Recently Mentioned Books

I am pleased to have shared a meal at A&J Manchurian restaurant, in Rockville with the charming Fuchsia Dunlop .  You may recall that Fuchsia has written what I consider to be the very best Chinese cookbooks in English and indeed some of my favorite books of all time.  She was in town to speak at Georgetown University and to promote her new book Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking .

The quotation is from Elizabeth L. Cline’s Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion , which I quite enjoyed reading, despite some glaring weaknesses when it comes to FDI, wages, and foreign development.  I now understand the affordable yet fashionable clothing stores in Tysons Corner Mall, and how they have changed over the last fifteen years, and I can thank this book for that.

That is from the web site of Nancy Hanrahan , who teaches sociology and critical theory and music at George Mason.  Just recently I was talking to a Polish man whom I met standing in front of The Village Vanguard, and who claims to own 20,000 jazz LPs, and he told me that Nancy is married to Kip Hanrahan , the esteemed yet still underrated jazz musician, start with Desire Develops an Edge .

Two of Fuchsia’s previous books Revolutionary Chinese Cooking: Recipes from Hunan Province and Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking , are two of my favorite books of all time.  Not just two of my favorite cookbooks, but two of my favorite books period.  They offer much more than just a series of recipes.

Two of Fuchsia’s previous books Revolutionary Chinese Cooking: Recipes from Hunan Province and Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking , are two of my favorite books of all time.  Not just two of my favorite cookbooks, but two of my favorite books period.  They offer much more than just a series of recipes.

That is the new book by Fuchsia Dunlop and the subtitle is Simple Chinese Home Cooking .  The first recipe I tried (tonight), the vegetarian tofu, was an absolute knockout.

A longer book, edited by Bradin Cormack, Marthua Nussbaum, and Richard Strier will be coming out as well, Shakespeare and the Law , containing this piece among others.

That is the new eBook by Richard Posner and Charles Fried , and I just bought my copy and expect I will be adding it to my Law and Literature syllabus.  The book’s home page is here .

I am a big fan of The Triumph of Politics , for its understanding of American government, but in this book I disagree with too many of the key points.  The author likes “sound money” and dislikes “easy money” yet this position is never really argued for.  Fiat money is responsible for a very large number of ills but of course financial crises and bubbles are hardly new.  Consistently, the author knows to vilify Milton Friedman.  He is an explicit liquidationist of the kind you thought Brad DeLon...

The author is David A. Stockman and the subtitle is How Crony Capitalism Corrupts Markets and Democracy .

Here is the proposal .  It is better than nothing, if only to show that something can be done.  The “no path to citizenship until the border is secure” is simply kicking the can down the road, as that standard never will be met.  In the meantime, lots of money will be spent and in due time drones will dominate the border; cult midnight showings of Blue Thunder will increase.  U.S. universities will go crazy inflating the size of their graduate STEM programs , and it will become harder to flunk t...

Addendum : Also arrived on my desk from PUP is Peter Temin and David Vines, The Leaderless Economy: Why the World Economic System Fell Apart and How to Fix It .

The author is Michael Pettis and the subtitle is Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road Ahead for the World Economy .

Addendum : If you’d like to read another point of view, there is George Church and Ed Regis, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves .

Ronald I. McKinnon, The Unloved Dollar Standard: From Bretton Woods to the Rise of China .

5. Ian W. McLean, Why Australia Prospered: The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth .  The writing is not exciting, but nonetheless an interesting look at the longer-run history of Australian prosperity.  I had not known that the nation was the wealthiest in per capita terms for part of the late 19th century and then underwent considerable stagnation in the first half of the 20th century.

4. Franklin E. Zimring, The City that Became Safe: New York’s Lessons for Urban Crime and its Control .  A useful and engaging survey of some of what we know about urban crime, and it knows not to reach too far.  Police crackdowns on open-air drug markets is one factor which receives some credit.

3. Zareer Masani, Macaulay: Pioneer of India’s Modernization .  A good profile to read for understanding how the earlier UK, in its colonial empire, arrived at the point it is at.

2. Janan Ganesh, George Osborne: Austerity Chancellor .  A good profile to read for understanding how the modern UK arrived at the point it is at.

1. Amy Willentz, Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti, and Jonathan M. Katz, The Big Truck that Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster .  Two excellent recent memoirs on what has been happening in Haiti post-earthquake.  My main complaint is that both books are marred by the same mistake in economics, namely starting with “small amounts of foreign investment haven’t done Haiti much good,” and moving to “Haiti should not be focusing on foreign investment.”  Wit...

1. Amy Willentz, Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti, and Jonathan M. Katz, The Big Truck that Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster .  Two excellent recent memoirs on what has been happening in Haiti post-earthquake.  My main complaint is that both books are marred by the same mistake in economics, namely starting with “small amounts of foreign investment haven’t done Haiti much good,” and moving to “Haiti should not be focusing on foreign investment.”  Wit...

The strange and indeed unjustified senior status of derivatives contracts remains an under-discussed area for financial reform.  Here is a relevant Bolton and Oehmke paper (pdf).  The Blinder book you can buy here .

That is the new book by Erik Angner , with very good exercises and problem sets, and it appears to be very useful indeed.  Here is the book’s home page .  Here is Angner’s home page .

Daniel C. Dennett, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking .

Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan, The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office .