My books of the year

Here I am sharing three of the most valuable books I read this year. Maybe they could become your favorites, too. The selection is not limited to books published this year (in fact only one of them was published in the 21st century). Instead, I recommend timeless books that I happened to pick up this year.

Nikos Kazantzakis - Zorba the Greek

This novel follows the narrator, a young intellectual looking to immerse himself with common people as he encounters Alexis Zorba, a passionate and free-spirited worker. Together, the starkly contrasting pair embarks to Crete for mining. Zorba serves as a guide to the intellectual, urging him to embrace the fullness of life, experience its joys and sorrows, and to live in the present moment.

The beauty of this story is only matched by the beauty of Nikos Kazantzakis’ prose. His vivid and often poetic descriptions pull the reader into a Piraeus tavern or a Cretan beach without detracting from the powerful narrative. To give just one example that made me pause reading and enjoy the scenery Kazantzakis’ words conjured, take his description of one rainy morning:

The sky mingled with the earth in infinite tenderness

Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics

For anyone interested in philosophy or ethics, there is really no way around Plato and Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics are the first original work by Aristotle I picked up, and I was not disappointed.

The question posed here is “how to life a good life?” and Aristotle’s answer starts by setting eudaimonia (happiness) as the end goal. The path to achieve eudaimonia is through the virtues he then explores in detail. One of the key distinctions he makes in the very beginning is that between means to an end and the end in itself which is eudaimonia. The virtues are means to an end, not valuable for their own sake, but desirable as a path to eudaimonia.

By the term “absolutely final,” we denote that which is an object of choice always in itself, and never with a view to any other.

And of this nature Happiness is mostly thought to be, for this we choose always for its own sake, and never with a view to anything further: whereas honour, pleasure, intellect, in fact every excellence we choose for their own sakes, it is true […], but we choose them also with a view to happiness, conceiving that through their instrumentality we shall be happy.

The virtues are discussed in great detail, and one of the overarching themes is that of the golden mean. For all traits, Aristotle reasons, there is an excess and there is deficiency. The golden mean, the virtuous behavior, lies somewhere in between the two. For example, courage falls between recklessness and cowardice, while generosity lies between prodigality and stinginess.

Nietzsche’s critique of “the Aristotelianism of morals”, two millennia later, condemning the restraint of emotions to a harmless mean, serves as a testament to the enduring impact and relevance of Aristotle’s ethical insights in the ongoing discourse on the human pursuit of happiness.

Paulo Coelho - Adultery

If you expected the naïve upbeat mood of The Alchemist, you will not find it in this novel.

Adultery has received a scathing review from The Independent and quite a bit of criticism on Goodreads. I think the book is misunderstood. The link above goes into more detail, but in short, the story revolves around a female character bored by her successful, married life. After a surprising sexual encounter with her teenage sweetheart, she pursues him, at times out of excitement, at times for what she perceives to be love, at times for revenge. Some negative reviews mention that the protagonist feels more like a man’s fantasy of a woman than an authentic woman and there may be truth to that. That notwithstanding, the reason I recommend this book is the author’s honesty.

The wretched and by no means shallow personality of the protagonist can only have been conceived by an author who is capable of brutally honest introspection. Coelho’s protagonist elicits sympathy despite her vices, not quite in the frightening quality of Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, but still surprisingly. Her unfiltered character serves to remind us of our own destructive capacities.

Closing words

As this year draws to a close, consider picking up a timeless book instead of another attention-grabbing NYT bestseller that will be outdated in a year. Happy reading!

Which books resonated with you this year? What remained memorable after you closed the book? I’d be delighted to hear.