Recently Mentioned Books

1. A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States , by Stephen Mihm.  This book offers interesting tales of 19th century counterfeiters — an understudied topic — but it is too quick to slush together counterfeiters, capitalists, and Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man .  I read about 80 pages, some of you will wish to read more.

That’s by Barry B. LePatner and the subtitle is How to Fix America’s Trillion-Dollar Construction Industry .

I wondered whether that can be said of Naomi Klein’s new The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism .  Still, at some fundamental level I liked this book.  Perhaps I still had the Greenspan memoir too fresh in my mind, but at least this text is alive.  Yes she refuses to admit that Chilean reforms, however horrible the accompanying atrocities, did represent a success for market economics .  Yes she misstates the role of Milton Friedman in just about everything.  Yes she suggests that bl...

This new book is by sometimes Slate.com columnist and U. Penn economist Joel Waldfogel, of "Deadweight Loss of Christmas" fame.  The subtitle is "Why You Can’t Always Get What You Want."

5. Composer : Carl Ruggles – his 16-minute Sun Treader is one of the most underappreciated pieces of great American music.

Both are from the quite engaging All the Money in the World — How the Forbes 400 Make — And Spend — Their Fortunes , by Peter W. Bernstein and Annalyn Swan.

That is from Shannon Brownlee’s new Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer , which should be read by anyone interested in health care economics.  I have a few points:

That is the new book by James R. Flynn .  He suggests the following:

Yes indeed, Steven Pinker has a new book out .

Do you know the literature on irreversible investment and option value ?  Under plausible parameter specifications, you need a benefit-cost ratio of 3 to 1 or more before it makes sense to proceed with the irreversible investment.  Otherwise it is better simply to wait.  That’s not 1.3 to 1, that’s 3 to 1.

Get the book here .

Don’t forget Dani Rodrik has a new book coming out: One Economics, Many Recipes .  I don’t agree with all of it, but it is a valuable correction to the hubris of many other writers.

That is from Paul Hoffman’s King’s Gambit: A Son, A Father, and the World’s Most Dangerous Game .  I loved this one, it’s one of the few great chess books.  It’s also a tale of how Manhattan has changed, how sons become independent, the nature of psychological warfare, and why obsession never really dies.  Note that author Hoffman is also editor of Discover magazine, which I enjoy as well.

That is from the new and quite interesting Proust Was A Neuroscientist , by Jonah Lehrer.

Here is a new list from The Guardian (I’ll second the call for Alasdair Gray’s Lanark ).  Here is an only slightly older list from New York magazine , I like David Markson too.

The subtitle is How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich , written by financial journalist Jason Zweig .  I enjoyed the content of this book, and would recommend it as a stimulating source of ideas, but with some caveats:

Yesterday’s haul from Arlington Public Library included You Never Call! You Never Write! , and Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening , neither of which I expect to finish (though I will if I love them).  The real question is should I read more on-line book reviews (which are free), or do my own "reviews" by pawing the free book for a few minutes?

Yesterday’s haul from Arlington Public Library included You Never Call! You Never Write! , and Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening , neither of which I expect to finish (though I will if I love them).  The real question is should I read more on-line book reviews (which are free), or do my own "reviews" by pawing the free book for a few minutes?

That is from Karen Stabiner’s The Empty Nest: 31 Parents Tell the Truth About Relationships, Love, and Freedom After the Kids Fly the Coop .  For one thing, I don’t drink much tea.

There are many other prediction tools here (do click), from Ian Ayres .  Ayres requests that you email him other prediction applets, which he will add to the page.  Ayres also has a new book out, Super Crunchers: Why Thinking by Numbers is the New Way to be Smart ; it is highly readable and also endorsed by Steve Levitt.

Is her Goldberg Variations as good as The New York Times (and other reviews ) claims ?  In a word, yes.

I don’t pretend to have any good arguments for this idea, and I understand (to some degree) how and why it fell apart .  I also understand that historic India was itself not very unified .  That is in part what makes my attachment irrational, and perhaps the irrationality is part of the attachment itself.

I don’t pretend to have any good arguments for this idea, and I understand (to some degree) how and why it fell apart .  I also understand that historic India was itself not very unified .  That is in part what makes my attachment irrational, and perhaps the irrationality is part of the attachment itself.

4. Do Economists Make Markets? , an edited collection of essays.  How could they not cite Alex’s Entrepreneurial Economics ?  Or pay homage to Robin Hanson and prediction markets?  Still, this is a useful introduction to how economists have tried to shape real world markets, from spectrum auctions to options pricing.

4. Do Economists Make Markets? , an edited collection of essays.  How could they not cite Alex’s Entrepreneurial Economics ?  Or pay homage to Robin Hanson and prediction markets?  Still, this is a useful introduction to how economists have tried to shape real world markets, from spectrum auctions to options pricing.