Recently Mentioned Books

2. The Great Contraction , Friedman and Schwartz.  Classic economics books like this are almost always worth a reread.  I had forgotten just how bad was the year 1931.

1. Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town , by Nick Reding.  Maybe I should define a new category: "Good enough to finish."  This is one of the better recent books on the economics of culture.

Almost everyone thinks that the French health care system is better than the British health care system.  What is the chance that the British could be persuaded to switch?  (Although I cannot imagine the rhetoric: "under the French health care system, Jean-Dominique Bauby would have been put to death.")  What does this say about health care reform more generally?

Most of the answers seem too obvious to list.  I will say only that there is more to Swedish detective fiction than Stieg Larsson (start with Henning Mankell), lingonberries are usually a good idea in a meal, "Honey Honey" is the most underrated Abba song (it didn't make Greatest Hits I ), there are more excellent Bergman movies than most people think even if you don't like the stereotypical ones, Carl Milles's greatest work is in a Fairfax/Merrifield cemetary on Rt.29 in Virginia , Emanuel Swed...

That is from How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n; Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music , by Elijah Wald.

I was put on to this anecdote from Bill Streever's very good new book Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places .  Single-topic popular science books may feel like an exhausted genre, but we're still seeing good ones come along.

It's an excellent book , whether on Sicily or Italy more generally, and it is written by Peter Robb.  It is also an excellent book about Naples:

2. Movie, set in : This is a tough one.  But I'll opt for Visconti's The Leopard (big screen required, don't bother with Netflix) over Coppola's Godfather sequence, not to mention La Terra Trema and L'avventura .  Wow.  Is there a Sicily scene in Patton ?

1. Novel, set in : The Leopard , by Giuseppe di Lampedusa.

The parts of this book about Jacobs are splendid.  The parts about Moses are good, though they were more familiar to me.  I believe there has otherwise never been much biographical material on Jacobs's life.  Here is an excerpt from the book .  Here is one review .  Did you know about her book A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska ?

The subtitle is How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City and the author is Anthony Flint.  Here is an excerpt:

It differs from "insight through analysis," "insight through description," and related concepts.  I am never sure if I should report on books which offer insight through horribleness. Jack Henry Abbott is a (dead) author who has insight through horribleness.

5. Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future — Chris Mooney's new book — is now out.

You can buy it here .  Here is an Imperial slide show .

The subtitle is Food, Wine, and the End of France and the author is Michael Steinberger.  This is a very readable and interesting book on France's decline as world culinary leader, building on an informal "economics of cuisine."  Even in France I would usually rather eat outside of Paris and this book helps explain why.

5. TV show about : Veronica Mars , especially season one .  Excellent dialogue, and it asks what family really consists of.  One of my favorite years of any TV show.  Is the British show Life on Mars good?  I vaguely recall My Favorite Martian from when I was a kid.  Was it actually about being gay?

5. TV show about : Veronica Mars , especially season one .  Excellent dialogue, and it asks what family really consists of.  One of my favorite years of any TV show.  Is the British show Life on Mars good?  I vaguely recall My Favorite Martian from when I was a kid.  Was it actually about being gay?

4. Film about : Mission to Mars .  Underrated de Palma, much better on a big screen, where it has a nice poetry of motion.  I already know that some of you hate this movie, so there is no need to pillory me again on this count.  I have never seen The Eyes of Laura Mars .  What's that old science fiction movie modeled after The Tempest ?

4. Film about : Mission to Mars .  Underrated de Palma, much better on a big screen, where it has a nice poetry of motion.  I already know that some of you hate this movie, so there is no need to pillory me again on this count.  I have never seen The Eyes of Laura Mars .  What's that old science fiction movie modeled after The Tempest ?

2. Album about : David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars . Venus and Mars is not overall a good album; it is mostly dull and overproduced.  So Bowie is a clear winner here.

5. The Generalissimo: Chiang-Kai-Shek and the Struggle for Modern China , by Jay Taylor.  A new and apparently exhaustive biography, based on many new sources.  The first fifty pages (all I've read so far) read very well.  I am told that Chiang was "incorruptible" — who would have known?  "Brutal, but underrated" seems to be the takeaway.  This could well be one of the more important non-fiction books of the year.

4. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science , by Richard Holmes.  It's a well-written book with a great cover, a nice title, favorable reviews everywhere, and good information on each page.  Still, I don't quite see what it all adds up to.  But if you're inclined to read it, I don't see any reason not to.

3. Bangkok Days , by Lawrence Osborne.  Books on this topic are tricky because they have a tendency to exploit cheap salaciousness but this one is quite good and also conceptual in nature.  It prompted me to order more books by the author.

2. Calvin , by F. Bruce Gordon.  This excellent biography brings French Renaissance theology to life.  Recommended.

1. Genesis , by Bernard Beckett.  A dystopia by a Kiwi author who writes (broadly) in the style of Margaret Atwood.  My complaint that it was too short is one of the better complaints you can have about a book.