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Showing 25 of 6685 mentions, ordered by most recent.

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
Mark Mazzetti
What I’ve been reading (2013-05-18)

5. Mark Mazzetti, The Way of the Knife: The CIA, A Secret Army, and a War at the End of the Earth .  On the origins of drone warfare and also how the role of the CIA has changed.  The contents of this book, which cover secret intelligence (in a non-sensationalized fashion) are difficult to judge, but I can say it held my interest.

D.H. Lawrence
Jeffrey Meyers
What I’ve been reading (2013-05-18)

4. Nicholas Murray, Aldous Huxley: A Biography , and Jeffrey Meyers, D.H. Lawrence: A Biography .  These are good books to read in tandem.

Aldous Huxley Biography Thomas ebook
What I’ve been reading (2013-05-18)

4. Nicholas Murray, Aldous Huxley: A Biography , and Jeffrey Meyers, D.H. Lawrence: A Biography .  These are good books to read in tandem.

Levels of Life
Julian Barnes
What I’ve been reading (2013-05-18)

3. Julian Barnes, Levels of Life .  A subtle and moving short tale which cannot be described without introducing spoilers.  Avoids the problems which plagues some of Barnes’s less-deep works.  Right now out in the UK only , U.S. release coming later in the year .

Variety of men
C. P. Snow
What I’ve been reading (2013-05-18)

2. C.P. Snow, Variety of Men .  Have I mentioned that most older books — beyond the immediate classics — are, well…crud?  But this series of portraits, covering such diverse figures as Ernest Rutherford and Robert Frost, is both entertaining and useful.

Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica (The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts)
T. J. Clark
What I’ve been reading (2013-05-18)

1. T. J. Clark, Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica .  I guess I had to read this one , but it did deliver as I had promised.  Excellent color plates, and overall a very good book (the best?) on what makes Picasso special.

Human Capitalism
Brink Lindsey
Brink Lindsey’s *Human Capitalism* is now out (2013-05-14)

The subtitle is How Economic Growth Has Made us Smarter — and More Unequal , you can buy a copy here .

Siamese Soul Thai Spectacular 1960s 80s
Thailand book bleg (2013-05-13)

How about this biography of Bhumibol Adulyadej ? Falcon of Siam is historical fiction of note. Thailand — Culture Smart! is good for browsing.  You can read a variety of books on Jim Thompson , and speaking of Thompson this cookbook by David Thompson is a must. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is one of the best movies ever made; watch these too , noting that Syndromes and a Century offers insight into the Thai health care system.  I am not recommending use of such services, but perha...

Thai street food
Thompson, David
Thailand book bleg (2013-05-13)

How about this biography of Bhumibol Adulyadej ? Falcon of Siam is historical fiction of note. Thailand — Culture Smart! is good for browsing.  You can read a variety of books on Jim Thompson , and speaking of Thompson this cookbook by David Thompson is a must. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is one of the best movies ever made; watch these too , noting that Syndromes and a Century offers insight into the Thai health care system.  I am not recommending use of such services, but perha...

Thailand
Jones, Roger
Thailand book bleg (2013-05-13)

How about this biography of Bhumibol Adulyadej ? Falcon of Siam is historical fiction of note. Thailand — Culture Smart! is good for browsing.  You can read a variety of books on Jim Thompson , and speaking of Thompson this cookbook by David Thompson is a must. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is one of the best movies ever made; watch these too , noting that Syndromes and a Century offers insight into the Thai health care system.  I am not recommending use of such services, but perha...

Falcon Great Anthology Thailand ebook
Thailand book bleg (2013-05-13)

How about this biography of Bhumibol Adulyadej ? Falcon of Siam is historical fiction of note. Thailand — Culture Smart! is good for browsing.  You can read a variety of books on Jim Thompson , and speaking of Thompson this cookbook by David Thompson is a must. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is one of the best movies ever made; watch these too , noting that Syndromes and a Century offers insight into the Thai health care system.  I am not recommending use of such services, but perha...

