Recently Mentioned Books

That’s right, all of Beethoven, 87 discs.  Buy it here .  I’m not tempted, mostly because I already have multiple favorite versions and I am ultimately a big fusspot who can’t stand to hear lesser accounts of the master.  I was happy with the Bach box for $99 but he stands up to second-rate interpretations more readily and I never before owned the complete cantatas.  Still, some of you may find this a quick and cost-effective way to feel a sense of "Beethoven completeness."  But you’ll value the...

It’s just out .  This is the best popular book explaining the benefits of international trade.  Imagine Bastiat for 2008, or a Cajun updating of Henry George’s Protection or Free Trade .  Sadly it is expensive but I’d sooner give a student this book than say Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson .

Don’t forget to pre-order your copy of Tim Harford’s The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World .  Alex and I will be starting our Book Forum soon, along with some prestigious guest reviewers, and Tim’s book will start appearing in book stores this Tuesday.  Tim is one of the world’s best popular writers on economics, and we only select those books that we feel will yield maximally interesting book forums.

4. The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World , by Eric Weiner.  This book is well-written, witty, and deserving of its current bestseller status.  At first I thought it was just fluff, but its applied, anecdotal, and travel-based approach gives one of the better windows on happiness across cultures.  His particular observations are astute, especially on Switzerland and Thailand; in the latter case, referring to sex, he writes that something which cannot be s...

3. Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD .  This is a good summary of knowledge about economic growth, by a premier empirical economist.  But, as I am already familiar with the basic literature, I couldn’t find any reason to keep on reading.

2. Las Ben é volas , by Jonathan Littell , the Spanish-language edition of this famous French novel just came out (I don’t read French).  Here is the French edition .  Here are some of the raves .  Here is a critical review .  I loved the first twenty pages and was bored by the next thirty.  We’ll see how far I get in this Spanish-language edition of almost 1000 pages.  My current best guess is that a WWII-themed novel of this kind simply can’t be that original.  The French love it, perhaps, bec...

1. India , by Michael Wood.  This book looks ordinary but it is a wonderful (selective) history which captures the magic of India.  Recommended to both the beginner and the expert.

Here is my review of Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets .  I found this a difficult review to write.  The book is very interesting and Venkatesh is one of the world’s best and leading social scientists (and I don’t say that lightly).  Still, I thought his book was…how can I put it….somewhat evil, if I may call upon that old-fashioned concept.  The book required him to work with, and often encourage, a vicious gang leader for up to six years.  For i...

2. The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll , by Alvaro Mutis .  Imagine a Colombian version of 1001 Nights and Don Quixote , in novella form.  This is 700 pp. of sheer delight, and it also indicates we are just starting to figure out which Latin American works of fiction will prove of lasting importance.  This is one of them, and another superb translation from Edith Grossman.

1. The Past , by Alan Pauls .  I don’t usually like drug-fueled tales of unhealthy sexual obsession, but I’ll make an exception for this one.  This Argentine novel has received rave reviews across Europe, but still does not seem to have a U.S. publisher; the Amazon link is to a UK edition.  It’s uneven, but it has a higher number of memorable scenes than almost any other contemporary novel.

Here is the list .  I hadn’t known about Sneaky Pete Kleinow, or Edward Yang (director of " Yi Yi ," one of my favorite films), or Teresa Stich-Randall.  My favorite Oscar Peterson album was The Trio , the one with Joe Pass that is.

Here is the list .  I hadn’t known about Sneaky Pete Kleinow, or Edward Yang (director of " Yi Yi ," one of my favorite films), or Teresa Stich-Randall.  My favorite Oscar Peterson album was The Trio , the one with Joe Pass that is.

Here is Bruce Bartlett´s new book , here is an overview .  Incendiary, etc.  The positive suggestion is that the Republicans should, and will need to, start courting black voters, and that greater electoral competition in this manner will help the courted parties.  The main theoretical question is when the statute of limitations runs out for holding the background of a party against that party.  I don’t have a clear view on that question, although for individual candidates I think that the time ...

Most of all this is a town of baked sweets, they use sugar and milk as well as in Calcutta.  Sweet milky creme thingies with walnuts, camotes , amaranth with honey, flan, fried coconut cookies, fresh potato chips with tamarind and chili and many other delights.  There is a whole book Dulceria in Puebla , they weren’t kidding.  Mole poblano almost seems like an afterthought.  The produce is also superb; I never had tasted real cucumber before today.  The city is much more beautiful than I had exp...

4. Lee Perry collection : Ape-ology .  The best of the best.  Again.  It’s funny, but this category has a winner just about every year.  In the Coasian durable goods monopoly game, price is falling rapidly…

3. Haitian CD : Erol Josue, Regleman .  A clear winner in this category.

2. World music : Tinariwen, Aman Iman: Water Is Life .  They’re the desert nomads who were described as the world’s greatest rock and roll band by Slate.com .  Runner-up would be Segu Blue , by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba.  Acoustic string music from Mali is in this year, plus there is Bembeya Jazz National , from Guinea.  Here is a very good NPR list of top world music picks .

2. World music : Tinariwen, Aman Iman: Water Is Life .  They’re the desert nomads who were described as the world’s greatest rock and roll band by Slate.com .  Runner-up would be Segu Blue , by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba.  Acoustic string music from Mali is in this year, plus there is Bembeya Jazz National , from Guinea.  Here is a very good NPR list of top world music picks .

2. World music : Tinariwen, Aman Iman: Water Is Life .  They’re the desert nomads who were described as the world’s greatest rock and roll band by Slate.com .  Runner-up would be Segu Blue , by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba.  Acoustic string music from Mali is in this year, plus there is Bembeya Jazz National , from Guinea.  Here is a very good NPR list of top world music picks .

1. Best jazz album of the year : Charles Mingus Sextet with the Eric Dolphy, Cornell 1964 .  Personally I like this CD very much, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t already know most of the essential Mingus. Dee Dee Bridgewater , who sings jazz over a kora background from Mali, was another popular selection.  I often find jazz singing too facile but the African mix provides an appropriately meaty counterweight.

1. Best jazz album of the year : Charles Mingus Sextet with the Eric Dolphy, Cornell 1964 .  Personally I like this CD very much, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t already know most of the essential Mingus. Dee Dee Bridgewater , who sings jazz over a kora background from Mali, was another popular selection.  I often find jazz singing too facile but the African mix provides an appropriately meaty counterweight.

That’s from an Amazon review of Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind , which is in fact the best written tedious fantasy book that I have come across for a while.  Recommended.

5. Vernon Smith, Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological Forms .  This is Vernon’s big picture book, covering Hayek, the extended liberal order, and how experimental economics makes it all fit together.  A capstone to an amazing career, next will come his autobiography.

4. Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy , by Donald Kraybill, Steven Nolt, and David Weaver-Zercher.  How the Amish came to forgive the guy who shot ten of their children.  A sleeper book, it has turned up on some of the odder "best of" lists for the year.

3. Daniil Kharms, Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms .  The best collection of the Russian absurdist, offered up in many short bits; recommended, he is an underread writer outside of Russia.