Recently Mentioned Books

My favorite works of fiction this year were the new Pamuk, Gail Hareven's The Confessions of Noa Weber , and A Happy Marriage , by Rafael Yglesias.

4. David Small, Stitches: A Memoir .

3. Dan Chaon, Await Your Reply: A Novel .

2. Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin .

1. Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs .

Here is a YouTube of Tom Palmer presenting his new book , with yours truly commenting, at the Cato Institute.  David Boaz summarizes part of my comment .  Here is my previous post on Tom's new book and the book, Realizing Liberty , is available for purchase on-line ,  Tom points us to this podcast of him criticizing me ; his comment reflects some of the differences in our points of view.

The subtitle is Thinking Big and Thinking Small and the editors are Jessica Cohen and William Easterly.  Usually essay collections are of low value but this is the single best introduction (I know of) to where development economics is at today.  Contributors include Dani Rodrik, Simon Johnson, Michael Kremer, Lant Pritchett, Ricardo Haussmann, and Abhijit Banerjee, among others.  Even better, there are two published (short) comments on each essay, a practice which should be universal in every co...

5. The Arabs , by Eugene Rogan; a superb book which somehow I had forgotten to review this year.  It's especially good for showing how their response to Western imperialism has been conditioned by their Ottoman experiences.

6. Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector , by Benjamin Moser.  I loved this book.  She's an interesting writer with a fascinating biography, plus the book doubles as a history of Brazil and a history of Judaism in 20th century South America.  This is one of the sleeper books of the year.  Here is Wikipedia on Clarice Lispector , with a good entry.  This is one of the sleeper books of the year.

5. Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 .  Is "magisterial" simply a fancy word for "boring"?  Since I won't read past p.100 in this book, I guess I'll never find out.

4. Stitches , by David Small.  By now I've concluded that I'm not good at reading graphic novels, except for the Sandman series for some reason.  This much-heralded story of a sick child, mistreated by his parents, struck me as professionally done but pointless.

3. The Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare , by Jonathan Bate.  This book offers plenty of good information but it didn't bring Shakespeare to life for me.  Should I prefer the less reliable yet more Shakespearean Stephen Greenblatt book?

2. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders , by Daniyal Mueenuddin.  The Indo-Pak quaint narrative tale is an overexplored genre these days, but still I enjoyed this very much.  It is "full of life," while sidestepping the cliches of other books that are described as such.  Or were all those cliches enjoyable in the first place?  Recommended, surprisingly.

1. The American Civil War , by John Keegan.  Maybe I was prejudiced by the early reviews , but I didn't think there was much substance here.  Like all of Keegan's work it is very well-written but if you have basic knowledge about the events it doesn't hold your interest.

10. Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong , by Terry Teachout.

9. Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World .

8. By Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City .

5. Columbine , by David Cullen.

4. Gordon Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic .

3. David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon .

2. Cheever: A Life , by Blake Bailey.

1. Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science .

4. I still am not convinced that we have avoided a new version of "the vertigo years," based on a fundamental discombobulation of economic expectations.  This is probably just historical coincidence, but the Great Depression did come last to China.

Correction : If you search inside the book , you will see that she is referring to the Scrabble strategies of her grandparents, not her own Scrabble strategies .  They are the ones who cannot be trusted with U.S. foreign policy and it can also be said that she misses this chance to condemn their weak gaming strategies.

4. Magma bleg: is there anything to these jokers ?  Please let me know.