Recently Mentioned Books

The information is from Bruce Gardner’s American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century: How it Flourished and What it Cost , pp.20-21, p.44.

7. Economists: Ludwig Lachmann was an early teacher of mine and I owe him my interest in post Keynesianism and also financial fragility hypotheses. G.F Thirlby remains underrated.  W.H. Hutt was one of the most perceptive critics of Keynes and his insights still are not absorbed into the Keynesian mainstream. His book on the economics of the colour bar remains a liberal classic.  Who am I forgetting?

6. Music: Where to start? Malanthini , for one.  As for mbqanga collections, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto series is consistently excellent. Singing in an Open Space, Zulu Rhythm and Harmony 1962-1982 is a favorite.  Random gospel and jazz collections often repay the purchase price and in general random CD purchases in these areas bring high expected returns.

6. Music: Where to start? Malanthini , for one.  As for mbqanga collections, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto series is consistently excellent. Singing in an Open Space, Zulu Rhythm and Harmony 1962-1982 is a favorite.  Random gospel and jazz collections often repay the purchase price and in general random CD purchases in these areas bring high expected returns.

5. Novels : My favorite Coetzee is Disgrace , though I like most of them very much, including the early Life and Times of Michael K and Waiting for the Barbarians and the later semi-autobiographical works.  Nadine Gordimer I find unreadable, call the fault mine.  Same with Alan Paton.  A dark horse pick is Trionf . Agaat sits in my pile, waiting for the trip of the right length.

5. Novels : My favorite Coetzee is Disgrace , though I like most of them very much, including the early Life and Times of Michael K and Waiting for the Barbarians and the later semi-autobiographical works.  Nadine Gordimer I find unreadable, call the fault mine.  Same with Alan Paton.  A dark horse pick is Trionf . Agaat sits in my pile, waiting for the trip of the right length.

5. Novels : My favorite Coetzee is Disgrace , though I like most of them very much, including the early Life and Times of Michael K and Waiting for the Barbarians and the later semi-autobiographical works.  Nadine Gordimer I find unreadable, call the fault mine.  Same with Alan Paton.  A dark horse pick is Trionf . Agaat sits in my pile, waiting for the trip of the right length.

4. Movie, set in : Zulu , 1964 with Michael Caine.

2. Home design : I am an admirer of the Ndebele , some photos of their colorful homes are here .  They are better represented in picture books than on the web.

I’ll be there too, your recommendations are welcome.  Looking for a hotel there has been a side-splitting experience.  No one seems to mind that few of them are any good, and they’ll plunk perfectly good ones on the side of a lake, next to nothing, many miles from the city center.  Nonetheless visiting Brasilia has long been a dream of mine and I do have a room.  I’ve already read Shoumatoff’s excellent Capital of Hope .

A fellow with almost the same name — rsanders — requested a book on Romanian political history .

3. John Gray, The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death .  A bunch of weird guys, in the early 20th century, thought they could cheat death but they couldn’t!  And it all has something to do with H.G. Wells and a Russian spy.  When is the cutting polemic against rationalism going to fall?  It doesn’t, and when the book ends it feels as if it is only one-third over.  The mood is wistful.  I recall once predicting to Jim Buchanan that Gray would someday end up co...

2. Robin Fox, The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind .  Great themes, namely Hayek plus Levi-Strauss.  But it’s too diffuse for me to get a handle on.

1. Emma Rothschild, The Inner Life of Empires, An Eighteenth Century History .  The story of the Johnstones, in Scotland and around the globe.  It appears to have lots of useful information, but it is too far from my current interests for me to read it now.

The pointer is from Michael Rosenwald, who recently published The Silent Season of a Hero: The Sports Writing of Gay Talese .

That is from Tetlock and Gardner, here is more .  On that general, theme, here is Dan Gardner’s new book Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions are Next to Worthless, and You Can do Better .

It turns out that in 23 U.S. states, the government will automatically shut down in the event that the governor and the legislature fail to agree on a budget. In his work on budget rules , David Primo examined the theoretical impact of these provisions from a game theoretic perspective. He noted that in states with an automatic shutdown provision, “the legislature will be able to achieve its ideal budget, so long as the governor prefers it to no spending.” (p. 102)

6. Vaclav Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and Their Lasting Impact .  Perhaps the best book on what its subtitle indicates.

5. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, The Mute’s Soliloquy .  The first third is a superb humane and philosophical response to adversity, namely imprisonment on Buru Island.  Of the rest, which is never sent letters to his family, at least half is very good.

3. The Tiger’s Wife , by Tea Obreht.  The author may be 25, Serbian, beautiful, and feted everywhere, but still I found it contrived and overwritten.  The substance-obsessed Laura Miller nails it .  Against my better judgment I enjoyed and finished Kevin Brockmeier’s The Illumination .

3. The Tiger’s Wife , by Tea Obreht.  The author may be 25, Serbian, beautiful, and feted everywhere, but still I found it contrived and overwritten.  The substance-obsessed Laura Miller nails it .  Against my better judgment I enjoyed and finished Kevin Brockmeier’s The Illumination .

2. Margaux Fragoso, Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir .  This book raises questions about the meaning of consent, but despite its quality I was unable to get all the way though it.  Too brutal for me.

1. Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad .  National Book Award for fiction, and it is enjoyed by most people who pick it up,Will Wilkinson reviews it well .

The author is Hamid Dabashi and the subtitle is A Religion of Protest .  This book is excellent in every chapter and on virtually on every page, including in its discussion of cinema and aesthetics.  Excerpt:

That’s the new Terry Eagleton book , which apparently needs no subtitle.  Most of the claims in the book are correct, and they debunk superficial or incorrect readings of Marx.  In that regard it is useful and it is also clearly written.  Still, I have to judge it as a bad book, for instance: