Recently Mentioned Books

5. No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33" , by Kyle Gann.  There are over twenty-four recordings of this piece and skeptics can consider that an attempt at competitive rent exhaustion.  Yet probably none of those have come close to David Tudor's presentation of the work at its premiere.

4. Why Translation Matters , by Edith Grossman.  Short but self-recommending.  It is part of the "(Why X Matters)" series.  Here is one good review .

3. Gridlock: Why We're Stuck in Traffic and What To Do About It , by Randall O'Toole.  This Cato book is mostly an attack on transportation planning, including a critique of high-speed rail subsidies.

2. Umberto Eco, The Infinity of Lists .  The color plates are beautiful and favor artworks with large numbers of massed individuals.  The book itself is mostly excerpts of classic texts and it doesn't have much insight into…lists.

1. The Weeping Goldsmith: Discoveries in the Land of Myanmar , by W. John Kress.  The subtitle sounds so intriguing and then you discover its about the search for rare plants.  But it turns out to be even better than you thought at first.  It's a wonderful introduction to Myanmar, the idea of a scientific quest, and some aspects of botany.  The photographs are beautiful too.  I very much like books which serve up surprising combinations, as this one does.

Her new book is The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education .  Her bottom line is this:

That's from the new and noteworthy The Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality Behind the Movies , by Edward Jay Epstein.  You can buy it new, in paperback, for only $11.

Here is Carpenter's previous book , which I have not read.  For the pointer to this work I thank Steve Teles.

That's from yesterday's Financial Times , no…whoops, sorry!  That's from Mark Mazower's Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44 .  It's a good book.

Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, Modern Principles of Economics ( UK ) – well-written, interesting, and some material not normally covered in econ. textbooks. I’ll try to find time to write more about this textbook, but guess students and professors will be the judges.

That is from the new and consistently interesting The Poisoners' Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York , by Deborah Blum.  Although she has won a Pulitzer Prize, she remains an underrated author.

The author is Ruth Towse and you can buy it here .  This excellent book now sets the standard for the field.  Here is the home page of Ruth Towse .

I gave my DVD of The 25th Hour to Peter Boettke; we both loved it.  Natasha and I have started following Tell Me You Love Me , the brutal and anti-erotic new HBO show.

Book season this fall is amazing; there is an impressive pile on the sofa, but sadly (for the sake of science) I cannot find many books that I have only one reason for reading.  I liked the title of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (though nothing else about it) and so I have a library copy. Tree of Smoke is shaping up as the best American novel in years. The new Pamuk is getting me interested in rereading Dostoyevsky; it is sad to see Pamuk having written that he cannot imag...

Book season this fall is amazing; there is an impressive pile on the sofa, but sadly (for the sake of science) I cannot find many books that I have only one reason for reading.  I liked the title of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (though nothing else about it) and so I have a library copy. Tree of Smoke is shaping up as the best American novel in years. The new Pamuk is getting me interested in rereading Dostoyevsky; it is sad to see Pamuk having written that he cannot imag...

Book season this fall is amazing; there is an impressive pile on the sofa, but sadly (for the sake of science) I cannot find many books that I have only one reason for reading.  I liked the title of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (though nothing else about it) and so I have a library copy. Tree of Smoke is shaping up as the best American novel in years. The new Pamuk is getting me interested in rereading Dostoyevsky; it is sad to see Pamuk having written that he cannot imag...

The subtitle is How Prosperity Evolves and you can buy it here .  The book is due out in May.  Excerpt:

That is from Mokyr's new and notable The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850 .  The obvious question of course is why so many people moved into cities.  Did " new goods " make the urban living standard higher than some measures might suggest?  Was it to avoid boredom?  To avoid "rural idiocy" and invest in future IQ externalities for children ?

You will find more images here .  I have been reading the very good book South African Art Now .

That is from Christopher R. Browning's new book Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp .

Here is the full article .  Call me crazy, but I've long been a (partial) fan of John Bailey's Sailing to Paradise: The Discovery of the Americas by 7000 B.C.

4. David S. Landes, Joel Mokyr, and William J. Baumol, editors, The Invention of Enterprise:  Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times .

3. Daniel R. Headrick, Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present .

2. Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, The Road from Ruin: How to Revive Capitalism and Put America Back on Top .

1. Sebastian Edwards, Left Behind: Latin America and the False Promise of Populism .