If you\u2019re looking for a summer read and can\u2019t seem to find anything interesting on the shelf, there\u2019s a new book you should consider. Actually, it\u2019s a book about other books you should read.<\/p>\n
Hot off the press, \u201c13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (But Probably Haven\u2019t Read)<\/a>\u201d is an excellent introduction to a collection of novels that engage with the conservative ideals through the art form of literature. In a conversation with The Daily Signal, author Christopher Scalia explained the inspiration for the book, its purpose for the conservative movement, and its appeal as a list of fictional works.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you talk to conservatives<\/a> who like to read fiction, you can find them,\u201d Scalia said. \u201cBut they tend to praise the same handful of books or authors. Those aren\u2019t necessarily bad books or authors, and the purpose of this book is not to say stop reading those books\u2014but it\u2019s an attempt to expand the conservative bookshelf a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n The book reviews authors who deal with themes of interest to conservatives<\/a> or depict conservative characters and their values in sympathetic ways. Scalia aims to broaden the conservative\u2019s library to authors beyond Evelyn Waugh, J.R.R. Tolkien, or Fydor Dostoevsky.<\/p>\n Ordered chronologically, the book examines 13 more obscure novels by well-known authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and George Eliot but also introduces the reader to names like Leif Enger and Christopher Beha. It was the important, and often overlooked, tie between conservatism and fiction that helped Scalia curate the list, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the past couple of decades, conservatives have<\/a> recognized how important culture is in shaping a people, shaping a nation,\u201d said Scalia. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen how conservatives have tried to act on that by forming production studios and the like, but I think fiction, and the novel in particular, is something we might overlook, in part because there might be the assumption that literature is necessarily a left-wing cultural concern.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a big mistake, said Scalia, and a very unconservative one.<\/p>\n \u201cClosing yourself off from the novel is closing yourself off to some of the greatest cultural accomplishments of Western civilization in the past several 100 years. And that\u2019s just not a very conservative<\/a> thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n