With podcast Episode 285 Andrew Pudewa concludes recounting the accumulated twenty-year tally of his “Best Book of the Year List.” To listen to the first two episodes, visit the links here for Episode 283 (years 2000‒2006) and Episode 284 (years 2007‒2012). Today’s episode brings the record up to the present day, ending with year 2020 while at the same time hazarding a guess or two about the potential winning entry for this year, 2021.
These are Andrew’s selections:
2013 - The War Against Grammar by David Mulroy
2014 - Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen
2015 - The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Note: Andrew mentioned he enjoyed reading different translations that had different footnotes to help him flesh out the narrative poem.
2016 - Plato’s The Republic
For this book, Andrew enjoyed the benefit of reading it with a group of men, two of whom had PhDs, along with others who had advanced degrees in theology and philosophy.
2017 - The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalie Fenollera
2018 - Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture by Anthony Esolen
2019 - Seven Myths about Education by Daisy Christodoulou
2020 - Live Not by Lies by Rod Dreher (might be AP’s best book of the decade)
You’ll have to check back later in the year or the beginning of next year to learn which is Andrew’s selection for 2021, but we can share a couple of frontrunners. They are Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and Eat to Beat Disease by William W. Li, M.D.
