Recently Mentioned Books

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  Here is an out of date book , by comedian Eddie Cantor.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  Here is an out of date book , by comedian Eddie Cantor.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.

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 .