The Andrew Klavan Symposium
Section I – Opening Remarks
Part 2: “A Search For An Authentic Life” by Alec Ott
Part 3: “Life-Changing Literature” by Chris Queen
Part 4: “To Know The Truth About The World” by Jon Bishop
Part 5: “The Long Road To Becoming An Essential Author” by David M. Swindle
Section II – Dialogue
Part 6: “If You Love Western Civilization, You Will Love God” by Fred Tribuzzo
Part 7: “Why God Does Not Want You To Worry About Anything…” by Alec Ott
Part 9:
(cross-posted from Mad Tab Blog and at Smash Cut Culture)
Dear Jon, Alec, Fred, and Chris,
Throughout this dialogue you have each referenced other authors who have influenced you and who have reminded you in some way of Andrew Klavan’s work. Alec brought up C.S. Lewis, Fred invoked Thomas Sowell, Jon brought Augustine and monk-poet Thomas Merton into the dialogue, and Chris quoted the prophet Isaiah.
For many years I’ve been in the habit of list-making regarding books, authors, films and all sorts of subjects. And I don’t intend on breaking that habit anytime soon, in fact I’m doing the opposite: encouraging you and other writers to assemble lists too. In particular: who are the authors and books who most inspire you today? Which writers and titles are akin to weapons in your armory? Whose ideas and storytelling techniques do you adapt into your own?
After we conclude this dialogue about Klavan’s memoir with one final post each, I challenge each of you — and all readers are invited too — to submit your lists of key authors and books. ([email protected] please.) I restarted this project last year with my “Essential Authors” series at my “Travel, Art, and Book” blog and now I’m expanding the dialogue at Liberty Island. Anyone is welcome to join in the discussions of influential authors and their most valuable books. Who are the essential authors for you and which of their books cannot be missed?
As a place to begin the debate, I present this photo:
When we moved into our new home in summer 2015 it didn’t take me long to figure out what items to feature in a display case built into the wall: my collection of autographed novels and non-fiction books. There’s only room for 9 titles to be visibly displayed across the three shelves, but others sit behind them, for a total of 23 books in the case (not all of the titles in my autographed collection, but the cream of the crop…) Here are the authors included in the above photo, with links to highest priority texts, and a few comments about why they are so valuable and inspiring to me.
1. James Wasserman
Recommended Reading To Begin:
- The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day: The Complete Papyrus of Ani Featuring Integrated Text and Full-Color Images
- The Secrets of Masonic Washington: A Guidebook to Signs, Symbols, and Ceremonies at the Origin of America’s Capital
- The Temple of Solomon: From Ancient Israel to Secret Societies
- In the Center of the Fire: A Memoir of the Occult 1966-1989
- The Slaves Shall Serve: Meditations on Liberty
- The Templars and the Assassins: The Militia of Heaven
It’s now been about 15 years since I’ve been an open mystic, occultist, and quiet practitioner of magickal rituals. During this time I’ve read plenty of books on these subjects and in my humble opinion the very best author alive today writing on them is Wasserman. Nobody is better at presenting the historical development of the mystical traditions with more solid sourcing and better arguments than him. Wasserman is also a key influence in what I’ve described as “Biblical Occultism.”
2. Andrew Klavan
Recommended Reading To Begin:
- The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ
- Werewolf Cop
- True Crime
- Empire of Lies
I initially kicked off this series of highlighting authors with this post here, explaining why Klavan had become such an important creative influence. I recommend his books to all the novelists I work with and am studying his body of work. I also credit Klavan with inspiring my recent passion for Raymond Chandler’s novels.
3. Douglas Rushkoff
Recommended Reading To Begin:
- Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back
- Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age
- Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now
- Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity
- Testament (comic book series collected into 4 graphic novels and an e-book compilation)
- Aleister & Adolf (graphic novel)
- Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism
- A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division (graphic novel)
The book included is Disinformation: The Interviews by Richard Metzger, the printed companion to the DVD set of the 4-episode counterculture news show. Rushkoff is one of the featured interviewees (and the speech below of him at the DisinfoCon in 2000 is included on the DVD) and he signed my copy when visiting my alma mater in 2005, when I was a junior.
Since then Rushkoff’s many nonfiction books on media, technology, religion, counterculture, and corporatism have been seminal texts that I turn to for explaining this weird new media world that I’ve stumbled into as a career. His approach of doing both non-fiction and fiction books that have intertwining themes is also a big influence too. Rushkoff was also my introduction to Maimonides, who has since become perhaps my favorite philosopher.
4. Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Recommended Reading To Begin:
- Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now
- Infidel
- Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the most important feminist activist and intellectual working today. Further, in her most recent book Heretic she delivered what I regard as the most compelling case for how modern interpretations of Islam can overcome Medieval interpretations. (I’m partial to it because it’s the one that changed my mind.)
5. Andrew Breitbart
Recommended Reading To Begin: Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!
At some point soon, in the next year or so, probably sooner, I’m going to have to reexamine how important Andrew Breitbart was as a professional and activist influence for me for many years. But not quite ready yet…
6. Ben Shapiro
Recommended Reading To Begin:
- Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV
- The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against the Obama Administration
- True Allegiance (A novel)
- Say It’s So: Papa, Dad, Me, and 2005 White Sox Championship Season
- Porn Generation
- Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans
Softening the blow of Breitbart’s premature death in March 2012, was the knowledge that he had touched and influenced so many who would continue his work. Others would strive to fill the void he had left. In my view, Ben Shapiro is Breitbart’s most authentic activist heir. He is the one waging the cultural and moral fights today that matter, rather than becoming yet another disposable toady for the President.
But I go a step further: Ben is also the William F. Buckley, Jr. of the Xer/Millennial generations. As Buckley used multiple mediums from a magazine to an interview show to fiction novels, so too has Ben innovate across mediums. He publishes widely — a novel one year, a father-son sports memoir another, a wildly popular podcast, even a clever musical. Trying to change the culture and the mass media by participating in them was at the heart of Breitbart’s ethos. What is the alternative, what awaits when the cultural fight is neglected? Ben described it in his second book in 2005:
“In a world where all values are equal, where everything is simply a matter of choice, narcissism rules the day.” – page 2 of Porn Generation
7. Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa
3 book suggestions for Noah Rothman on the Cold War – all by Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, highest ranking defector from the Soviet bloc, former spymaster for Nicolas Ceausescu. #history
- Red Horizons: The True Story of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescus’ Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption
- Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination
- Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism
Previous generations relied on books like Witness and memoirs of ex-New Leftists who later turned Right to try to understand the nature of the Communist threat. I say that today’s generation of pro-freedom, anti-totalitarian activists should revise their understanding of both history and today with the amazing writings of Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking defector from the Soviet bloc, the former spymaster for Romanian dictator Ceausescu.
What is the new key that Pacepa provides? He reveals the role played and methods utilized by Soviet intelligence agencies to subvert America. His third book is focused on the methods and purposes of the Soviet disinformation divisions used against pro-Western targets throughout the Cold War. Understanding the culture of Russia’s secret police (which predates the USSR) and its methods of media manipulation and the manufacturing of history are critical for grasping what Vladimir Putin has been doing to America today. And Pacepa’s writings on the JFK assassination will knock your socks off…
Key evidence of the Soviet's role in JFK's murder: De Mohrenschildt's 1977 suicide when confronted by journalist Edward Jay Epstein with proof he was Oswald's handler… #assassination #evil #crime page 144 of Programmed to Kill by Ion Mihai Pacepa, former head of Romanian intelligence…. #Marxism in action…
8. Howard Bloom
The complete collection of six:
- The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
- Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
- The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism
- The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates
- The Muhammad Code: How a Desert Prophet Brought You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram
- How I Accidentally Started The Sixties
Howard Bloom is a deeply innovative author synthesizing hard science with adept historical and cultural analysis, and an exhilarating prose style that makes huge concepts accessible. The above video adapts one of the concluding chapters in The God Problem, and explains Bloom’s theory of how the universe was born and how it will end.
BTW, I previously wrote on Wasserman, Breitbart, Rushkoff, and Bloom in this giant-size list article from 2012: “23 Books for Counterculture Conservatives, Tea Party Occultists, and Capitalist Wizards.”
9. Glenn Reynolds
Recommended Reading To Begin:
- An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths
- The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself
- America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century—Why America’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come (author of foreword)
I wrote about Glenn’s big influence last week at Liberty Island, explaining how his philosophy of libertarianism, futurism, and hawkish had shaped me to acquire and edit J.P. Medved’s Justice Inc. series.
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds: "…there's good reason to believe that humanity won't survive over the long term (or even the not-so-terribly-long term) if we don't settle outer space." – An Army of Davids. #futurism #spacetravel
Related: back in 2013 I attended and wrote about a lecture Howard Bloom gave in LA presenting his ideas and proposals for colonizing the solar system.
So, I hope that now you both understand my oddball perspectives better and also have found some books that you might enjoy. Which authors and books are on your most treasured shelves?
Sincerely, your friend and colleague,
David
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Previous Writers Featured in the Essential Authors Series:
- Andrew Klavan
- Camille Paglia
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