Recently Mentioned Books

You can pre-order my book on Amazon here .  On Barnes and Noble here .  On Indiebound.org here .  And from Penguin here .

You can order my book on Amazon here .  On Barnes and Noble here .  On Indiebound.org here .  And from Penguin here .

The author is Ara Norenzayan and the subtitle is How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict .  I found this book insightful, well-written and to the point.  The book itself lists some of its key propositions:

That is the new and excellent book by John McHugo , and it is perhaps the best short one-volume introduction to its topic (with Hourani being the best single longer book).  Here is one short bit, concerning 1925 in Syria:

That is the new and excellent book by John McHugo , and it is perhaps the best short one-volume introduction to its topic (with Hourani being the best single longer book).  Here is one short bit, concerning 1925 in Syria:

That is the new book by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir , and as you might expect it is one of the most significant economics books of the year.  Here is their bottom line:

The authors are Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, and the subtitle is Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies .

Definitely recommended, at this price or even the paperback for $20.00 .

The author is William A. Haseltine, the subtitle is The Singapore Health System, and the Kindle edition is itself an…affordable excellence at $0.00.

Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong-and What You Really Need to Know .

4. Pop Yeh Yeh: Psychedelic Rock from Singapore and Malaysia 1964-1970 , an excellent CD, especially if you approach it with the right sense of humor.

Xaviera Hollander deserves mention, although in what category should she be my favorite? Old Javanese Gold is excellent, plus there is puppetry.  The best textiles are from Sumatra, or from the smaller islands.

5. Movie : Raid: The Redemption .  Martial arts reign, after the police storm an apartment fortress.  If you like the genre at all, this one is special.  Note that The Act of Killing is set mainly in Sumatra and thus does not count.

3. Popular music : The Smithsonian has a very good 17-CD set of Indonesian popular music .

2. Gamelan music CD : Java: Court Gamelan .  Dreamy and beautiful, this is one of my favorite world music CDs.

1. Novel : Pramoedya Toer, The Buru Quartet .  I like this better than say Mahfouz or Rushdie.  It focuses on the key question of what a life may be said to consist of, and each of the four volumes makes the others richer.  Another famous Indonesian novel is Andrea Hirata, The Rainbow Troops , it is good not great.

That is the central message of the new and excellent Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam , by Nick Turse.

10. My Bloody Valentine, Mbv .  Get the LP version for the proper sound.  It’s amazing how good this comeback is, after a twenty year hiatus.

9. Earl Hines in New Orleans .  I’ve spent a lot of time looking for the best Hines CD and this seems to be it.

8. Continuous Beat , Rez Abbasi Trio.  Guitarist born in Karachi, this is probably my favorite jazz album over the last few years.

7. Alela Diane, Wild Divine .

6. P.J. Harvey, Let England Shake .

4. Laura Marling, I Speak Because I Can .

2. St. Vincent, Strange Mercy .  I don’t like the more recent CD with David Byrne nearly as much.

1. The Roots of Drone .  Usually I hate collections, and listen to them only once, but on this virtually every track is good and the order is very well arranged.