Spinoza Problem / Irvin Yalom 321 p.

A strange and beautiful book, this is the fictionalized story of Baruch Spinoza, the 17th century Jewish-Dutch philosopher, and Alfred Rosenberg, one of Hitler's 'philosophers'.  The connection is that as a young man, Rosenberg develops a passion for the German poet Goethe, and is horrified to discover that Goethe was greatly inspired by the work of Spinoza, a Jew.  He struggles to make sense of this seeming conundrum throughout his life.  His failure to understand Goethe, Spinoza, and ultimately, Hitler himself leads to his downfall. He is a horrifying person but in Yalom's hands he isn't a caricature, and we are left feeling mostly sorry that a reasonably talented mind was put to such terrible use.

I knew very little about Spinoza before reading this and I loved Yalom's portrayal of him.  Fully ostracized from the Dutch/Portuguese Jewish community for his writings on Hebrew scripture and the Divine (which were later banned by the Catholic church as well), he lived a quiet life as a lens grinder while continuing to write works which influenced the course of Western thought.