Recently Mentioned Books

I find it increasingly hard to resist the notion that he is the most enduring director of our time.  I've now seen Syndromes and a Century (the best place to start), Blissfully Yours , and Tropical Malady and wish to rewatch them all. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (not yet on DVD) won the Golden Palm at Cannes this year .  Themes of his movies include dreams, medicine and its authority relationships , sex and eroticism, homosexuality, the nature of cinema itself, memory, sudden fra...

I find it increasingly hard to resist the notion that he is the most enduring director of our time.  I've now seen Syndromes and a Century (the best place to start), Blissfully Yours , and Tropical Malady and wish to rewatch them all. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (not yet on DVD) won the Golden Palm at Cannes this year .  Themes of his movies include dreams, medicine and its authority relationships , sex and eroticism, homosexuality, the nature of cinema itself, memory, sudden fra...

[Terrell] Owens wrote a children’s book , had a breakfast cereal named for him , made guest appearances on several television shows and commercials, and in 2009 starred in a VH1 reality show, “The T. O. Show.” In addition to registering “I Love Me Some Me,” he has also sought protection for “Getcha Popcorn Ready” and a logo featuring his initials, T. O.

You can pre-order it here .  I agree with the main thesis.  My question is this: if there is some value in butting your head against the wall, do the "false prophets" and their preaching make us happy too?

4. Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Loyalists, and Indian Allies .  "The civil war had four overlapping dimensions.  In the first, Loyalists and Americans battled for control of Upper Canada.  Second, the bitter partisanship within the United States threatened to become a civil war, as many Federalists served the British as spies and smugglers, while their leaders in New England flirted with secession.  Third, Irish republicans waged a civil war with...

3. James K. Glassman, Safety Net: The Strategy for De-Risking Your Investments in a Time of Turbulence .  p.11: "Reduce the proportion of stocks in your portfolio."

2. J.P. Singh, Globalized Arts: The Entertainment Economy and Cultural Identity .  The definitive book for updating coverage on its topic, including the best and most comprehensive history of the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity.

1. Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan , by D.R. Thorpe.  I'm not one of these people who enjoys reading a lot of long tracts about British politicians, but this is one of the best non-fiction books of the year.  It's full of good information, offers useful context for British economic and political debates, has plenty of original research, and is as suspenseful as a very good novel.  Most of all, it brings its world and character to life.  Highly recommended.

The author is Deirdre McCloskey and the subtitle is Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World .  It is on the cultural and intellectual foundations of the Industrial Revolution and I am convinced by the major thesis.  Here is one version of it:

The author is Timur Kuran and the subtitle is How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East .  My previous and longer discussion of Timur is here .  Here is a short excerpt from the book:

That is from David E. Cartwright's recent Schopenhauer: A Biography .

That is from the fascinating book Honeybee Democracy , by Thomas D. Seeley.  Here is the book's home page .  Here is a good review of the book :

The subtitle is Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms and the author is Nassim Taleb.  Here are three of his aphorisms:

That is from the interesting and new The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads , by Ammon Shea.

The author is the highly intelligent Roger Congleton (my colleague) and the subtitle is Constitutional Reform, Liberalism, and the Rise of Western Democracy .  Here is the home page summary:

6. One of my favorite non-fiction books is Nancy Scheper-Hughes , Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil , highly recommended.

Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch [Rayuela]

Juan Rulfo, Pedro Paramo

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis , by Jose Saramago

V , by Thomas Pynchon.

The Obscene Bird of Night , by José Donoso

Cryptonomicon

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell , by Susannah Clarke

Underworld , by Don DeLillo

I still think that The Sensory Order is Hayek's most overrated book, though many call it his most underrated book, which in my view is where the overratedness comes from.  I know the recent talk about "neural nets" and the like and you can claim Hayek was a precursor of the idea of the mind as an organ of classification.  I simply think this is an empirical book more or less written in the 1920s about a field which has changed dramatically in the last ten to fifteen years, never mind in the last...