Recently Mentioned Books

Domenico Scarlatti Sonatas , by Angela Hewitt.  This is the recording I feel most comfortable recommending to most of you.

Brahms Lieder and Liebeslieder Waltzes , by Andrea Rose, Thomas Quasthoff, et.al.  Finally a rendition as good as the classic Vronsky/Babin recording.

Inspired by Brahms: Music for Horn Trio , including works by Ewazen, Kellogg, and Brahms.  After German Requiem, the Horn Trio is perhaps my favorite work by Brahms.

The Complete Songs of Virgil Thomson for Voice and Piano , by the Florestan Recital Project.  This release wins the prize for “music I didn’t really know existed before.”  Here is one stellar review .

3. “If this book has one thesis, it’s that America suffers from a surfeit of representation, and a deficit of administration.” — that is from Parag Khanna , drawing from his new book Technocracy in America .

I.M. Lerner and Catherine L. Osornio, The Secret Under the Staircase , and The Hidden Entrance .  Here the age range seems to be higher, maybe 10-12?  I feel I could have read them younger than that, however.

I.M. Lerner and Catherine L. Osornio, The Secret Under the Staircase , and The Hidden Entrance .  Here the age range seems to be higher, maybe 10-12?  I feel I could have read them younger than that, however.

I cannot trace whether Obama’s Chinese publishers are state-owned companies, but most likely they are. Some of the other Obama foreign publishers might be too.  Does that count as a violation of the clause?  Presumably there are foreign translations of some of Trump’s books too, or there will be.  JFK also had published books before he became president, and likely there were foreign rights sales of those too.

I wanted to like this book, as I am keen to discover new perspectives on the arts, even if I don’t agree with them.  “False” books on the arts often illuminate the artworks themselves, sometimes more than do the “true” treatments.  Yet this work I had a tough time making sense of.  I will confess to having read only about a third of it, and browsed some more.  As I understand the book’s thesis, the plasticity of the brain, as it changes across historical eras, helps explain changes in the conten...

3. Novel : Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart .  Honorable mentions go to Wole Soyinka, Ben Okri, and my colleague Helon Habila.  There are also the Nigerian-American writers, such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie .  Teju Cole is worth reading, including his non-fiction.

You will note that some of this argument draws on earlier research by Paul Krugman , though I am not suggesting he necessarily agrees with my application or interpretation; here are his recent remarks .

That is from Hume’s History of England , via Dan Klein and also Andrew Sabl .

That is from Teju Cole, Known and Strange Things , a book of essays.

That is by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, published this November , a great book, could it be the very best book on the charm and importance of the Caribbean?  Not the Caribbean of the cruise, but rather the real cultural Caribbean as found in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and Trinidad.  The Caribbean was open, globalized, multiracial, vulnerable, and deindustrialized before it was “cool” to be so, and so it stands as a warning to us all.  Yet so few seem to care.  The Caribbean cultural blossoming of the 20th ...

Johan Norberg, Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future , a Julian Simon-esque take on the case for optimism.

Niall Kishtainy, A Little History of Economics , a modern-day Heilbroner.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable , foreword by Bernie Sanders.

3. Philippe Girard, Toussaint Louverture .  One of the best and most readable treatments of the Haitian revolution, with a focus on Louverture of course.  Here is one good bit:

2. Ian Thomson, Primo Levi .  One of my favorite literary biographies, ever.  This is also a first-rate look at the history of the Holocaust, and the postwar Italian literary world.  Definitely recommended.

1. Charles Wohlforth and Amanda R. Hendrix, Beyond Earth; Our Path to a New Home in the Planets .  The core claim is that humans can (will?) colonize Titan, the moon of Saturn.  But what are we to make of sentences such as: “The temperature is around -180 Celsius (-290 Fahrenheit), but clothing with thick insulation or heating elements would keep you comfortable.  A rip wouldn’t kill you as long as you didn’t freeze.”  Pregnancy would be tricky too.

Here is his Wikipedia page , and his most recent book is David: The Divided Heart .

He was the driving force behind three of the best (non-Beatles) songs of the 1960s/early 1970s: Bluebird, Wooden Ships, and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes; in the process he anchored two of the major super-groups of that era.  “For What It’s Worth” is one of the most recognizable and oft-used iconic songs of the 1960s.  “Helplessly Hoping” is good too.  He was an underrated guitarist, try Super Session , with Michael Bloomfield and Al Kooper.

Here you can order Joe’s book The Secret of our Success: How Culture is Driving Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making us Smarter .

That is from the quite good Herzl’s Vision: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State , p.102.  For one thing, Herzl was attracted by the story line that featured a man wandering without a homeland.

I thought the contributions by Kanye West and Frank Orange mostly delivered, but were not their very best material, and I don’t think I will be listening to those works two or three years from now.  The albums by the old guys and also by the dead guys were pretty good, but ultimately sentimental picks and I refuse to make these lists about sentiment.  The album from last year I found myself still listening to more than I had expected was Small Town Heroes, Hurray For the Riff Raff .