Recently Mentioned Books

2. Darin Strauss, Half a Life .  The author, as a young man, runs over a young girl on her bike and it ruins much, but not all, of his life.  It wasn't his fault.  This tract was well done enough to hold my interest, but I'm not sure how much it goes beyond the summary I offer right here.  Nominated for a National Book award.

1. Tino Balio, The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946-1973 .  One of the best pieces of U.S. cultural history I've read in years.  This book explains and recreates the time when foreign films were culturally central in the United States.  Here is a recent article on how we are consuming foreign films today; we're in a new renaissance of production, but few people seem to know the films themselves.

I never knew my paternal grandfather, but I was told he loved the music of Bartok, Stravinsky, Hindemith, and above all, Stan Kenton .  My grandfather was a professional jazz drummer in the era of big band, supposedly with more talent than workplace discipline .  Maybe because it's a way of keeping a connection with Grandpa Tom, but I've been listening to the music of Stan Kenton for about thirty-five years.  In any case the best Kenton cuts (download here ) still strike me as underrated.  Despi...

I never knew my paternal grandfather, but I was told he loved the music of Bartok, Stravinsky, Hindemith, and above all, Stan Kenton .  My grandfather was a professional jazz drummer in the era of big band, supposedly with more talent than workplace discipline .  Maybe because it's a way of keeping a connection with Grandpa Tom, but I've been listening to the music of Stan Kenton for about thirty-five years.  In any case the best Kenton cuts (download here ) still strike me as underrated.  Despi...

I never knew my paternal grandfather, but I was told he loved the music of Bartok, Stravinsky, Hindemith, and above all, Stan Kenton .  My grandfather was a professional jazz drummer in the era of big band, supposedly with more talent than workplace discipline .  Maybe because it's a way of keeping a connection with Grandpa Tom, but I've been listening to the music of Stan Kenton for about thirty-five years.  In any case the best Kenton cuts (download here ) still strike me as underrated.  Despi...

I just received a copy of Tim Worstall's new Chasing Rainbows: How the Green Agenda Defeats its Aims .  I am wondering: what are the best serious, economically-informed accounts on how to "eat green" in an informed way?  I am looking for suggestions which take economic reasoning and the idea of secondary consequences into account.

The author is Ralph Keyes and you can buy it here .  Here are three excerpts:

The author is Bryan Caplan and the subtitle is Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think .  Both were true for me and I predict at least one will be true for you.  It is now available for pre-order on Amazon .  And here is Bryan, new to Twitter .

Here is my NYT column from today , on themes relevant to The Great Stagnation .  I won't rehash this entire discussion, but I would like to focus on this one column excerpt:

Diane Rehm is Egyptian-American but I don't know her show. The new biography of Cleopatra is smooth but the narratives made me suspicious.  Was Euclid Egyptian?

8. Opera, about : Philip Glass, Akhnaten .  But wait, there's also Aida, with Callas .  And there's Handel's Israel in Egypt .  Handel set a lot of his operas in Egypt, including Berenice and Giulio Cesare .

8. Opera, about : Philip Glass, Akhnaten .  But wait, there's also Aida, with Callas .  And there's Handel's Israel in Egypt .  Handel set a lot of his operas in Egypt, including Berenice and Giulio Cesare .

8. Opera, about : Philip Glass, Akhnaten .  But wait, there's also Aida, with Callas .  And there's Handel's Israel in Egypt .  Handel set a lot of his operas in Egypt, including Berenice and Giulio Cesare .

3. Non-fiction book, about : Max Rodenbeck, Cairo: The City Victorious .  Few cities have a book this good.  There is also Dream Palace of the Arabs and Tom Segev's 1967 .  Which again is the really good book on the 1973 War?

3. Non-fiction book, about : Max Rodenbeck, Cairo: The City Victorious .  Few cities have a book this good.  There is also Dream Palace of the Arabs and Tom Segev's 1967 .  Which again is the really good book on the 1973 War?

3. Non-fiction book, about : Max Rodenbeck, Cairo: The City Victorious .  Few cities have a book this good.  There is also Dream Palace of the Arabs and Tom Segev's 1967 .  Which again is the really good book on the 1973 War?

2. Musical CD : The Music of Islam, vol.1: Al-Qahirah, Classical Music of Cairo, Egypt .  The opening sweep of this is a stunner, and it shows both the Islamic and European influences on Egyptian music. Musicians of the Nile are a good group, there is Hamza El Din , and there is plenty of rai.  What else?  I can't say I actually enjoy listening to Um Kalthoum, but her voice and phrasing are impressive.

Also new on the market is Ronald Dworkin's Justice for Hedgehogs .  I like the title and I like most of his previous books, but I am not finding this one rewarding to read.  Here is one previous debate on related material.

That is the title, the author is Gerald Gaus of U. Arizona, and the subtitle is A Theory of Freedom and Morality in a Diverse and Bounded World .  This is a big and ambitious work, broadly in the liberaltarian tradition, mixing Rawls and Hayek, pondering the implications of disagreement, and experimenting with the idea that morality itself has a coercive element.  It is Gaus's attempt to lay out the proper foundations for a liberal society and he summarizes the hard-to-summarize book a bit here ...

Tyler Cowen’s new ebook How The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History,Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better is a bravura performance by one of the most interesting thinkers out there. I also think it’s a great innovation in current affairs publishing–much shorter and cheaper than a conventional book in a way that actually leaves you wanting to read more once you finish it. My guess is that this is the future of books.

One obiturary is here . Tragic Songs of Life , by the Louvin Brothers, is one of my favorite recordings of all time, any genre.  I'm often surprised how many people do not know this music.

We need units which produce public goods and we need people willing to declare their income and pay their taxes and, sometimes, fight and die for those units.  Therefore we need some amount of irrational belief in the idea of sovereignty, nation, and the like.  (Read Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities .)  Today's distributional pattern of nation-states probably isn't ideal (I would prefer smaller units on the whole), but when it comes to OECD nations it works well enough.  We also don't kn...

Lately I have been "reading" Ottoman Architecture , by Dogan Kuban, Toyokuni (oddly I can't find it on Amazon or remember the author's name), Textiles: Collection of the Museum of International Folk Art , by Bobbie Sumberg, and Architectura , by Miles Lewis.  You can walk into any public library and take home more splendid picture books than you will have time for.  How many you can carry is another constraint.

Lately I have been "reading" Ottoman Architecture , by Dogan Kuban, Toyokuni (oddly I can't find it on Amazon or remember the author's name), Textiles: Collection of the Museum of International Folk Art , by Bobbie Sumberg, and Architectura , by Miles Lewis.  You can walk into any public library and take home more splendid picture books than you will have time for.  How many you can carry is another constraint.

Lately I have been "reading" Ottoman Architecture , by Dogan Kuban, Toyokuni (oddly I can't find it on Amazon or remember the author's name), Textiles: Collection of the Museum of International Folk Art , by Bobbie Sumberg, and Architectura , by Miles Lewis.  You can walk into any public library and take home more splendid picture books than you will have time for.  How many you can carry is another constraint.