Recently Mentioned Books
Showing 25 of 6684 mentions, ordered by most recent.
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...
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...
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...
Here is the full interview , via Finoculous . It contains further revelations. A few months ago I spent some time browsing his latest book in Borders. He can’t simply admit: "I was a fool to follow Mao and Stalin" but instead he has to push the line "I just need to reinterpret everybody more and I will still find some movement for "egalitarian terror" [those two words are his] to sign on to." Grow up, I say, yet he is almost sixty years old .
This information is from the fun to browse The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009 , a Colombia/SSRC book.
That is from the very fun Seven Days in the Art World , by Sarah Thornton. Here is Felix Salmon on the book . How about this part?:
It’s also cited in the new Paul Theroux book Ghost Train to the Eastern Star , which is occasionally entertaining but not up to his best material.
And the transit of fossil fuels through Georgia endangers the profit of which country? You have three guesses. If you don’t know the word " Transneft " you will soon. Here is more . See also Marshall Goldman’s new book Petrostate on the Georgia-Russia relationship and the economic factors involved. In my view today’s series of events is very, very bad news. Not only are the events bad, but it is a bad signal of type about the new (is it new?) Russian government.
That is from my 2000 book What Price Fame?
The whole review is excellent; it covers a new Chinese regional cookbook Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China .
By the way, Larry Mason wrote a novel which he claims is a model; I haven’t had time to read it yet. Plus the new novel by Russ Roberts, which illustrates economic concepts, seems to be out now .
That’s the new book edited by David Levy and Sandra Peart; the subtitle is Conversations on Analytical Egalitarianism , an issue which arises frequently on this blog. The book offers an excellent dialogue between Buchanan and Warren Samuels, the best essay on Adam Smith’s theory of usury, Deirdre McCloskey on "Sacred Economics," my essay on " Is a Novel a Model? ", Crampton and Farrant reinterpreting the socialist calculation debate, and the Rawls-Buchanan correspondence, among other treats. I...
6. Classical music recording : George Szell’s Beethoven’s 3rd remains a landmark recording, or try his Piano Concerti set with Leon Fleisher.
5. Jazz : There is Art Tatum, especially the early Capitol work , not so much the later Pablo recordings. Billy Strayhorn was often behind the best Duke Ellington arrangements.
4. Popular music : I can’t think of much…Boz Scaggs doesn’t count nor does Peter Frampton. Lonnie Mack’s The Wham of That Memphis Man! is one of the least known great albums. Doris Day is a very good singer and do see Pillow Talk if you don’t already know it.
2. Director : Wes Craven remains underrated; I still like his The Serpent and the Rainbow , among others. I can’t think of a notable movie set in Ohio, can you?
5. The Household: Informal Order Around the Hearth , by the noted law and economics scholar Robert C. Ellickson.
4. The Mirrored Heavens , by David J. Williams. A science fiction story for people who take the idea of space elevators for granted.
3. Prosperity Unbound: Building Property Markets with Trust , by Elena Panaritis . An update on the debates on Hernando de Soto and the associated land and property issues.
2. Global Catastrophic Risks , edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Cirkovic; so many smart, virile young men, all writing about destruction .
1. Red State Blue State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do , by the consistently impressive Andrew Gelman.
Again, that is from Ammon Shea’s excellent book .
I have no idea if it is correct. It is from the often quite interesting Group Theory in the Bedroom, and Other Mathematical Diversions , by Brian Hayes.
That’s from Ammon Shea’s superb Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages .
4. Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence and the Poverty of Nations , by Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel. This is a very good summary of what is known about corruption.