What I've Been Reading
Thoughts on the books I read in Q4 2024
This article is a new installment in a series of “mini reviews” of my reading. Previous installments in the series, along with other compilations, appear below:
2024: Q1 • Q2 • Q3 • Q4
2023: Q1 • Q2 • Q3 • Q4
2022: Q1 • Q2 • Q3 • Q4
2021: Q3 • Q4
2020: Complete Reading List • Summer Book Recommendations
2019: Holiday Book Recommendations
2018: Holiday Book Recommendations
Full Listing of All Book Reviews Published Since 2009
The Plays of Euripides
Euripides lived from 480 to 406 BC and wrote approximately ninety-two plays over his long lifetime. However, only nineteen plays have survived intact, and even these plays have sections that could be later interpolations. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides wrote tragedies that have survived the test of time because they have retained the power to move audiences for nearly 2,500 years. Greek tragedies place characters in impossible situations that often lack any happy resolution. Despite their setting in a distant past full of mythological concepts quite alien to modern readers, we still empathize with their struggles.
During the second and third quarters, I wrote several articles about my reading of Aeschylus and Sophocles. While writing these articles helped solidify my comprehension, doing so was extremely time consuming and awkward. I am a novice reader of the classics, not an academic scholar, so my thoughts on these plays are probably amateurish at best. When it came to Euripides, I decided to continue writing, but I did so in a personal journal rather than in public. I did not reduce the intensity of my work, but not hitting the publish button meant that I could write more for myself than for others which is less time consuming.
I learned a great deal from reading the full collection of surviving plays of the Ancient Greek tragedians. Society and technology can change in major ways over the centuries, but human nature itself has barely changed. The passage of 2,500 years means very little in terms of how our minds operate and evolve. The problems that faced humans in Ancient Greece have changed in terms of the specifics, but we are still dealing with the fallen nature of mankind.
Aside from learning important life lessons, these plays deserve to be read purely for entertainment value as well. Almost all of them can be read in two to three hours — about the length of a modern movie. Reading The Iliad and The Odyssey first would be very helpful since the Trojan War forms the backdrop for many plays. It is also useful to have a basic understanding of Greek Mythology.
I read the following volumes covering Euripides. In almost all cases, I read the plays more than one time. After a first reading, I sat down with my journal to read the play again in more depth. In a few cases, I read a play a third time in a different translation. Here are the books I read for this project. All of these volumes have useful introductions, a glossary, and helpful end notes:
Medea and Other Plays. Translated by Philip Vellacott. 205 pages. This volume contains a very readable verse translation of Medea, Electra, Heracles, and Hecabe.
Medea and Other Plays. Translated by John Davie. 206 pages. This volume contains a prose translation of Alcestis, Medea, The Children of Heracles, and Hippolytus.
Electra and Other Plays. Translated by John Davie. 267 pages. This volume contains a prose translation of Andromache, Hecabe, Suppliant Women, Electra, and Trojan Women.
Heracles and Other Plays. Translated by John Davie. 307 pages. This volume contains a prose translation of Heracles, Iphigenia Among the Taurians, Ion, Helen, and Cyclops.
The Bacchae and Other Plays. Translated by John Davie. 360 pages. This volume contains a prose translation of Phoenician Women, Orestes, Bacchae, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Rhesus.
Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor
Author: Donald J. Robertson
Year of Publication: 2024
Length: 248 pages
I previously read How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by the same author when I was sent a review copy by the publisher. Since I found his previous book interesting, I decided to purchase a copy of this brief biography. Robertson does a good job providing an overview of Marcus’ life and the book included some details that I was not previously aware of. Of course, none of these secondary sources are substitutes for reading Meditations itself, but we should keep in mind that Marcus was not attempting to write an autobiography. In fact, he did not intend for Meditations, which was a personal journal, to ever be published at all!
