Inspired by a friend’s tweet, I decided to reflect on what I read during 2024 and make my own list of favourite reads of the year. I’m dividing the list into fiction and nonfiction, and because I have a stronger affinity, in general, for literary fiction—in the spirit of delaying whatever offers the most gratification—let us begin with the nonfiction category. Nonfiction 10. The Scent of Time by Byung-Chul Han (Translated by Daniel Steuer)This essay,…
Reading The Thibaults (Les Thibault) was one of my highlights of 2024. Published originally in serial form between 1922 and 1940, the novel tells the story of a family—their historical context, their relationships, and their movements across the private and public spheres. World War I also casts a heavy shadow over the story, but du Gard keeps us guessing, drawing out the suspense and urges us not to think the war was simply inevitable. The…
In The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt contrasts two fundamentally different ways of growing up: a play-based childhood versus a phone-based childhood. The shift from physical, open-ended play to structured, screen-driven interaction has changed how children explore the world and socialize, with significant developmental and mental health implications. Haidt identifies two primary forces behind this change: “safetyism” in parenting, which over-protects kids from…
“Joker: Folie à Deux” extends the disturbing narrative of Arthur Fleck to a point where it can no longer be extended. We find him trapped in a double bind, caught between his lived reality and the weight of his Joker persona—a “brand” that was initially his means of escape, his line of flight, now confines him. The film shows the dark side of “branding,” when brand becomes totalizing, when an identity becomes locked into a…
Alexander Nicolai Wendt’s recent book, Phenomenological Psychology as Rigorous Science, attempts to build a much-needed bridge between psychology and philosophy. The presence of such a bridge has always been vital for psychology, as Wilhelm Wundt argued in his 1913 essay “Psychology’s Struggle for Existence,” and I hope others would join Wendt in building it. Wendt is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna and the Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg. Wendt is…