missing some authors, but even books read this year by authors I love (Toni Morrison, Lauren Groff) didn’t resonate for me as much as their other works did before. I am willing to admit that is more in the reader than the writer, but if that is true–well, why is that the case? Like literature, I have no answers in this post.
Anyway, on to the highlights of the last year.
The Book Side Quest
I’ve been on a sort of reading side quest over the last few years, to work my way through all of the Ancient Greek and Roman classics. Last year was “The Illiad,” so “The Aeneid” was the next up, being in essence a sequel to Homer’s epic.
What struck me most about Ovid’s masterwork—beyond the poetry—was just how obviously situated it was in its own time and place, using the story so neatly to set up mythology. (It reminded me a bit of the accusations against some originalist jurisprudence, of manufacturing history to meet political end. If that is the case, it is obviously not a new enterprise.)
Quick ranking of these classics, for fun’s sake:
- The Odyssey – Emily Wilson’s translation is the new standard (for me at least)
- The Metamorphoses – the breadth of stories that found so many other myths and stories in literature make this worthwhile.
- The Aeneid – see above
- The Illiad – too many boring battles. The Achilles stuff is the best (and probably the reason I should read “The Song of Achilles” at some point.) This could be higher if I’d waited for Wilson’s new translation, given her track record.
The Legal Books that Shaped My Thinking
Another book I had been meaning to read for years finally came my way in 2025: “Law’s Empire” by Ronald Dworkin. I’d only read little bits of his writing here and there, and had once been to a talk he had given on campus—which he spent mostly on the Two-State Solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict—so reading his legal philosophy was long overdue. It was revelatory. His section simply breaking down what is law—what things go beyond the simple words of a statute—would have been mind-expanding enough for me if that was the sole insight of the book. Some of it still assuredly sailed over my head, but Dworkin writes so clearly at other times that it sure feels like it stuck.
Reading Dworkin and his interpretive theory of the law was a great contrast to the two Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. books that I happened to read ahead of it: the justice’s great long essay “The Path of the Law,” and Stephen Budiansky’s superlative biography. The opening overview of Holmes life that Budiansky provides may be the best biography opening I’ve ever read. His witty précis and litany of Holmes aphorisms had me laughing out loud.
Every year I usually read a few contemporary legal books, and this year has been no exception. A few were audiobooks (including a summary of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Erwin Chemerinsky’s recent polemic against SCOTUS’s criminal caselaw, and Geoff Berman’s memoir of his time as a federal district attorney). Joan Biskupic’s newish book (“Nine Black Robes”) and Michael Waldman’s (“The Supermajority”) were both informative on current court happenings, although I didn’t find myself agreeing with all that much of their criticism. Finally, Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule’s 2022 book on administrative law (“Law and Leviathan”) perhaps sailed over my head a little, except when they surmised that the Chevron deference doctrine wouldn’t be overturned (whoops). Otherwise I did appreciate their framing of administrative law norms and in-depth discussions of the different interpretative principles.
The Books I Found Most Engaging
Below are some of my favorites for the year.
Fiction
Everybody (including my wife) who said “James,” the reworking of “Huck Finn” from James’ perspective, was great, and they were all right.
It seems like in my reading of Don DeLillo novels, I’ve started with the books I liked the least, only to enjoy him more each time. I’m now on my sixth DeLillo book, if I’ve not forgotten one. Either DeLillo is clicking for me or I just read the books in the wrong order. “Libra” may be my favorite novel of his, even more so than “Cosmopolis” or “White Noise.” (“End Zone,” “Zero K” and “Underworld” were all, well, underwhelming). While I don’t believe in any Kennedy Assassination conspiracies, I will acknowledge that if there was indeed one, it was probably something similar to what “Libra” imagined. Poetic, deep, and filled with memorable characters, I can finally see, I think, why DeLillo maybe deserves to be in the top ten all-time American writers.
Poetry
Normal Distance, Eliza Gabbert
I didn’t have a lot of luck finding poetry I found particularly engaging this year, with the exception of rereading some old Ted Kooser poems, and the (new to me) “Normal Distance” by Eliza Gabbert, a writer whom I was only familiar with on Twitter (back when it was called that and back when I used it). These poems were arresting and aphoristic and unpretentious, and many felt just like that voice inside your head: “Good luck feels like bad luck waiting to happen, but bad luck still just feels like bad luck.” Sign me up for any future book of her verse.
Nonfiction
Reagan: His Life and Legend, Max Boot
In all the nonfiction I read this year, Max Boot’s biography of President Reagan, “Reagan: His Life and Legend,” stood out. It was the kind of evenhanded treatment that the subject deserved. In all the “legacy” talk of Reagan, it seems like we’ve forgotten just how mercurial, charming, and accomplished he was. He saved more than a hundred people from drowning as a lifeguard. He was able to balance practical compromise with consistent political base popularity. (I think we forget how this used to be possible.) He was beloved by his wife and staff but not by his children. He could charm anybody at a party, but preferred to stay at home in his bathrobe and slippers and his Reader’s Digest. Endlessly interesting to try to understand, and always underestimated.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Pahlka’s book on government failures in the digital area was the kind of practical and insightful account I’m glad somebody has finally written. Pahlka’s a veteran of digital solutions for government problems, and her incisive examination is essential reading for anybody trying to implement technology in government. This type of thing is little understood but often far more important than acknowledged.