For more information on the life of Marcus Aurelius, I would recommend reading the following articles I wrote several years ago since anything I write here would be redundant:
The Intelligent Investor, 75th Anniversary Edition
Authors: Benjamin Graham and Jason Zweig
Year of Publication: 2024
Length: 583 pages
Last month, I wrote Stepping into the River based on my impressions of reading the latest edition of The Intelligent Investor. That article was not so much a book review as a reflection on why it is important to read certain books more than once. In the case of The Intelligent Investor, it is a good idea to return to the book every few years. It is like going to the church of value investing. Circumstances change but the principles presented by Benjamin Graham are truly perennial.
Jason Zweig deserves tremendous credit for skillfully editing the book and writing original commentary that brings the concepts into the 2020s. I find it remarkable that Zweig did not reuse any of his commentary from the 2003 edition, instead opting to rewrite everything from scratch. When I read the latest edition, I also went back to read his commentary from 2003. I suggest this procedure for everyone because it illustrates how Graham’s concepts applied just as well to the aftermath of the dot com bubble as they do to today’s overheated markets.
Benjamin Graham’s words are presented as they were in his final 1973 edition and there are certainly many specifics that are outdated. Critics can latch on to these obvious cases in an effort to dismiss his entire investment philosophy, but to do so would be the height of folly. Zweig’s main service is demonstrating that the concepts remain true today. Newer investors will especially benefit from the contemporary examples.
The Trail: A Novel
Author: Ethan Gallogly
Year of Publication: 2022
Length: 364 pages
The story is about an older man who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has a dream of hiking the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. His longtime hiking buddy has already died, but he is able to convince his friend’s son to go on the hike. Due to age and frailty, they travel very slowly, taking twenty-eight days to hike around two hundred miles. The journey is both a wilderness trek as well as a spiritual journey, as a young man at the start of his adult life learns from a man approaching the end.
I have hiked the John Muir Trail several times and I found the descriptions of the trail to be accurate. The people encountered during the journey are realistic “types” of hikers I have met over the years, but the author does a good job of not applying stereotypes in a lazy manner. This is definitely not a trail guide or just an adventure story. There are historical interludes throughout the book about the history of the Sierra Nevada mountains as well as digressions into philosophy. The philosophical discussions were particularly interesting because the older man knew much about Eastern philosophy, a subject that I’m unfamiliar with.
For someone who has hiked the trail many times, the book was like a virtual journey since I know all of the places that were described very well. I suspect that readers who are at least somewhat interested in wilderness travel will like this book, although the philosophical discourses will not be to everyone’s tastes.
ESV Study Bible
Publisher: Crossway
Year of Publication: 2008
Length: 1,512 pages (Proverbs to Revelation plus essays)
I read the first half of the ESV Study Bible during the third quarter and completed the book just a few days ago. As I wrote last quarter, this Study Bible does an excellent job of explaining both the old and new testaments in a way that is understandable to the modern reader. In addition to introductions for each book, there are extensive footnotes, maps, and illustrations that greatly help with comprehension.
This project has been very time consuming, but I have no regrets. In addition to my daily readings, I spent an additional fifteen to thirty minutes writing every day. The end result is that I have a reference of my thoughts about the Bible that I can refer to in the future. I would probably recommend taking a full year for this project for most readers, although a half year is possible with a time commitment of at least ninety minutes per day.
I’ve written before than it is essential to understand the Bible if we are to have any hope of understanding Western Civilization. However, the Bible is more than a history book. In its pages, we are presented with moral standards for living a good life and we are given warnings for what to avoid. There are many obscure and seemingly obsolete teachings in the Bible that require context. This is where the ESV Study Bible really shines. The notes tell us what the authors were referring to and how it fit into the context of their times. In many cases, this helps apply the principles to modern life.
I should again note that the ESV Study Bible presents both the old and new testaments in the context of Protestant Christianity. This obviously differs from how Judaism views the Hebrew Bible but it also differs in material ways from Catholicism. The essays at the end of the Study Bible help clarify many theological points and also contrasts the evangelical Protestant viewpoint with other Christian groups. I am sure Roman Catholics and other Christians would beg to differ on many theological points, but that is what makes the study of religion interesting.
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