Recently Mentioned Books

There are post-war Eastern European novels galore, where to start? In the First Circle ?  Still, communist bureaucracies are no longer so typical, so I am not ready to award any of these novels first prize.  Gogol’s earlier Dead Souls also stands out as a Russian candidate.

You can pre-order the book here , the book’s home page is here .

That is the Italian edition of Average is Over , the subtitle is “ Ipermeritocrazie e futuro del lavoro ,” and you can find a copy here .

Alvin Roth, Who Gets What — and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design .

Brendan O’Flaherty, The Economics of Race in the United States .

Dan Ariely, Irrationally Yours: On Missing Socks, Pickup Lines, and Other Existential Puzzles .

Steven J. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, When to Rob a Bank…and 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants .

Dirk Philipsen, The Little Big Number: How GDP Came to Rule the World and What to Do About It .

Adrian Wooldridge, The Great Disruption: How Business is Coping with Turbulent Times .

That is the new book by Ashlee Vance , and so far it is the book I have enjoyed most this year.  Highly recommended.

I also recommend Sverre Bagge, Cross & Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation .  If nothing else, this book will make you wonder if the recent success of the Nordic nations are in fact so deeply historically rooted after all.  As North (p.205) points out: “Industrialization arrived in all of these countries relatively late.”  Tom Buk-Swienty’s 1864: The Forgotten War That Shaped Modern Europe is a good book on how and why Denmark lost so much territory...

I also recommend Sverre Bagge, Cross & Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation .  If nothing else, this book will make you wonder if the recent success of the Nordic nations are in fact so deeply historically rooted after all.  As North (p.205) points out: “Industrialization arrived in all of these countries relatively late.”  Tom Buk-Swienty’s 1864: The Forgotten War That Shaped Modern Europe is a good book on how and why Denmark lost so much territory...

The author is Michael North, and this new and excellent book , when it comes to the earlier centuries, emphasizes the role of Swedes and Germans in shaping a region of prosperity and trade.  The most interesting section (starts p.239) is about the 1920s, when the Baltic nations underwent a radical deindustrialization, due to their severing from the Russian empire.  That is when they deviated from the Nordic economies, which for the most part continued their industrialization.

That is the new Anders Aslund book , and it is instructive throughout.  Here are a few things I learned:

4. Jane Alpert, Growing up Underground .  One of the best 1960s memoirs, she goes from being a Swarthmore radical to a bomber who tries too hard to please her boyfriend, to a reconstructed peaceful feminist.  This book is notable for how it combines extreme self-awareness and extreme self-delusion, often on the same page.

3. Walter Scott, Ivanhoe .  This isn’t just of fusty, antiquarian interest, rather the book comes alive on virtually every page.  The plot is gripping, there are neat twists on “multicultural” themes, the descriptions of clothing are wonderful, and the whole thing can be read as extended commentary on Shakespeare, most of all Merchant of Venice and Richard.

2. The New World: A Novel , by Chris Adrian and Eli Horowitz.  Imagine a husband who wants his head frozen cryogenically, and a wife who wants something else.  I resisted this one at first, for fear it would be schlocky and gimmicky, but I ended up thinking it was quite good.  Here is a brief NPR review , they liked it too.

1. Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America , by Peniel E. Joseph.  The best single book I know of on what the title indicates.

That is the recent book by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who has been held at Guantánamo for many years.  This is a classic of prison literature, and I will teach it next year in my Law and Literature class.  Almost every page is interesting:

And I just downloaded Hugo Dixon’s The In/Out Question , which argues the UK should try to stay in the European Union…

Jeffrey Towson and Jonathan Woetzel, The One Hour China Consumer Book: Five Short Stories That Explain the Brutal Fight for One Billion Customers .  The short tale of why the most successful beer companies are the state-owned enterprises is alone worth the price of this book.

Jonathan Rauch, Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy .  The tag “self-recommending” was made for books like this one.  According to Rauch, transparency is overrated and politics should be more transactional.

That is from Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City , by Antero Pietila.  Anyone interested in the roots of current problems in Baltimore should read this book

That is from her new and excellent The Long Process of Development: Building Markets and States in Pre-industrial England, Spain and their Colonies , recommended.  This is essential reading for the history of colonial Mexico in particular.

Marshall Sahlins, Apologies to Thucydides: Understanding History as Culture and Vice Versa .