I've been finishing about one book per week every week for the last 3 years. It's probably my favorite hobby. I read mostly non-fiction and take lots of notes.
While these 10 books aren't about current events (most of them are pretty old) they all deeply apply to what's happening now. I've read a lot of good stuff and a lot of crap, but these 10 are the best time investments I've made when it comes to reading. I think they're very important and relevant.
The books by topic:
Political Psychology
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind By Gustave Le Bon
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer
Thought Reform And The Psychology Of Totalism by Robert Jay Lifton
Max Weber on Charisma and Institution Building; Selected Papers
History & Culture
The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature by C. S. Lewis
The Pagan Temptation by Thomas Molnar
Political Philosophy
The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy by Carl Schmitt
Fascism Viewed from the Right by Julius Evola
King of the Castle: Choice and Responsibility in the Modern World by Gai Eaton
Huge fan of Eric Hoffer. Read all his books and true believer many times.
There is an awesome interview on YouTube with Hoffer. Search "Eric Hoffer CBS interview"
Great backstory on that interview. A lot of people thought Hoffer was a fraud before this interview.
How could an uneducated person write something like the true believer?
Hoffer dropped out of school in like the 8th grade.
Anyway, they had this highly educated ivy league guy interview him and rest was history.
The guy was instantly mesmerized by Hoffers intellect.
Was shelved by CBS for over 50 years, then one day? Popped up on YouTube.
Finally, Demet Mathias recently expanded on Hoffers seminal work with his book, Totalitarianism.
Highly recommend it.
Explains mass formation and how people will not admit their mistakes even after the science is in.
It explains how highly educated and "intelligent" people can be so damn dumb, lol.
One additional tidbit. For those fans of Thomas Sowell? Sowell credits Hoffer as one of his main mentors.