Recently Mentioned Books

My next book — An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies — is out this coming April.

Addendum : If you are interested in these issues, you also should read Leo Katz’s new and fascinating book , more applied than Temkin’s, also rejecting transitivity as a universal principle of reasoning but focused on explaining the content of the law and its apparent paradoxes.

The subtitle is Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning .  Without hesitation I paid full price for this book, in this case $74 though since then the price is falling.  While not an easy read, it is the most important work in choice theory and social choice in some time.

The author is the highly intelligent Philip Auerswald and the subtitle is How Entrepreneurs are Transforming the Global Economy .  I am less optimistic about the next ten years, but this is a very well-argued book.  I am hoping to have a chance to work more with Phil, my colleague at George Mason, in the near-term future.

I have been enjoying Adam Hochschild’s To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 , which covers the British role in World War I.  My favorite section details how the British responded when it turned out they had a drastic shortage of binoculars, which at that time were very important for fighting the war.  They turned to the world’s leading manufacturer of “precision optics,” namely Germany.  The German War Office immediately supplied 8,000 to 10,000 binoculars to Britain, dir...

4. Indian agricultural productivity is abysmal, in large part due to legal restrictions.  I discuss this in more detail in my next book An Economist Gets Lunch , due out in April.  That hurts the quality of life and opportunities for hundreds of millions of Indians, including of course children.

In my pile of review copies are Jonathan Schlefer, The Assumptions Economists Make , and Paula Stephan, How Economics Shapes Science .

In my pile of review copies are Jonathan Schlefer, The Assumptions Economists Make , and Paula Stephan, How Economics Shapes Science .

8. Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station .  So good (and short) that I read it twice in a row, it is a mock of “creative” slackers who decide they wish to live abroad.  One of my favorite novels of the year.

7. David Mikics, Who Was Jacques Derrida? Recommended by Gordon, this book is a good intelligent and intelligible introduction to Derrida.

6. William A. Barnett, Getting it Wrong: How Faulty Monetary Statistics Undermine the Fed, the Financial System, and the Economy .  He pushes his own work on Divisia monetar aggregates , although Scott Sumner will tell you that a steely focus on nominal gdp will suffice.

5. Peter Conrad, Verdi And/Or Wagner .  A multifaceted comparison of the two composers, integrating music, politics, and history, readable and recommended.

4. Katerina Clark, Moscow, The Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture 1931-1941 .  A revisionist take which portrays the culture of the era as about more than just about communism, in any case thought provoking.

3. Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain .  Written in the 1940s, published in the late 70s, ignored, just republished.  It’s like reading a poem.  The Guardian is on the mark to call it “The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain.”

2. Michael Krondl, Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert .  The best book I know on the history of dessert, with plenty of information on India, my personal favorite dessert country.  There is also the short and useful Bread: A Global History , by William Rubel.

2. Michael Krondl, Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert .  The best book I know on the history of dessert, with plenty of information on India, my personal favorite dessert country.  There is also the short and useful Bread: A Global History , by William Rubel.

1. Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov, Part 1: 1973-1985 , by Garry Kasparov.  Self-recommending!  His chess books are full of history, drama, and suspense, in addition to the chess, he is simply a great mind.

David Weinberger, Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room .  Not out yet; will this be one of the big books of 2012? Probably .

Zara Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark: European International History, 1933-1939 .  Repeat the above description but up the number of pp. to 1248.

Jonathan Israel, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790 .  With 1152 pages, a major author, and a clear writing style, this is a major work.  I’ve only browsed it.

One interesting thing about cognitive biases – they’re the subject of so many books these days. There’s the Nudge book, the Sway book, the Blink book, like the one-title book, all about the ways in which we screw up. And there are so many ways, but what I find interesting is that none of these books identify what, to me, is the single, central, most important way we screw up, and that is, we tell ourselves too many stories, or we are too easily seduced by stories. And why don’t these books tell ...

One interesting thing about cognitive biases – they’re the subject of so many books these days. There’s the Nudge book, the Sway book, the Blink book, like the one-title book, all about the ways in which we screw up. And there are so many ways, but what I find interesting is that none of these books identify what, to me, is the single, central, most important way we screw up, and that is, we tell ourselves too many stories, or we are too easily seduced by stories. And why don’t these books tell ...

One interesting thing about cognitive biases – they’re the subject of so many books these days. There’s the Nudge book, the Sway book, the Blink book, like the one-title book, all about the ways in which we screw up. And there are so many ways, but what I find interesting is that none of these books identify what, to me, is the single, central, most important way we screw up, and that is, we tell ourselves too many stories, or we are too easily seduced by stories. And why don’t these books tell ...

One interesting thing about cognitive biases – they’re the subject of so many books these days. There’s the Nudge book, the Sway book, the Blink book, like the one-title book, all about the ways in which we screw up. And there are so many ways, but what I find interesting is that none of these books identify what, to me, is the single, central, most important way we screw up, and that is, we tell ourselves too many stories, or we are too easily seduced by stories. And why don’t these books tell ...

Here is more , and for the pointer I thank Todd Myers .  Here is Todd’s new book Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism is Harming the Environment .