Recently Mentioned Books

6. Michael Lentz, Schattenfroh .  About one thousand pages, it is receiving buzz as a new novel to master, some are calling it “the new Solenoid” (not a positive for everyone, I do understand).  I have tried parts in English and parts in German, but still I do not get it.  Does it have a plot?  Any humor?  For purposes of norming, I am a big fan of James Joyce’s Ulysses .  I will try it again, however.  At least the author was not complacent.

5. Jordana Pomeroy, Daring: The Life and Art of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun .  Both a book and a picture book rolled into one.  This new release is a very good introduction to her life, her art, and her role as semi-official court painter for Marie de Antoinette.  She remains an underrated artist.

4. Chuck Klosterman, Football .  An excellent and highly conceptual book about America’s favorite sport.  Could this be the best book on (American) football ever?

3. Arundhati Roy, Mother Mary Comes to Me .  Well-written, but at some point I started wondering why I should care.  OK, Mama was a pain in the ass, but then what?  You had to take care of her when she was old.  I guess I prefer whaling tales?

2. Dave Edmonds, Death in a Shallow Pond: A Philosopher, A Drowning Child, and Strangers in Need .  An engaging but also intellectually serious history of some strands of utilitarianism and effective altruism.  I was happy to blurb this book, you may recall Edmonds also wrote the excellent biography of Derek Parfit.

1. Mark Gilbert, Italy Reborn: From Fascism to Democracy .  How Italy built a democracy after WWII, more or less out of nothing.  An optimistic and good book.  De Gasperi was a great man, and essential to the building out of a democratic Italy, yet today his name is hardly known.

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him soon.  Most of all (but not exclusively ) about his three recent books Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom , Manipulation: What It Is, Why It Is Bad, What To Do About It , and Imperfect Oracle: What AI Can and Cannot Do .

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him soon.  Most of all (but not exclusively ) about his three recent books Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom , Manipulation: What It Is, Why It Is Bad, What To Do About It , and Imperfect Oracle: What AI Can and Cannot Do .

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him soon.  Most of all (but not exclusively ) about his three recent books Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom , Manipulation: What It Is, Why It Is Bad, What To Do About It , and Imperfect Oracle: What AI Can and Cannot Do .

This excellent and neglected novel deserves a new look in our time.  As Christian Lorentzen points out in his useful introduction, if you are interested in (non-Submission) Houellebecq, this is the next place to go.  How exactly did we get on the Houellebecq sexual emptiness path to begin with?  This novel was published in 1960, and it shows the first steps toward the sexual revolution and the rise of more open sexual competition, with a nod in the direction of what the final results are going t...

2. RIP Luis Fernando Verissimo . Borges and the Eternal Orangutans is a very fun book for me.

The subtitle is The Scientist as Public Intellectual , and the author is my very good friend Jim Olds, who works at George Mason University.  A very timely topic, here is one excerpt:

2. Two Edward Yang movies have been released by Criterion .

There is Carl Benedikt Frey, How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations .

Pablo A. Pena, Human Capital for Humans: An Accessible Introduction to the Economic Science of the People , is a good popular-level introduction to human capital theory.

Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance .  934 pp. of text, covers too many topics in too desultory a fashion?

Andrew Sean Greer, Less: A Novel .  I do not like much in contemporary American fiction, but so far I am quite enjoying this one.

Bench Ansfield, Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City .  Whenever a book demonstrates what people in New Jersey have known for decades, usually it is a good book.

Edmund Phelps, My Journeys in Economic Theory .  A fascinating memoir, I had not known he was so obsessed with Rawls and Nagel.  He also loved the tenor Franco Corelli, and was a Birgit Nilsson fan too.  Recommended, for those who like this sort of thing, and who already are familiar with the cast of characters.

David Woodman, The First King of England: Aethelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom .  An excellent work.  One of the best books on early English history, and also one of the best books on how the Dark Ages morphed into early Medieval times.  Usually I find treatments in both areas difficult to follow, but this one produces a coherent and also non-exaggerated narrative.  It also will make you want to visit Northumbria.

John has a new book coming out, namely It’s Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders .  So what should I ask him?

This 1103 pp. book reflects a great deal of learning, and it is often interesting to read.  It is well-written.  So virtually everyone can absorb interesting things from it.  In that sense I am happy to recommend it.

Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him.  David recently published Saudi Arabia: A Modern History , a very good and useful book.  He has numerous other books on Wahhabism, the history of the Gulf region, and also Syria.  Currently he teaches at Dickinson College .

The author is Samuel Scheffler, and the subtitle is The Mysteries of Time and the Goods of Attachment .  He is one of America’s leading philosophers, and proves it once again here.

Yes, I will be having another Conversation with him.  Much of it will focus on Steven’s forthcoming book When Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows…Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life .