Recently Mentioned Books

2. Félix J. Palma , The Map of Time .  Spanish speculative fiction, now in English.  It never feels deep, but finally we have a time travel novel chock full of new (and good) ideas.  Recommended to all those who find that sufficient, but not for those who don’t.

1. Jo Nesbø, The Redbreast .  These days it’s odd to read a fictional book about neo-Nazi cults in Norway, including a murderous villain who leaves behind a manuscript explaining his ideas and purpose.  I didn’t love it, but I liked it and I never considered putting it down; I will likely try another book by Nesbø.  The author, by the way, graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics.

The excellent Charles C. Mann reviews a new book on the history of Easter Island, The Statues That Walked , excerpts:

In 1987, 42% of the software developers in America were women. And 34% of the systems analysts in America were women. Women had started to flock to computer science in the mid-1960s , during the early days of computing, when men were already dominating other technical professions but had yet to dominate the world of computing. For about two decades, the percentages of women who earned Computer Science degrees rose steadily, peaking at 37% in 1984.

That is the new book by Robert B. Ekelund, Jr. and Robert D. Tollison ; I have not yet read it.  It is listed as due out August 15th, although Amazon seems to have one in stock now.

5. The Last Werewolf , by Glen Duncan.  Half of this is quite fun, the other half is quite stupid.  Your call, but half fun is actually a lot.

4. Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor .  There is a splendid new Oxford University Press edition.  Browsing or reading this book is one of the best ways to get a feel for Victorian England (circa 1850-51), or for how labor markets have changed.

1. Gavin Maxwell, A Reed Shaken: Travels Among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq .  One of my favorite travel books.  It avoids both being too impressionistic and being too didactic.  It never assumes that the writer’s state of mind is interesting to the reader per se .  It brings a little-known and by now largely destroyed corner of the world to light.

Time to blast the Brahms !  In all fairness to the plan, maybe that’s the only disc in anyone’s collection these days.

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.