Recently Mentioned Books

The link to the source is here .

I am walking along the main shopping street, seeing many Turks but actually thinking it would be nice to read more on Edwin Chadwick, when I stumble across a bookstore with a largish section of Augustus M. Kelley reprints , no Chadwick but they do have the everyone-should-now-reread-it Herbert Feis, Europe the World's Banker, 1870-1914 , and I stumble upon the section on Greece and the International Finance Commission of 1898.

6. Singer : Tarkan comes to mind and he is well represented on YouTube.  There is an entire strand of Turkish popular song, in the direction of Sezen Aksu , YouTube here .  But overall my pick is Edip Akbayram , imagine a Turkish version of Tropicalia.

5. Favorite recording showing the unities behind Turkish and classical music : Istanbul, Dimitrie Cantemir, by Jordi Savall .  Quite the revelation and it makes you wonder how well we understand the true story of classical music.

4. Opera, set in : The Abduction from the Seraglio , maybe the Beecham recording, or Krips , plus I like the overture of the Harnoncourt version , much more Turkish-sounding than the others.  And I don't have to tell you my favorite Rondo.

4. Opera, set in : The Abduction from the Seraglio , maybe the Beecham recording, or Krips , plus I like the overture of the Harnoncourt version , much more Turkish-sounding than the others.  And I don't have to tell you my favorite Rondo.

2. Non-fiction book, set in : There is Runciman and Kinross and Stephen Kinzer .  Is the Osman book good?

The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life , by Paul Seabright, revised edition.  But I must run, and cannot report on how the new edition differs.  Here is the book's home page .

Most of all, it reminded me of Jacob's Ladder and especially Michael Powell's Stairway to Heaven (A Matter of Life and Death ), two movies worth rewatching in any case.  The final scene, while the credits roll, is simply that of a plane crash with no survivors.  I view the show's cosmology as reflecting the existence of all possible universes and we get to see, and live with, a few of them.  That includes the universe where they all die in the initial crash, the universe where they all die in th...

Most of all, it reminded me of Jacob's Ladder and especially Michael Powell's Stairway to Heaven (A Matter of Life and Death ), two movies worth rewatching in any case.  The final scene, while the credits roll, is simply that of a plane crash with no survivors.  I view the show's cosmology as reflecting the existence of all possible universes and we get to see, and live with, a few of them.  That includes the universe where they all die in the initial crash, the universe where they all die in th...

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing , reviewed by Virginia Postrel here .  Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System (intelligent book, bad timing since it pushes a non-Obama reform).  Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe ; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately. What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs , has the pluses and minuses of an edited collection.  Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: Th...

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing , reviewed by Virginia Postrel here .  Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System (intelligent book, bad timing since it pushes a non-Obama reform).  Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe ; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately. What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs , has the pluses and minuses of an edited collection.  Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: Th...

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing , reviewed by Virginia Postrel here .  Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System (intelligent book, bad timing since it pushes a non-Obama reform).  Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe ; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately. What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs , has the pluses and minuses of an edited collection.  Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: Th...

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing , reviewed by Virginia Postrel here .  Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System (intelligent book, bad timing since it pushes a non-Obama reform).  Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe ; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately. What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs , has the pluses and minuses of an edited collection.  Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: Th...

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing , reviewed by Virginia Postrel here .  Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System (intelligent book, bad timing since it pushes a non-Obama reform).  Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe ; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately. What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs , has the pluses and minuses of an edited collection.  Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: Th...

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing , reviewed by Virginia Postrel here .  Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System (intelligent book, bad timing since it pushes a non-Obama reform).  Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe ; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately. What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs , has the pluses and minuses of an edited collection.  Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: Th...

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing , reviewed by Virginia Postrel here .  Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System (intelligent book, bad timing since it pushes a non-Obama reform).  Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe ; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately. What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs , has the pluses and minuses of an edited collection.  Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: Th...

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing , reviewed by Virginia Postrel here .  Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System (intelligent book, bad timing since it pushes a non-Obama reform).  Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe ; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately. What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs , has the pluses and minuses of an edited collection.  Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: Th...

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing , reviewed by Virginia Postrel here .  Stephen M. Davidson, Still Broken: Understanding the U.S. Health Care System (intelligent book, bad timing since it pushes a non-Obama reform).  Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe ; good book but I've read too much on this topic lately. What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs , has the pluses and minuses of an edited collection.  Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: Th...

The author is Dan Ariely and the subtitle is The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home .  It is in my hands.  It will not be left at Newark Airport .  It is written with his characteristic clarity and good humor.

By the way, it was this book , enclosed in the package, sent to my work address.  It was, or rather had been, my book.

That is the new book by the very smart Sebastian Mallaby and it is a history of hedge funds, told from a relatively sympathetic point of view.

5. Frank Trentmann, Free Trade Nation .  The rise and decline of free trade ideology in Britain, told in scholarly yet exciting fashion.  I am just starting this one.

4. Kai Bird, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 .  This is a fascinating portrait of the mid-century Arab world, a story of a itinerant childhood, plus it's an account of festering Mideast conflicts, a political Bildungsroman, and, every now and then, a story of what it's like to be an Israel skeptic and also be married to a woman whose parents are Holocaust survivors.  Intelligent on every page.

3. William Vollmann, Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, Kabuki Goddesses, Porn Queens, Poets, Hou .  What can one say about Vollmann at this point?  The title is descriptive, for sure, and the author loves his topic.  He's massively flawed to read but still more alive than most writers.  Here are earlier MR posts on Vollmann , who issues large and deeply informed tomes at the ...