I might have mentioned a time or two that the Nogglestead library stacks are deep and wide (and unorganized except for the difference between the shelves where I put read books and where I put books I have yet to read, although those are commingling now on one shelf at least).
When my youngest was in the Lutheran elementary school, he asked if we had a copy of something they were going to read in his fourth grade class–I forget the exact title. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder? He read that in fourth grade, and I read it in 2018. Whatever he was looking for, I provided it, and he said that any book Ms. Cole wanted them to read, we already had a copy at home, so he could read ahead (ah, back when he read!). Of course, when he left Lutheran school and went to public high school, that was no longer the case since we don’t have much of recent, and topical, vintage.
Fast forward to 2026 (and, boy howdy, does it seem like fast forward in retrospect). My oldest is now getting interested in philosophy; as part of our 2020 supplemental stay-at-home coursework, I got the boys copies of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, and the oldest has talked about Locke and Hobbes. A week or so ago, he asked if we had a copy of Summa Theologiae, and of course we do (but I don’t think he will read it before I do; it’s in my queue sometime after The Story of Civilization).
But last week, the Nogglestead library let him down.
He was looking for a book by Evola, of whom I’d never even heard. Actually, I think he was looking for anything by the author, not a specific book. But, no, I don’t think (I can never be sure what one will find amongst the shelves here, something I bought on a box day in 2008).
When I saw the name in some Substack or another, where Evola was lumped in as a “real warrior” with Teddy Roosevelt and Junger, I looked him up, and:
Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola (Italian: [ˈɛːvola];[1] 19 May 1898 – 11 June 1974), better known as Julius Evola, was an Italian far-right philosopher and writer. Evola regarded his values as traditionalist, aristocratic, martial and imperialist. An esoteric thinker in Fascist Italy,[2] he also had ties to Nazi Germany.[3][4] In the post-war era, he was an ideological mentor of the Italian neo-fascist and militant right.[5]
An obscure Italian thinker having his moment in the sun of dissident right videos and Substacks as our society retribalizes.
Not the sort of thing one finds at library book fairs or garage sales in the middle of Missouri. Well, not yet, anyway.
Not sure that the oldest would actually read it, though. He tends to cycle through summary thoughts presented to him via the Internet and to get interested in books but not to actually read or finish them.
