Recently Mentioned Books

The author is Robert Neuwirth and the subtitle is The Global Rise of the Informal Economy .  Excerpt:

The author is Sally H. Jacobs and the subtitle is The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father .  But forget about “our Obama” and read this as a biography of colonialism, the 1960s, interracial relations, and most of all the East African intelligentsia.  In addition to being a life story, it’s an excellent treatment of those topics.  Here is one of the soggier excerpts:

3. The new Tim Groseclose book on media bias is now out .

The Amazon link is here .

David Zetland, The End of Abundance: Economic Solutions to Water Scarcity .  Of the five books, this one has the most policy truth.  Also, David reviews one of the other books .

Steven Solomon, Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization .  It offers a very good history of water technologies, here is one good review .

That is from Emerson’s Notebooks , August-September 1861.

3. An even more expensive economics book , which someone in Jakarta found to be not worth the price.

3. The most expensive economics book ever ?  (Buy it and be ignored by toddlers.)

This Canadian economist (1894-1952) deserves an installment in the “underappreciated economists” series.  In addition to his seminal work on the economics of media and communications (better and earlier than McLuhan), he has some excellent pieces on the fur trade in Canadian economic history , and they are more contemporary than at first meets the eye.  Innis’s editor, Daniel Drache, sums up the main point:

This Canadian economist (1894-1952) deserves an installment in the “underappreciated economists” series.  In addition to his seminal work on the economics of media and communications (better and earlier than McLuhan), he has some excellent pieces on the fur trade in Canadian economic history , and they are more contemporary than at first meets the eye.  Innis’s editor, Daniel Drache, sums up the main point:

The author is Michael W. Klein, the title is Something for Nothing , and it is coming September from MIT Press.  Here is the catalog description :

The book’s home page is here .  You can pre-order it here .

That’s the new collection of Roberto Bolaño’s assembled bricolage, essays, speeches, and critical notes .  It wins the award for “the book this year which has most made me want to read other books.”  It also reveals how smart and original he was as a reader, not just as a writer.  I enjoyed this passage, among many others:

Some say not, here’s from an Amazon review :

I am speaking on The Great Stagnation, in recognition of the publication of the physical version of the book .  You are welcome to come.

4. Owen Hatherley, A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain .  I didn’t enjoy this book, so I didn’t read much of it, but I thought it was splendid in conception.  It requires some working knowledge of British urban landscapes and I, for one, have never been to Sheffield .  It’s a smartly written conceptual survey of the empty buildings that have come to populate British cities and I am sorry that I wasn’t up to it.

3. Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 .  The best history of electrical infrastructure which I have found.  It is very good on explaining the difficulties in organizing an entire economy around electricity and why it took so long.  It is also fascinating on why the English lagged behind the Germans and Americans in the transition to electricity, in large part because of local interest group politics.  It sheds light on the “mystery” of British decl...

2. Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill .  This is insanely good, and I can’t believe I had never read it before.  It’s super short, but a thrilling reading experience at every word.  It’s in the “jaw hits floor” category.

1. Andrew Mango, Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey .  A pleasurable read and full of information.  For me it was most useful as a foreign policy history of Turkey, more than a biography of Ataturk himself.  One implication is that Turkey won’t be making too many more concessions on the global stage, or for that matter with the Kurds.

Also in my pile is Menzie D. Chinn and Jeffry A. Frieden, Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery .

5. Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America .  I like the first hundred pages very much, so you’ll probably be hearing more about this one, which is a major study of its topic, with a good deal of coverage of Canada and Mexico too, often from a comparative perspective.

4. John Gimlette, Wild Coast: Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge .  Yes, this book covers Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.  A revelation, I loved it.  Could Gimlette be my favorite current travel writer?

3. Patrick French, India: A Portrait .  Consistently thoughtful.  I didn’t love it, but a reader could do much worse.  I finished it.

2. My Blood Approves , by Amanda Hocking.  A landmark in the history of e-publishing, and a real button-clicker too .  But I can’t say I actually think it’s good.  Still, I finished it.