Recently Mentioned Books

12. Stefan Zweig . The World of Yesterday is a favorite, sad and bittersweet, and it treats the European civilization that was passing away at the time of the Second World War, still relevant.  Zweig committed suicide in Brazil, here is an excellent biography .  The rest of his fiction still is read around much of the world (not so much America, famously in Russia), but I find it pretty ordinary and of its time.

2. Hermann Broch . Death of Virgil is a 20th century classic, again much under-read amongst the American educated classes. Die Schlafwandler [The Sleepwalkers] is impressive, and perhaps seen as his major work, but it is more uneven in quality and eventually it falls apart.

2. Hermann Broch . Death of Virgil is a 20th century classic, again much under-read amongst the American educated classes. Die Schlafwandler [The Sleepwalkers] is impressive, and perhaps seen as his major work, but it is more uneven in quality and eventually it falls apart.

1. Thomas Bernhard .  One of the very best post-war writers, obsessive and funny and extremely neurotic. The Loser [Der Untegeher] is the one that works best in English, though his unique style is not at its most fevered pitch. Wittgensteins Neffe [Wittgenstein’s Nephew] is my favorite, one of the smartest and funniest novels I know, close to perfect. Das Kalkwerk is entrancing, though I suspect unreadable in English.  He remains grossly underrated in the English-speaking world, mostly for lingu...

Most of all, this book focuses on the determinants of US trade policy.  I am just starting to make my way through it, highly recommended, readable too, and of course all of these issues matter more than you thought they were going to.  You can pre-order here .

What also appears valuable, but I cannot read right now, is Kevin R. Brine and Mary Poovey, Finance in America: An Unfinished Story .

Arrived in my pile is the exhaustive and comprehensive Edward N. Wolff, A Century of Wealth in America .  This is likely to prove an important work for many researchers.

5. Slavoj Žižek, The Fragile Absolute: Or Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? A lot of this book is only so-so, but the Preface — “A Glance into the Archives of Islam” — counts as one of the better works I’ve read this year, even though it comes in at only 27 pp.  It covers Hagar and Sarah, how Muslim and Christian understandings of the Abraham story differ, and the intellectual sources of institutional problems with Islam and political order.  That’s the secret to reading SZ, not to...

4. Regulating Wall Street: Choice Act vs. Dodd-Frank , published by NYU, with many notable contributors including multiple essays by Lawrence J. White.  Balanced, judicious, the best look so far at pending reforms to banking and finance.

3. William R. Cline, The Right Balance for Banks: Theory and Evidence on Optimal Capital Requirements .  Not for the unconverted, but a good guide for anyone with a prior interest.  Capital requirements should be higher, but it is wrong to think the American economy currently has “too much finance.”

2. Yaroslav Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca: The 1979 Uprising at Islam’s Holy Shrine .  Compulsively readable, and also excellent background on both the Gulf region and the Saudi-Iran conflict.

1. Yiyun Li, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life .  One of the few books that have a perfect title.  These are a cross between short stories, ruminations, and essays.  Yiyun Li is from China, yet she refuses to write in Chinese or to have her work published in Chinese.  At times you wonder what is really in here, but her voice and vision stick with you.

3. A new book, due out in August: iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood–and What That Means for the Rest of Us .  By Jean M. Twenge.

1. Chemicals manufacturer : I think that one has to go to the Duponts, I enjoyed the Gerard Zilg biography of the Dupont family and history .

Bradley M. Gardner, China’s Great Migration: How the Poor Built a Prosperous Nation , is a good introduction to what the title promises.

Jesse Eisinger, The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives , is a useful look at why so many cases are leveled against the company rather than the CEO. I found the book worthwhile, but don’t think he offered much of an argument as to why that should be bad.

Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman, A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age , is a quality treatment of its topic material.

Michael Vatikiotis, Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in Modern Southeast Asia , a useful introduction to why that part of the world has not turned into paradise.

2. Hollis Robbins and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers .  Plenty of libertarian thought in here, and many historical tidbits of interest, for instance Julia Caldwell-Frazier, “The Decisions of Time” (1889) p. 486:

2. Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream .  A well-known Argentinean novel, finally available in English.  A kind of ghost story, imagining wondering if the soul of your dying child really has been transferred to another person.  Short and very powerful.  Here is one very good review .

1. Robert Knapp, The Dawn of Christianity: People and Gods in a Time of Magic and Miracles .  Jews, Christians, and polytheists, mostly in the first century after the birth of Christ.  Strongly conceptual, rather than a string of hard-to-remember facts and citations.  Here is a useful summary review .

That is from the new and useful book by Allen J. Fromherz, Qatar: A Modern History , updated edition, recently published by Georgetown University Press.

Peter Brannen, The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions .

Scott E. Page, The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy .

Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A Young Man’s Voice from the Silence of Autism , by Naoki Higashida, is a good autism memoir from Japan.