…The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. Easily. Psychiatrist Milton Rokeach’s 1964 account of his group treatment of three delusional men who believed they were God doesn’t only have great insights into human nature, how we protect and harm ourselves at once, but it’s also one of the richest pieces of literature I’ve ever encountered. And that includes every piece of fiction. If you haven’t read it and decide to go for it, get the New York Review of Books edition with an introduction by Rick Moody. He sets it up nicely. Anything you read directly after this book will seem pale, no matter how good it is.

Best re-reading: If the Sun Dies, Oriana Fallaci’s 1966 exploration of NASA and the men who lived our wildest dreams in the stratosphere. I rarely read anything twice, but this book was worth it. Lyrical and great reportage.

What I read while the blog was on hiatus:

The Mind of a Mnemonist, A.J. Luria’s case study about a Russian man with a remarkably elastic memory. Glad I read it, though kind of disappointed overall, the way I am sometimes with long-deferred readings. Luria researched this case for decades beginning in the 1920s and pretty much birthed the modern medical oddity genre later developed by Oliver Sacks and others. I guess I was hoping the narrative would be as good as the research.

The Best Short Stories of J.G. Ballard. I’m not much for sci-fi, but Ballard is obviously several grades above the average. My favorite story of this 1979 collection is “Thirteen for Centaurus,” which is ostensibly about a far-flung journey but is really a meditation on how we go along with value systems we don’t actually believe in.

The Loser, the short novel by Joseph Bernhard about two of Glenn Gould’s less-talented classmates. Well-written and all, but 160 pages about suicidal narcissism was all I could handle. Still want to read some of Bernhard’s stage satires.

Obedience to Authority, Stanley Milgram’s 1974 book about his controversial experiments in which he asked average citizens to administer electrical shocks to other human beings in the “name of science.” I’m still not wholly convinced about the banality of evil, but Milgram makes quite a compelling case. A discomfiting and worthwhile read.

You know, if I didn’t spend every waking hour mocking Donald Trump, I could read LOTS more books. But it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.