Recently Mentioned Books

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal .  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction. Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism .  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen. Pop Internation...

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal .  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction. Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism .  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen. Pop Internation...

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal .  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction. Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism .  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen. Pop Internation...

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal .  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction. Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism .  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen. Pop Internation...

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal .  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction. Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism .  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen. Pop Internation...

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal .  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction. Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism .  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen. Pop Internation...

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal .  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction. Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism .  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen. Pop Internation...

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal .  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction. Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism .  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen. Pop Internation...

Here is my review of Conscience of a Liberal .  That book argued that politics and policy can reshape the distribution of income in a more egalitarian direction. Peddling Prosperity is one of the best-written economics books, ever, as are also The Age of Diminished Expectations and Pop Internationalism .  The latter started a trend of Krugman as a debunker of erroneous economic claims.  The supply-siders and the low-level industrial policy advocates were early targets of his pen. Pop Internation...

That is from Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture , the current favorite to win the Booker Prize this Tuesday.  I read it on the flight back from London and enjoyed it very much.

The subtitle is The Collapse of the Honeybee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis and the author is Rowan Jacobsen.  Many books on biodiversity have bad economics but this book has very good economics:

That passage is from Charles Ellis’s The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs .  This book gets better and better, as you keep on reading it.  Definitely recommended.

Ah, remember that topic?  Ezra Klein does.  The book is called Health Care Reform Now ! and the author is CEO at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan.  That may not sound like an encouraging combination but in fact this is one of the most intelligent health care policy books around.  The analysis of cost inflation, lack of early care, and billing for procedures is perceptive throughout.  The policy proposals involve electronic medical records for everyone, legally required health insurance, enforcing t...

5. Samuel Johnson: A Biography , by Peter Martin.  This is only the third best biography of Johnson (Walter Jackson Bate is #2) and it is still one of the best books of the year.  What does that say?

4. Geoffrey Heal, When Principles Pay:Corporate Social Responsibility and the Bottom Line .  The main point is that socially responsible behavior is often profitable for business in the long run.  I know that doesn’t sound like such a compelling message right now, but this is a highly intelligent and now a sadly neglected book.

3. White Heat: The Friendship Between Emily Dicksinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson , by Brenda Wineapple.  Yes, this is a very good book.  But it has the same problem that most other Emily Dickinson books have.  Her poems are so short you can fit them into a narrative and they are so strong they tend to overwhelm any non-fiction context they are put in.

2. The Patron’s Payoff: Conspicuous Commissions in Italian Renaissance Art , by Jonathan K. Nelson and Richard J. Zeckhauser.  Put together a collaborating art historian, a first-rate microeconomist, an interest in signaling and a preface by A. Michael Spence and this is what you get.

1. The Sacred Book of the Werewolf , by Victor Pelevin.  A fun Russian weird novel; here is a good review of it .  It’s one of the few works of fiction I’ve finished lately.

That is from the new Charles D. Ellis book The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs .  So far this book is a very good history and it has more economic and historic substance than The Snowball .

The subtitle is Warren Buffett and the Business of Life .  Is it massive?  Yes.  Does it contain numerous revelations about his childhood, his "slight obsession" with trains, his love of collecting, and his sex life?  Yes.  Is it well written and well researched?  Yes.  Does it cover many financial episodes (most of all Salomon Brothers) and famous characters?  Yes.  Is it number one on Amazon?  Yes.  Does it contain analytic depth?  No.  Did I like it?  Yes, but for a return which is mostly bio...

That is from Liao Yiwu’s excellent The Corpse Walker: Real-Life Stories, China from the Bottom Up .  Here is a previous installment in the series .  Here is an out of date book , by comedian Eddie Cantor.  Here is a photo :

That is from Liao Yiwu’s excellent The Corpse Walker: Real-Life Stories, China from the Bottom Up .  Here is a previous installment in the series .  Here is an out of date book , by comedian Eddie Cantor.  Here is a photo :

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Cryptonomicon is the place to start.  It’s one of my favorite popular fictions from the last twenty years and you don’t even need to like "that sort of thing."

Here are a few reviews and a few more and more .  Here is the Amazon listing .  A partial read and a browse put me in (temporary?) agreement with this Amazon review:

That is from John McPhee’s excellent Coming into the Country , a study of Alaska recommended to me by several MR readers.  Here is a short 2002 piece on switching the capital of Alaska and the oddity of putting it in Juneau.  Here is a useful map .  Here is a picture of Juneau and from the air .  Googling " Juneau traffic report " does not in fact bring up any traffic reports.