Recently Mentioned Books

1. Vie Francaise , by Jean-Paul Dubois.  He is the French Philip Roth; the bottom line is that I finished it, and not just because of the occasional mentions of Adam Smith.

Maybe this paper will help.  The more globalized parts of Mexico — most of all the north — have done extremely well since NAFTA passed.  The biggest problems remain in the least globalized parts, most of all the south and big chunks of the interior.  The paper has just appeared in the new NBER book on globalization and poverty .

Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion is a very exciting and important book.  It is rare to read something on economic development that is true, non-trivial, and potentially useful.  I recommend this book highly, it is also short and easy to read.  Here is a good review of the book by Niall Ferguson .

John Reader’s Africa: A Biography of a Continent .  Most of all it offers historical and geographic reasons why African development has proven so problematic.  The author very frequently thinks in terms of mechanism , so it will be congenial to most economically-oriented readers.  Have you wondered why slavery is so common in African history, or why African societies are so frequently conservative and obsessed with the veneration of elders?  Why parasites can feast on humans so easily in Africa?...

That is from Jeremy Haft’s cheesy-looking but at times interesting All the Tea in China: How to Buy, Sell, and Make Money on the Mainland .

A loyal MR reader asked for mbaqanga recommendations for iPod; start with The Indestructible Beat of Soweto , Mahlathini (best without the Mahotella Queens), and Township Jazz n’ Jive ; the last is not exactly mbqanga but you will love it anyway.

A loyal MR reader asked for mbaqanga recommendations for iPod; start with The Indestructible Beat of Soweto , Mahlathini (best without the Mahotella Queens), and Township Jazz n’ Jive ; the last is not exactly mbqanga but you will love it anyway.

A loyal MR reader asked for mbaqanga recommendations for iPod; start with The Indestructible Beat of Soweto , Mahlathini (best without the Mahotella Queens), and Township Jazz n’ Jive ; the last is not exactly mbqanga but you will love it anyway.

That is from Read Montague’s new and notable Why Choose This Book?: How We Make Decisions , an in-depth look at neuroscience and the brain.

2. Fiction : I reject Kesey and Michener, so I’ll go with Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book , an excellent piece of fantasy/science fiction.

Dr. Yang didn’t even know that he is a character in a forthcoming book about how to motivate your dentist…

3. Jonathan Lethem, Gun with Occasional Music .  This is marketed as contemporary literature, which keeps away the science fiction fans.

2. Star Maker , by Olaf Stapledon.  Read Stapleton if you fervently believe that British Hegelianism is the missing element in most science fiction.  Yet this is probably my favorite science fiction novel of all time, who else can credibly skip over 20,000 years in a single breath?  "Civilizations rose and fell, yet now we must move on," or something like that.  Honorable mentions go to Stapledon’s Odd John and especially Sirius .

2. Star Maker , by Olaf Stapledon.  Read Stapleton if you fervently believe that British Hegelianism is the missing element in most science fiction.  Yet this is probably my favorite science fiction novel of all time, who else can credibly skip over 20,000 years in a single breath?  "Civilizations rose and fell, yet now we must move on," or something like that.  Honorable mentions go to Stapledon’s Odd John and especially Sirius .

1. Sphere , from Michael Crichton.  Forget the last few books.  He is the best science fiction writer in contemporary times, though his publisher works very hard to make sure that label does not stick.

Science fiction has been treading water since the 1960s.  Since that time its most glorious achievements have been on the screen, not on the printed page.  There are some excellent individual books, such as Eon or Hyperion , but the genre is mostly retreads.  Nor do I think much of attempts to cross science fiction with "serious fiction," whether it is coming from Philip K. Dick or Doris Lessing.  Yes the idea is cool but the execution is usually quite flawed.

Science fiction has been treading water since the 1960s.  Since that time its most glorious achievements have been on the screen, not on the printed page.  There are some excellent individual books, such as Eon or Hyperion , but the genre is mostly retreads.  Nor do I think much of attempts to cross science fiction with "serious fiction," whether it is coming from Philip K. Dick or Doris Lessing.  Yes the idea is cool but the execution is usually quite flawed.

John Nye’s new War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900 argues that 19th century Britain was not nearly as free trade as is commonly supposed.  Here is one summary of that argument .

… is great fun .  I still can’t decide if it is a "good bad book," like Shantaram , or a "good good book," but it’s a good book of some kind or another.

For mystery, I’ll nominate the works of Henning Mankel , although arguably he is not underrated any more by critics.  Verissimo’s Borges and the Eternal Orangutans is my other pick.  Or how about Charles Palliser’s The Quincunx ?

For mystery, I’ll nominate the works of Henning Mankel , although arguably he is not underrated any more by critics.  Verissimo’s Borges and the Eternal Orangutans is my other pick.  Or how about Charles Palliser’s The Quincunx ?

The subtitle is Behind the Scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , and the content is a series of varied, first person, quasi-biographical reports of how the Met works:

That is from the July 2007 Scientific American , drawing upon Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us ; I have pre-ordered my copy and I am waiting for his secret blog .

That is from Frank Tipler’s The Physics of Christianity .

Why not ask me ?