Recently Mentioned Books

That is from Peter Moskos’s truly excellent Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District .  This is one of the two or three best conceptual analyses of "cops and robbers" I have read.  It is mandatory reading for all fans of The Wire and recommended for everyone else.

I say "Ask and ye shall receive."  You could try William J. Bernstein’s new A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World .  Readers, do you have other suggestions?

The always-interesting Richard Florida has a new book out, namely Who’s Your City: How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live The Most Important Decision of Your Life .

Chris Blattman offers up his list in two parts, here and here , the second relying on suggestions from Elliot Green.  I’ll add a few suggestions to these lists, including P.T. Bauer’s West African Trade , Stanislav Andreski’s The African Predicament , The Da Capo Guide to African Music , Martin Lynn on the palm oil trade , and Robert Klitgaard’s Tropical Gangsters .

Chris Blattman offers up his list in two parts, here and here , the second relying on suggestions from Elliot Green.  I’ll add a few suggestions to these lists, including P.T. Bauer’s West African Trade , Stanislav Andreski’s The African Predicament , The Da Capo Guide to African Music , Martin Lynn on the palm oil trade , and Robert Klitgaard’s Tropical Gangsters .

Chris Blattman offers up his list in two parts, here and here , the second relying on suggestions from Elliot Green.  I’ll add a few suggestions to these lists, including P.T. Bauer’s West African Trade , Stanislav Andreski’s The African Predicament , The Da Capo Guide to African Music , Martin Lynn on the palm oil trade , and Robert Klitgaard’s Tropical Gangsters .

5. Edward Castronova, Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun is Changing Reality .  This seems to be less popular than Synthetic Worlds but in terms of social science I think it is better and deeper; recommended.  Here is a Russ Roberts podcast with Castronova .

4. Superior, Nebraska: The Common Sense Values of America’s Heartland , by Denis Boyles.  Contra "What’s the Matter with Kansas?", Boyle argues that the Midwestern values of individual responsibility are wise and sophisticated and that the Republican Party embodies much of this wisdom.  The author lives…in France.  By the way, here are maps for per capita Starbucks and Wal-Mart .

2. Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East , by Robin Wright.  An intelligent and experienced book on current trends in the Middle East and why we should be optimistic that pluralism will triumph.  Here is one good review .

1. Predictocracy: Market Mechanisms for Public and Private Decision-Making , by Michael Abramowicz.  A good compilation of current knowledge on prediction markets; he also argues for letting prediction markets determine many social decisions.  Here is his debate with Robin Hanson on the same.

That is from the often quite interesting The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food , by Jennifer 8. Lee (yes, readers, her middle initial is the number "8").  Of course arguably most of these restaurants do not count as Chinese food at all.

That’s from one review of the newly translated Roberto Bolaño book .  (Might it have been titled "Conservative Fascism"?)  This work is not a structured narrative but rather a series of impressionistic portraits of how easy it is for some people to slip into being horrible and stay that way.  Imagine a fictional bestiary of creepy aesthetes who are playing at human relationships, sleepwalking through their dreamlike yet trivial obsessions, and in the meantime pledging allegiance to tyranny.  Lit...

That is from the often interesting Luck & the Irish: A Brief History of Change from 1970 , by R.F. Foster.  Here is a previous MR post on the Irish economic miracle.

10. Javier Marias is good, especially A Heart so White .

7. Javier Cercas: Soldiers of Salamis .  One of the best novels on wartime guilt, collective memory, and the ambiguous role of the author in a narrative.  Recommended, if you are willing to give it a suitably careful read.

2. Calderon: Life is a Dream .  The piece of Spanish literature you are most likely not to have read that you should read.  Every smart, well-educated person should know this book.

That is from Naked in Haiti: A…Morality Tale About Tourists, Prostitutes and Politicians , by Dan King.  This book has received very little notice but it’s a more interesting look at human commodification than anything you’ll find coming out of Harvard or Princeton.  I can only say that the author really seems to know what he is talking about , if you get my drift.  This work would not have been approved at university institutional review boards.  It’s also one of the best books on "life on the ...

The book is the latest attempt to write a populist, Progressive economics tract.

Album about : Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain .  One of my three or four favorite Miles CDs, so an easy pick.  Admittedly the move toward an "acoustic-electric" sound does not appeal to all jazz fans, so this album remains underappreciated.

Spanish pianist, playing Spanish music : Alicia de Larrocha is the obvious choice.  Her Albeniz and Granados recordings remain unsurpassed.

Classical guitarist : Segovia, starting with his recordings of Bach .  It’s not just amazing technique, these are some of the best musical interpretations of Bach by anyone playing any instrument.  They are what I call lifetime choices for one’s collection.

In other words, who really knows?  The excerpt is from Darwin’s new book After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405 , which should be read by anyone…who…reads books with titles like that.  It is most interesting on the Indian and Arabic collapse of the 18th century and on fitting the Russian conquest of Central Asia into the more general history of European imperialism.  I didn’t find any revelations in the book, but it was consistently interesting and readable throughout.

High levels of inequality often bring more integration, at least in terms of spatial proximity.  Even with high rents there is a large community of Latinos living just outside of Aspen, Colorado.  Guess why.  They don’t live right next to the very rich but they do live among non-Latinos.  And the greater availability of cheap services is one reason I prefer life in the United States to Western Europe.  Cheap shipping of goods means I still can get French cheese and German books .

The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman . This book is essential to anyone looking for a) a love letter to Los Angeles, b) a chance to cultivate an obsession with Raymond Chandler, or c) a new model for writing intelligent nonfiction. It’s a colorful local history of the California metropolis in the first half of the 20 th century plus an erotic biography with lots of speculative commentary interspersed, most of all on how Chandler conducted his unorthodox lov...

That contrast is from Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational .  Even if you add in auto theft, burglary, and larceny-theft, the former sum does not exceed $16 billion.