The king never smiles
Paul M. Handley
Thailand book bleg (2013-05-13)

How about this biography of Bhumibol Adulyadej ? Falcon of Siam is historical fiction of note. Thailand — Culture Smart! is good for browsing.  You can read a variety of books on Jim Thompson , and speaking of Thompson this cookbook by David Thompson is a must. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is one of the best movies ever made; watch these too , noting that Syndromes and a Century offers insight into the Thai health care system.  I am not recommending use of such services, but perha...

College (un)bound
Jeffrey J. Selingo
Jeffrey Selingo’s *College Unbound* (2013-05-13)

The subtitle is The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students , and I read it straight through in one sitting.  It is the best book on its topic, and anyone interested in this area should buy and read it immediately.

You Arent What Gastroculture ebook
C.S. Lewis on TV cooking shows (2013-05-12)

That quotation is from the new eBook by Steven Poole, You Aren’t What You Eat: Fed Up with Gastroculture .  The book is cranky, often self-contradictory, and also reasonably entertaining.

History of England in 100 Places
John Julius Norwich
*A History of England in 100 Places* (2013-05-12)

Definitely recommended, you can buy the book here .

My Struggle Book Two
Karl Ove
*My Struggle: A Man in Love: Volume Two*, by Karl Knausgaard (2013-05-08)

You can buy it here .  It is better, by the way, to read volume one first, but if you picked this up blind, without having read the first part, you would do just fine with it.

The woman upstairs
Claire Messud
Claire Messud’s *The Woman Upstairs* (2013-05-07)

I loved this novel .  It is immediately gripping, subtle, fun to read, runs counter to cliche, and is also fairly short.  You will find some (strongly positive) reviews here .  I quite liked her last book , but if you didn’t, this is a whole level better, and different in nature, so you should try it anyway.

Time machine
Lee Smolin
Claims about time (2013-05-04)

Alan Lightman relates some ideas from the new Lee Smolin book :

Risk and Business Cycles
Tyler Cowen
How easily can a small country produce above capacity? (2013-05-04)

I also would reject any hard notion of “capacity” and view the matter as a sliding scale, depending on expectations and how much risk and fragility investors and suppliers of labor are willing to accept; see my Risk and Business Cycles for more on this point.

An Economist Gets Lunch
Tyler Cowen
Mark Bittman’s *VB6* (2013-04-28)

The subtitle is Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good .  This is an excellent book (recipes too) which comes to grips with the notion that virtuous eating also has to be fun and privately beneficial and involve a minimum of self-constraint or for that matter calculation costs.  As I’ve argued in my own An Economist Gets Lunch , eating less meat is the most socially beneficial change in your dietary habits you can make.  Here’s one very good way to do it.

Vb6 Eat Vegan Before 6
Mark Bittman
Mark Bittman’s *VB6* (2013-04-28)

The subtitle is Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good .  This is an excellent book (recipes too) which comes to grips with the notion that virtuous eating also has to be fun and privately beneficial and involve a minimum of self-constraint or for that matter calculation costs.  As I’ve argued in my own An Economist Gets Lunch , eating less meat is the most socially beneficial change in your dietary habits you can make.  Here’s one very good way to do it.

Exodus
Paul Collier
Paul Collier’s *Exodus: How Migration is Changing Our World* (2013-04-25)

It comes out October 1 , and here is from the back cover:

Cooked
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan’s *Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation* (2013-04-24)

This is a highly thoughtful book, and I enjoyed the lengthy discussion of fermentation and fermented foods.  My favorite puzzle posed is the question of why fermented foods are so frequently matters of acquired taste across cultures.  Yet overall the book is missing a sharpness of argumentation or novelty of perspective which I look for in works of this kind.  You can order the book here .  Here is a useful Laura Miller review of the book .  Here is a NYT review .  Here is Mark Bittman coverage ...

Doing Bad by Doing Good
Christopher J. Coyne
*Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails* (2013-04-24)

That is the new book by my colleague Christopher Coyne , due out May 1st from Stanford University Press.

Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian
Avi Steinberg
Markets in everything (2013-04-23)

That is from Avi Steinberg’s Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian , which is often annoying, intermittently very interesting.

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