Summer 2025 Book List
Barkan, Baudrillard, Pasolini, et al
We’re back at it again with our annual Summer Book List. Pick up some of these books so you can make your fellow beach-goers jealous of how based you are.
1. The Complications, Emmett Rensin
We’re putting this one at number one for a reason (you really ought to buy it). Friend-of-the-pod Emmett recounts his experience of schizophrenia with raw, intense details, combining it with cultural, social, religious, philosophical, and political commentary on mental illness. We love this book for so many reasons: Emmett is a brilliant writer, and an incredibly insightful thinker. He conveys his own experience without being trite or reductive. He talks about the politics of #mentalhealthawareness with a level of nuance and insight I’ve never seen. He writes about the Gospels and Catholic theology in a way few do. I hope everyone will read this book because it’s so bloody good.
2. Hope in a Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch, Eric Miller
It is no secret to our followers that we are big fans of Christopher Lasch. Eric Miller does an excellent job portraying how the events of Lasch’s life played a role in his intellectual development. First, Miller shows us how Lasch is a searcher, determined to discover Truth and to further the common good. His willingness to cut through the discord and get to the root of things is truly prophetic. His prophetic sensibility enabled him to correct the errors within his own ideas. Most importantly, the book conveys his complex relationship with Christianity, and how his material priorities made it difficult for him to embrace the metaphysical claims of Christianity—despite finding them to be extremely compelling. Furthermore, the book sheds light on the cognitive dissonance (and social disservice) of the mainstream left vs right political binary, and will likely help readers better understand today’s political divisiveness.
3. Entitlement, Rumaan Alam
So I already wrote about why I love this novel so much in
. But ultimately, we love Alam’s subtle wit and humor—poking fun at PC shibboleths without sounding reactionary, his excellent satirical approach—which perfectly blends criticism of and sympathy for the social phenomena/figures he features, and the metacommentary on the culture of automation, millennial narcissism, the value of grassroots initiatives, and NYC elite circles. You’ll definitely chuckle a little as your read it.4. Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo, Ned Sublette
Shout out to friend-of-the-pod
for recommending this masterpiece. It brilliantly ties in history, theology, anthropology, and ethno-musicology. In particular, we love how Sublette covers (a) the spiritual origins/implications of music and (b) the interconnectedness of West African, indigenous Caribbean, southern American, Spanish, and Arabic music. If you don’t appreciate Flamenco, Caribbean genres like reggaeton and salsa, and Arabic classical music as much as we do, then hopefully reading this book will at least make you fans.5. Glass Century, Ross Barkan
You can read my review of the novel and listen to the pod interview with
. But in a nutshell, we love this book because of how it features so many Cracks in PoMo themes: 9/11, spicy [ethnic] whites, old school “rooted”/non-gentrified Outer Borough culture, critiques of neolib economic policy, and more.6. The Spirit of Terrorism, Jean Baudrillard
I opened my review of Ross’s novel citing Baudrillard’s book on 9/11. This book is part of a trilogy on 9/11 through the lens of critical theory published by Verso in 2022 (alongside volumes by Zizek and Virilio). It’s Baudrillard—so you already know this book is wild. It hits on a lot of the sentiments I attempted to convey in my essay on why I can’t stop watching 9/11 videos. Baudrillard offers a lefty quasi-situationist and somewhat metaphysical commentary on the broader implications of 9/11, critiquing the tendency of globalism to dissolve everything into the cloud of the “hyperreal,” and pointing to “subtle singularities” (localism) as the way out of “the matrix.”
7. Corsair Writings, Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pasolini, in addition to his involvement in communist circles and open homosexuality, was known as a vocal critic of fascism, the Catholic hierarchy, and Italy’s Christian Democratic (DC) party. Thus the surprise generated by Scritti Corsari, a collection of articles and letters written in the years leading up to his brutal murder in 1975, which overflowed with biting critiques of the “phony” and “diabolical” direction in which young leftists were headed. He was wary of the imposition of a monoculture by technocratic powers and the co-optation of political discourses for the sake of propagating “symbolic” but meaningless culture wars. Further, his ability to both scandalize and resonate with those aligned with seemingly opposed ideological factions prophesied the emergence of so-called “horseshoe theory” discourse, which has slowly made its way into mainstream in recent years. It’s not officially translated, but you can access an unofficial English translation here.
8. Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart, Imam al-Mawlud/Hamza Yusuf
As I mentioned in my post on being a wannabe Muslim, Hamza Yusuf’s translation of and commentary on Imam al-Mawlud’s classic spiritual text is a must read for those who want to learn more about Islam. It’s a very practical and accessible intro to Sufi mysticism, and will likely remind Catholics of texts by Carmelite saints.
9. The Life and Mission of Geno Baroni, Lawrence O'Rourke
Fr. Geno was one of the greatest proponents of ethnopolitics and had an incredibly nuanced understanding of the role of ethnic white, which has since largely fallen out of fashion. He had a major influence on the social initiatives my family was involved in in Newark in the 1970s, and has deeply influenced my own thought (which you can read about here and here). As Housing and Urban Development Assistant Secretary for Neighborhood Development, Consumer Affairs, and Regulatory Functions under the Carter administration, he attained the highest Government post a Catholic priest has ever achieved.
10. Lapsed Agnostic, John Waters
No, not Pope of Trash John Waters. Friend-of-the-pod (and the Substack) John Waters (Irish music journalist). In addition to covering his reversion story, the book covers the complicated relationship between Ireland and the Church in recent decades with great nuance and attention to the “most human” factors…which few Catholic writers ever do. I highly recommend all of our Irish readers…and Catholic readers, read it.