Easily my favourite rat bastard among many is Michael Malice (no relation).

On Episodes 11 and 16 [and, later, 27] of his chat show “YOUR WELCOME” ( sic ), Malice provided a list of variously his “favourite” books or books one ought to read.

(RSS [or just of those episodes].)

Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton

Not Robert Caro’s books on Lyndon Johnson, as suggested by a caller and summarily rejected

“If you are right of centre, this is downright pornography”: Thatcher: The Downing Street Years (YouTubé)

Within the Frederick Copleston nine-volume history of philosophy, Volume 7: The Germans (not its actual title); also From Luther to Hitler ; Max Sterner, The Ego and Its Own (“you like his tone because it’s very fuck-you and, you know, just very fuck-everybody”). “God, I have a lot of German books on this list. That’s interesting”

“This is a must”: John Patrick Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America

Albert Camus, The Rebel and The Myth of Sisyphus (also his biography [“I’m blanking on the author”]): “how intensely he believed in doing the right thing no matter what the costs are”

Auschwitz (mentioned on both episodes, complete with the same anecdote)

Arthur D. Morse, While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy

The Illusion of Victory: The True Costs of War

Tokyo Vice : “A lot of people I know who might or might not be on the spectrum just don’t like fiction. So a good nonfiction book reads like a novel. And this is one”

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Thurston (“A very admirable human being”): Her era “was when downtown whites – leftists – found black people interesting, and as soon as the Depression hit they threw them in the garbage. So it’s a fascinating look at that time”

Intellectuals and Society by “the best conservative writer, in my view,” Thomas Sowell. (“Isn’t that a terrible cover?”)

Mapplethorpe: A Biography “because at different points he’s super-racist.” “At the time, photography was not regarded as something that could be art. It was regarded as… I dunno”

Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship : “yet you never hear about Regan and Thatcher winning the Cold War and liberating half the world peacefully, which I would say may be the greatest achievement ever.” (Two citations of Thatcher, but none of Claire Berlinski on Thatcher)

David Pietrusza, 1948

Luc Santé, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York : “he talks about all these people who, if conservatives had their way, wouldn’t even be mentioned at all”

Mark Skousen, The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great Thinkers

Steven Goldberg, Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance

Camille Paglia: “She doesn’t have any really accessible books. She’s a great, great talker” (but cf. her disco-classics list)

The Tree of Gnosis: Gnostic Mythology from Early Christianity to Modern Nihilism

Henry Mayer, All on Fire

The Liberal Reformers (“and the second half is terrible”); not apparently the exact title

Amy Borkowsky, Statements : “a ‘humour’ book – in form, it is ‘humorous.’ But as you read it, there is no humour there. It is perfectly humourless even though it is purporting to be a humour book”

Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son (“and this book is beautifully written”)

Ayn Rand: “you have to read her books in order or you are going to be a very bad person” ( Anthem , The Fountainhead , then Atlas Shrugged ), all of which you can easily look up yourself