Recently Mentioned Books

6. The Clash Live at Shea Stadium , coming on disc.  I am lucky enough to have seen them at the Passaic Theatre before they became truly famous.

4. Jose Saramago, Death at Intervals (the other title is Death With Interruptions ).  I snagged an advance copy from the UK; sadly he is past his vital powers.

3. The next Malcolm Gladwell book.

5. The Boy with Two Belly Buttons , by Stephen Dubner.  It’s a children’s book.  I haven’t read so many of these since Mr. Pines Paints a Purple House — my favorite as a tot — but to me it seemed very good.  Ages 4-8.

4. Epilogue , by Anne Roiphe.  Ideally this book deserves its own post but it is difficult to excerpt.  It’s about why the author, now a widow, finds it hard to fall in love again.  Definitely recommended.

3. The Gargoyle , by Andrew Davidson.  So far this is excellent junk reading.

2. Paul Auster, Man in the Dark .  Reviews for this work have a bimodal distribution.  I like most of Auster’s books but I vote no.

1. The Future of the Internet — and How to Stop It , by Jonathan Zittrain.  The main claim is that everything will be sterile, tethered appliances.  The opening up of the iPhone would seem to bely this message plus competition usually works in giving consumers what they want.  A smart book (that is rare for internet books, oddly) but I suspect it will prove to be wrong.

That is from Sarah Lyall’s not fully analytical but often quite amusing The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British .

8. Travel book, set in : Jonathan Raban’s Passage to Juneau: A Sea and its Meanings is lovely.  I’ve never read John Muir’s Travels in Alaska but it is likely a contender.

5. Sculpture : Alaska is probably #1 in the entire United States once you consider the indigenous peoples.  The best works are from the 1950s and 60s and they are not always attributable.  My personal favorite is Thomassie Annanok but of course that is a matter of taste.  Ingo Hessel’s book on Inuit Art is a favorite of mine, noting that it focuses more on Canada than Alaska.

My picks would have been Mission to Mars and Titan A.E . Sunshine is also quite good and not so well known.  At times I regard What Dreams May Come as science fiction.  Can I call John Carpenter’s The Thing underrated?  (Is Gattaca underrated?  I don’t think so, not any more.  Is the wonderful eXistenZ underrated?)  Then there are the three Stars Wars prequels, each deeply underrated (unlike The Clone Wars , which defies every rational choice theory known to mankind).  But we’ve had other commen...

My picks would have been Mission to Mars and Titan A.E . Sunshine is also quite good and not so well known.  At times I regard What Dreams May Come as science fiction.  Can I call John Carpenter’s The Thing underrated?  (Is Gattaca underrated?  I don’t think so, not any more.  Is the wonderful eXistenZ underrated?)  Then there are the three Stars Wars prequels, each deeply underrated (unlike The Clone Wars , which defies every rational choice theory known to mankind).  But we’ve had other commen...

My picks would have been Mission to Mars and Titan A.E . Sunshine is also quite good and not so well known.  At times I regard What Dreams May Come as science fiction.  Can I call John Carpenter’s The Thing underrated?  (Is Gattaca underrated?  I don’t think so, not any more.  Is the wonderful eXistenZ underrated?)  Then there are the three Stars Wars prequels, each deeply underrated (unlike The Clone Wars , which defies every rational choice theory known to mankind).  But we’ve had other commen...

My picks would have been Mission to Mars and Titan A.E . Sunshine is also quite good and not so well known.  At times I regard What Dreams May Come as science fiction.  Can I call John Carpenter’s The Thing underrated?  (Is Gattaca underrated?  I don’t think so, not any more.  Is the wonderful eXistenZ underrated?)  Then there are the three Stars Wars prequels, each deeply underrated (unlike The Clone Wars , which defies every rational choice theory known to mankind).  But we’ve had other commen...

My picks would have been Mission to Mars and Titan A.E . Sunshine is also quite good and not so well known.  At times I regard What Dreams May Come as science fiction.  Can I call John Carpenter’s The Thing underrated?  (Is Gattaca underrated?  I don’t think so, not any more.  Is the wonderful eXistenZ underrated?)  Then there are the three Stars Wars prequels, each deeply underrated (unlike The Clone Wars , which defies every rational choice theory known to mankind).  But we’ve had other commen...

That is from Kate Jackson’s Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science and Survival in the Congo .  It is an excellent and very fun book on fieldwork and on the topics mentioned in its subtitle.  I think of this as "a Chris Blattman book" and yes you should be reading Chris’s blog .

Don’t forget "And I Love Her," among a bunch of others.  And by egomania I am referring to the audience not (only) the performers.  This passage is from Daniel J. Levitin’s new and quite interesting The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature .

That’s the title of the forthcoming Jeff Madrick book .  "Don’t we already have big government?" was my first reaction.  This book is a good summary of one point of view, but if you’re already familiar with the basic arguments it won’t extend your understanding of the debates.  There’s not much on the public choice arguments (e.g., self-serving special interests and irrational and underinformed voters) against growing state power, only a general sense that we "should" do good things with governm...

1. Encyclopedia of Libertarianism , edited by Ronald Hamowy, Amazon link here .

4. Playwright : Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden is good.

3. Poetry : My favorite Neruda is Canto General , his retelling of Whitman’s America but covering the entire hemisphere.  A masterpiece. Estravagario is excellent and while I haven’t read Residencia de la Tierra , it is considered another one of his classics.  The love poems are very nice though perhaps not his best material.  In any case he is one of the three or four best poets of the twentieth century.  Gabriela Mistral is talented but I cannot say I love her work.

3. Poetry : My favorite Neruda is Canto General , his retelling of Whitman’s America but covering the entire hemisphere.  A masterpiece. Estravagario is excellent and while I haven’t read Residencia de la Tierra , it is considered another one of his classics.  The love poems are very nice though perhaps not his best material.  In any case he is one of the three or four best poets of the twentieth century.  Gabriela Mistral is talented but I cannot say I love her work.

2. Popular music : Ricardo Villalobos is the lead figure of Chilean techno, which is now I hear quite a vibrant genre; Taka Taka is quite a good mix album.  What else can you point me to?

1. Fiction : I’ve already covered Roberto Bolaño plenty on MR; The Savage Detectives is his masterpiece but it’s all worth reading.  The massive 2666 is due out later this year.  José Donoso’s The Obscene Bird of Night , while hardly read in the U.S., seems to me one of the most gripping novels of the 20th century.  If you read the Amazon reviews you’ll that others who have read it agree.  This is one of the least read first-rate novels I know.  It’s not easy going, however, and it’s taking me a...