Recently Mentioned Books

Every year there are five or six books that just wow me.  This is one of them.  It is as gripping as a first-rate novel and I learned something on almost every page.  Here is one review .  You can buy it here .

Chapter five of Common Wealth is called "Securing Our Water Needs," an important topic but one neglected by most economists.  One lesson is that climate change will put a big stress on water supplies.  So far, so good, but the recommendations start with greater international cooperation:

3. How Judges Think ,  by Richard A. Posner.  Every sentence in this book is substance, to a remarkable degree.  It’s hard to find a central thread to the argument, but I blame that on the topic rather than on any failing of the author.  After all, judges think in some pretty complicated ways and Posner goes out of his way to minimize the role of conscious theory in judicial behavior.  Content aside (which reflects all of Posner’s usual erudition), anyone interested in non-fiction should take a ...

2. The Dawn of Indian Music in the West , by Peter Lavezzoli.  You need to care about the topic, but today this became one of my favorite non-fiction books, ever.  I bought a copy just to express my loyalty to the author.  I’ve said this before, but lack of knowledge of Indian classical music is the biggest gap in the education — and enjoyment — of many many smart people.  This is one very good introduction but it offers much to the veteran as well.

We have molecular gastronomy, so why not apply science to…other things, as does Mary Roach .  The subtitle is "The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex."  Here is the author’s home page ; she also wrote Spook and Stiff , both of which are good.  This isn’t a "how to" book, it is a real popular science book on its topic and I predict it will be successful.

Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China , by Fuchsia Dunlop, due out in mid-April.

That is from the new book The Permanent Tax Revolt: How the Property Tax Transformed American Politics , by Isaac Martin.  The main thesis of this book is overstated, namely that the professionalization of property tax assessments is the root cause of American exceptionalism on tax politics; nonetheless I found this a very informative and stimulating read.

That’s the new Jeff Sachs book .  It promotes resource pessimism, Nordic-style social democracy, foreign aid, and a fundamental rethinking of U.S. foreign policy.  Most of all it expresses a faith in global cooperation.  Sachs is very smart and, though I do not agree with him, there is often more to his views than his critics admit.  But my browsing of this book never gave me the feeling that I had access to the mind of Jeffrey Sachs.  It doesn’t even read like a popularization.  Imagine a smart...

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 ...