Christopher Scalia on Finding Your Next Novel

May 29, 2025

48:32

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In a world competing for our attention, our guest this week admits: "It's probably harder to read novels now than it ever was." But their value cannot be overstated. The novel's unique humanity, its careful and open treatment of the human experience, helps us to develop a sympathetic imagination, tuning our hearts and minds in a way that non-fiction argument simply cannot.

Christopher Scalia, author of 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven't Read), makes the case that it is a distinctly conservative interest to explore the Western tradition through fiction. Recommendations in hand, he invites adults to refresh their reading list with novels—from the very inception of the form up to the present.

Chapters:

1:47 The great book rut

4:11 Novels: the medium of recent Western tradition

5:30 The 18th-century bildungsroman

9:47 "Conservative" themes

16:18 The American dream in My Ántonia

22:39 Miraculous realism in Peace Like a River

29:02 Acknowledging the existence of evil

31:44 Wonder and encounter over strict interpretation

37:03 Revisiting works from your school years

38:47 Why narrative works

42:01 Books that nearly made the cut