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I am just starting to read a "most highly anticipated book of 2026" based on a recommendation from a local "political" bookstore's almost daily spam newsletter I am on a mailing list for. The topic is the basis of force of International Law. I had not anticipated the book personally, nor had I heard of the author, a professor at an elite Northeastern college. But the topic sounded a bit irresistible to me in light of current events-- and in a book highly anticipated by someone no less-- so I snapped it up. Already on reading the Introduction, alarm bells are going off. The introduction indicates that the Nuremberg Trials will be a focus, which makes sense, but as for contemporary topics, while it makes reference to Putin's aggression against Ukraine, there is not one mention of Gaza. Since it was Gaza that motivated my interest in the topic to begin with, I ask myself, what can be said of a book on the topic of international law published rather deep into 2026 that does not promise in its introduction to treat the issue of Gaza? I start to wonder, is this going to be the at least one book per year I have been told I should try to read that I do not agree with?
I don't remember where I came across this piece of advice about one's reading habits-- it seems likely to have come from Current Affairs editor Nathan J Robinson or someone like that-- but I do remember my distaste for the idea when it was proposed to me. I don't think it should be much of a challenge to imagine why a very prolific reader would suggest such a thing. It can't be a bad thing to expose yourself to the caliber of thought of influential people you disagree with. Challenging your beliefs strengthens your own argument on the theory that what does not kill my principles makes them stronger. But the thought of deliberately putting myself through the exercise of trying to stomach the literary voice of a Bill O'Reilly, an Ezra Klein or an Ann Coulter makes me gag. I couldn't see myself doing it as a matter of habit. But as my habit demands a steady stream of new titles to read, I would keep it in mind.
What happened instead was that the advice became a guidepost for me for those instances I was already familiar with of finding myself in the middle of reading a book I had innocently "anticipated" for some preconceived notion that turned out to be something else-- rather like what I am now preparing myself for with the book on International Law that I'm currently reading. In short, it is now my firmly established habit that while I won't generally seek out titles I expect to disagree with for the purposes recommended by whoever introduced me to the concept of the intentional annual hate read, when I find myself in the middle of one I will finish reading it on the basis that it will satisfy the ideal quota.
For instance, last year, probably on the basis of a recommendation from the very same political bookstore's newsletter, I leapt on Breakneck, by Canadian tech writer Dan Wang on the topic of China's intention to dominate engineering at which it is largely succeeding. I came across the title fresh from learning about the Chinese version of AI which reportedly actually does machine learning with far fewer resources than the over-hyped American vaporware version, as well as the electric vehicle from Chinese car company BYD models of which can be purchased for less than $20,000 wherever they are allowed in the market, and which can be fully charged in the time it takes to fill a gas tank. I expected some journalism about what made Chinese innovation possible and how it could be emulated in the United States, and failing that support for the idea of liberating the US market for Chinese products. I did not expect a whiny echo of Ezra Klein's neo-liberal Abundance bullshit, which is what I got. Had it not been for the Hate Read quota, I might have abandoned it close to the jump, but I soldiered through. If nothing else, I got some value for the bucks I spent on it.
A very similar experience occurred reading the much vaunted collaboration of emeritus Princeton economics professors (and real life husband and wife) Anne Case and Sir Angus Beaton, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. This was a book that had been mentioned in several recent titles I had read that had earned my respect. In finally undertaking the filling in of this gap in my personal bibliography, I was focused on the first half of the title, a reference to the phenomenon of suicides, overdoses and other avoidable deaths due to neglect and lack of healthcare among the largest poorest percentiles of Americans. I was not keyed into the puzzling emphasis on the second half of the title, the preservation of Capitalism in spite of the epidemic of desperate deaths. Nothing could have prepared me, given the severity of the problem discussed for Case and Beaton's insistence that Medicare for all was not part of the solution, but rather that what was needed was more capitalism. In light of its obtuse insistence on Capitalism as not only the cause but the cure of the epidemic, it never fails to surprise me that the bulk of references to the book that I come across in readings to this day do not mention this gaping flaw.
A little more in keeping with the Hate Read Quota, I purposely selected Dirtbag by Amber A'Lee Frost a couple of years ago when it came out. It's a collection of memoir-flavored essays about her brand of irreverent leftist politics as could be encountered via her writings for Jacobin, Current Affairs and other leftist journals and particularly her semi-regular hosting of the Chapo Trap House podcast with Will Menaker, Matt Christman, Felix Bederman and (formerly) Virgil Texas. I have been edified by Frost's formerly fresh perspective on multiple occasions over the years, but had become impatient with the growing pre-occupation with Democrat Derangement Syndrome at least in my sparser and sparser encounters with the dirtbag scene, and what once seemed fresh has now taken on a patina of stale. Pre-COVID it was impossible not to trip over members of the Trap House in any casual surfing for leftist media online, but as my own quest for a leftism I can live (and hope) with post Bernie Sanders has developed over time, I am finding the Dirtbag left, outside of some overlap with my own orientations, to be a mostly empty pose. My last encounter with Frost was in a discussion around the launch of her book in which she reveled in the disgust she felt for the earnest sincerity of Greta Thunberg. Having nothing else lined up at the time and knowing that Frost's style would at least be palatable and might occasionally be entertaining I took the plunge. As I expected, the charm of the Dirtbag approach had worn off for me. Beware of being trapped in a pose. You might get stuck that way.
I was introduced to former New Republic editor Martin Peretz's The Controversialist by an essay by the Nation's Jeet Heer (himself a former writer for New Republic) who highly recommended it for its fascinating "unreliable narrator" view of the devolution of a leftist into neo-conservatism. Peretz had gone through a period of disgrace following the disaster of the Iraq War that he pushed aggressively in the pages of his magazine and had written the memoir to explain himself and to make an attempt at another few moments in the conversation. True to Heer's word, it was a fun read. It was clear to me that from the start what Peretz had always been was a Zionist first and foremost. Any beliefs that contradicted that stance had had to be jettisoned along the way and at the end of a long career of contrary refinement, Zionism was essentially all that was left.
Am I about to face something similar with the book I'm reading? I don't know but I am itching to find out.
