Recently Mentioned Books

6. Nearly complete works of Igor Stravinsky, conducted by Stravinsky, 22 discs, $33.98 .

As for novels about diplomats, The Constant Gardener comes to mind. The Diplomat's Wife is popular, though I have never read it.  I read the Ender trilogy as about diplomacy as well.  (Is there more from science fiction?  It seems like a good plot device to bring people into contact with alien cultures.)  Carlos Fuentes was himself a diplomat, as were Octavio Paz, Lawrence Durrell, Ivo Andriæ, Pablo Neruda, and Giorgos Seferis.  That's a lot of writer-diplomats and you can add John Kenneth Galbr...

As for novels about diplomats, The Constant Gardener comes to mind. The Diplomat's Wife is popular, though I have never read it.  I read the Ender trilogy as about diplomacy as well.  (Is there more from science fiction?  It seems like a good plot device to bring people into contact with alien cultures.)  Carlos Fuentes was himself a diplomat, as were Octavio Paz, Lawrence Durrell, Ivo Andriæ, Pablo Neruda, and Giorgos Seferis.  That's a lot of writer-diplomats and you can add John Kenneth Galbr...

The author is Eliza Griswold and the subtitle is Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam .  Excerpt:

3. Valuing the Unique: The Economics of Singularities , by Lucien Karpik, from the French, chapter one pdf and home page .

2. A Short History of Celebrity , by Fred Inglis, home page here , with chapter one pdf.

1. Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy , by Viviana A. Zelizer, home page here .  From a browse I learned that many prostitutes spend their "dirty money" more quickly.

That is from Mary Roach’s new book , subtitled The Curious Science of Life in the Void .

The author is Mark Goldman and the subtitle is Buffalo, New York .  I loved this book.  It is a splendid portrait of twentieth century America, the connection of industrialism and the arts, the decline of manufacturing and the resulting urban casualties, an applied study of the wisdom of Jane Jacobs, and on top of all that it is the best book I've read on how excess parking helped destroy an American downtown.  I recommend this book to all readers of serious non-fiction.

That's the new tract by Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro; the subtitle is Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs through Washington, And How to Reclaim American Prosperity .

The author of this book is Max Hastings .  Although this topic may seem like well-trodden ground, this is so far one of my favorite non-fiction books of the year.  Excerpt:

You can buy the book here .

Dean Karlan is one of my favorite young economists and in April he will publish a popular economics book, co-authored with Jacob Appel.  The subtitle is How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty .

6. Super Sad True Love Story , by Gary Shteyngart.  I didn't like his previous two books and I usually dislike pomo novels about cool-talking young people in major U.S. cities.  Still, the flood of very good reviews nudged me to read this and I'm glad I did.

5.  Let me get this straight.  You, the beautiful and brilliant Hannah Arendt, are courted by a German philosopher, he writes lots of gobbledy-gook , becomes a Nazi, refuses for decades to apologize for his complicity, and, after the war, you dedicate books to him and arrange for translations of his work?  Here is a new book on this romance, Stranger from Abroad: Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Friendship and Forgiveness , by Daniel Maier-Katkin.  Is there perhaps a word missing from that title...

4. Debra Satz, Why Some Things Should Not be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets .  How many books are there now on this topic?  Lots.  How many of them take seriously the notion that our moral intuitions can be badly misguided for judging the operation of an impersonal market economy in the modern world?  Not so many, though all seem to think they do.

3. Being Wrong: Adventuers in the Margin of Error , by Kathryn Schulz.  Why do we so enjoy being right and thus so often end up being wrong?  This is a good book for many people, but if you've been following Robin Hanson, you won't find it novel or rewarding.

2. Why Europe: The Medieval Origins of its Special Path , by Michael Mitterauer.  How many of the preconditions for the European miracle were in place by the Middle Ages?  This isn't a fun book (translated from the German), but specialists should pick it up.  Here is one very serious review of the book (JSTOR).

1. John Carey, William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies .  The subtitle gets at the point and I still can't finish his other books.  Much of his life he wasted in a state of repression.  Alcohol and boarding schools play roles in this story.  Recommended.

Here is another blog post discussing the book .  Here is the Amazon listing .  At the time this book was published, it was unpopular to suggest that everyone simply might take too much risk at once, leading to an eventual overextension and collapse.  Yet theories of that nature have held up relatively well, in light of the financial crisis.

Here is one good review of the restaurant .  Here is a short bit on how elephants were viewed in antiquity .  Here is my favorite book on elephants .

The author is Sonia Shah and the subtitle is How Malaria has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years .  Excerpt:

When I was young, I very much enjoyed reading John Robbins's Calvinist answer to Ayn Rand (revised here ), even though I did not agree with much of it.  I often learn more when ideas clash in relatively stark forms.

When I was young, I very much enjoyed reading John Robbins's Calvinist answer to Ayn Rand (revised here ), even though I did not agree with much of it.  I often learn more when ideas clash in relatively stark forms.

The author is C. Bradley Thompson and this new book is in broad terms an Objectivist ("Randian") critique of neoconservatism and Leo Strauss.  Here is one summary bit: