{T} his year marks the start of my second decade doing this annual review of notable recently published books — and I can say without hesitation that I hope we do not face another year as bad as 2023. The savage October 7 attacks in Israel and the troubling support for Hamas across the West will forever cast a dark shadow on this year. At this moment in the history of Judeo-Christian civilization, it has never been more important to be informed, to understand the context of our current debates, and to be resolute in defending our highest ideals.

Looking back at the year, I saw that I had read a lot of books with Israel-related content even before October 7. And None Shall Make Them Afraid, by Rick Richman, and Providence and Power, by Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, are both group biographies of Jewish and Israeli leaders, showing that the combination of antisemitism, terrorism, and being forced to stand alone in a world that doesn’t care are not new conditions for the Jewish people. Palestine 1936, by Oren Kessler, demonstrates that the origins of many elements of today’s Arab–Israeli conflict date back to that eventful year, and that wholesale slaughter and other atrocities are unfortunately not a new tactic on the part of Arabs. Joseph Berger’s biography Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence is not about Israel, but it’s worth a look for its encapsulation of Wiesel’s impressive career, as well as its discussion of how to maintain faith in the face of horrific circumstances — something obviously relevant in the post–October 7 environment.

The first Israel-related book I read after October 7 was The Genius of Israel, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. This book, the follow-up to their mega hit Start-Up Nation, looks at the special sauce that has led to Israel’s being a successful nation in a region plagued by dysfunction, oppression, and economic stagnation. Of course, it was that very extraordinary growth and multiethnic prosperity that led the nation to look inward and mistakenly believe that Hamas would eventually want to seek economic opportunity as well. October 7 shattered that illusion, reminding the world that Islamist extremists across the globe seek the liquidation of Jews — and the West — at all costs.

The story of the West — and humanity writ large — is ultimately based on how individuals respond to challenges. That’s why a steady diet of biographies is so important. I read a number of fascinating ones this year, starting with Elon Musk, by Walter Isaacson. The book has a lot of insights into Musk’s business brilliance, but it also shows how his impulsiveness led to many spectacular mistakes, such as the costly purchase of Twitter, now X. Another one of those mistakes may have been allowing Isaacson the level of access he received in the making of this largely critical book. Franklin Foer’s The Last Politician also gives mixed treatment to its subject, in this case Joe Biden. Foer has lots of detail on grumblings within the Biden administration about Kamala Harris’s political problems, Biden’s tendency to ramble on, and, of course, Biden’s intense dislike of David Axelrod, whom the president recently called a pr**k.

In G-Man, Beverly Gage writes about J. Edgar Hoover in another mixed portrayal, one that is actually a step up for the much-maligned former FBI director. We learn from the book how Hoover’s training as a librarian helped him access information quickly in an era before computers. Interestingly, we also learn how, for much of his career, he was a voice within the government looking to protect American civil liberties, until his desire to please presidents such as Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon led him astray in his later years.

If you like more positive biographies, Richard Norton Smith’s book on Gerald Ford, An Ordinary Man, may be the one for you. In Smith’s telling, Ford is seriously underestimated, having been an impressive congressional leader for many years, a vice president in extremely challenging circumstances, and a capable president in an eventful time. Another positive biography of a former vice president is Samuel Freedman’s Into the Bright Sunshine, about Hubert Humphrey and his fight for civil rights. Humphrey grew up in poverty in South Dakota and certainly did not seem to be on a trajectory for the halls of power by his mid 20s. But an impressive intellect and strong speaking skills allowed him not only to shine, but also to force the issue of civil rights onto the national agenda and even to get the Democratic Party to adopt a civil-rights plank in its 1948 platform.

This year saw a lot of books on the news media. Ben Smith’s Traffic talks about the rise of BuzzFeed, the development of click-bait, and the resulting implications for news and for society. Adam Nagourney’s The Times takes readers on a somewhat worrisome look inside the newsroom at the New York Times over the last three decades. This is not exactly the way Nagourney tells it, but this was the period in which the Times, through a combination of scandals and its own arrogance, lost the trust of the American people and destabilized the very concept of objective news coverage. Chris Stirewalt’s Broken News provides insights into how the news media have changed for the worse in recent decades. The book is enlivened by his trademark humor and the story of his own adventures through the modern media landscape. In The Controversialist, Martin Peretz paints an honest picture of The New Republic and its fall from perhaps the best magazine in America to its largely irrelevant status today. At the magazine’s zenith, Peretz seemed to know almost everyone of importance in the liberal political and media worlds of Washington and Cambridge. The book is filled with biting wit and amusing episodes involving the many famous politicians and players Peretz encountered.

These grim times have led to a number of books about how we got to our current state. In American Breakdown, the Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker explores the decline of American institutions. His survey covers major sectors such as media, government, and health care and is definitely not for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, the British-born Baker has useful recommendations for renewal, believing like so many immigrants to America that our best days lie ahead. Baker might also take some solace from Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, and John Early’s The Myth of American Inequality. We constantly hear about how inequality is worse now than it has ever been before, but former senator Gramm and his colleagues lay out the facts. They show that the top earners pay far more in taxes than the rest of society, that transfer payments mean that inequality is not nearly as great as is generally thought, and that wiser policies can lead us to a better place. Matt Lewis also has a policy recommendation in his book Filthy Rich Politicians. Lewis, a podcaster and Daily Beast columnist, presents a depressing array of examples of both super-rich people succeeding in politics and others becoming super rich because of their time in politics. One policy that Lewis thinks is an absolute necessity is to stop elected representatives from being able to trade stocks while serving in Congress.

Christopher Rufo’s America’s Cultural Revolution provides a chilling and readable portrait of four leftists — Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Freire, and Derrick Bell — who imposed their very problematic and dangerous views on America. When we look at the moral pygmies on American campuses advocating barbarism over civilization and their rejection of our shared cultural heritage, we might wonder at the state of academia; Rufo explains how these four are responsible for much of it. Despite the leftist stranglehold on our universities and many corporations, Rufo thinks that if four people can do so much damage in such a short time then that means there’s a pathway for equally determined people to try to turn things around.

All the negative news we saw this year made me eager for some distraction reading. Your Table Is Ready, by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina, is a riveting behind-the-scenes look at what goes into creating a fine-dining experience. Reading it as I was watching the TV series The Bear made me appreciate not only The Bear’s verisimilitude but also how much work it takes to get that tasty meal from the back operations to your table. The Last Action Heroes, by Nick de Semlyen, was a fun look back at the top action stars of the 1980s and 1990s. Unsurprisingly, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the star of the book, impressing readers with his strategic sense, his good-natured ribbing of Bruce Willis, and his constant takedowns of his lifelong rival, Sylvester Stallone. The best story is how Schwarzenegger, hearing that Stallone was looking for a comedy vehicle, let it be known that he was eager to do Stop, or My Mom Will Shoot, which became a terrible film that Stallone starred in with Estelle Getty. Schwarzenegger knew all along that the script was a dog, but he wanted to goad Stallone into making a turkey, which he successfully did. Finally, I read Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing for a look into how Perry went from being a teen tennis player and general clown to one of the top sitcom stars of all time. Unfortunately, Perry tragically died soon after I finished the book, which seemed to put an exclamation point on an all-around depressing 2023.