Recently Mentioned Books

Tyrone is accompanying me, and I asked him what he thinks.  As you might expect, he had only stupid rudeness in response.  Tyrone said that northern Argentina is the true essence of the Argentinean nation, and that everyone interested in Argentina should visit here.  In fact, having visited North Macedonia, he wishes to rename the country South Bolivia — were they not once part of the same Viceroyalty ?  Is it not enough to share the same soup?  Do they not have broadly the same accent, devoid o...

Tyrone is accompanying me, and I asked him what he thinks.  As you might expect, he had only stupid rudeness in response.  Tyrone said that northern Argentina is the true essence of the Argentinean nation, and that everyone interested in Argentina should visit here.  In fact, having visited North Macedonia, he wishes to rename the country South Bolivia — were they not once part of the same Viceroyalty ?  Is it not enough to share the same soup?  Do they not have broadly the same accent, devoid o...

Dorian Bandy, Mozart The Performer: Variations on the Showman’s Art shows how Mozart, first and foremost, was a showman and that background shaped his subsequent output and career.

Allison Pugh, The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World accurately diagnosing networking as a skill that will rise significantly in value in a tech-laden world.

Eric H. Cline, After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations .  A good sequel to the very good 1177 B.C.

Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala & English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas , edited by Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne, and Shash Trevett.  A truly excellent collection, worthy of making the best non-fiction of 2023 list .  Or does this count as fiction ?  It’s mostly about things that happened.

Thomas Bell, Kathmandu .  There should be more books about individual cities, and this is one of them, one of the best in fact.  Excerpt: “At its most local levels, of the neighbourhood, or the individual house, Kathmandu is ordered by religious concepts, either around holy stones, or divinely sanctioned carpentry and bricklaying techniques.  The same is true of the city as a whole.”  And how do they still have so many Maoists?

There Were Giants in the Land: Episodes in the Life of W. Cleon Skousen .  Compiled and edited by Jo Ann and Mark Skousen.  If you are interested in LDS, one approach is to read The Book of Mormon.  Another option is to read a book like this one.  It is also, coming from a very different direction, a paean to family stability.

Rob Henderson, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class .  Yes, that is the Rob Henderson of Twitter and Substack.  He was raised by foster parents and joined the Air Force at the age of seventeen.  He ended up with a Ph.D. from Cambridge.  This is his story, it covers class in America, and it is a paean to family stability.

The dishes are explained as they were consumed, the meal was excellent, of course the company too.  A very good episode, highly rated for all lovers of Chinese food.  And here is Fuchsia’s new book, Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food , self-recommending.  And here are previous MR mentions of Fuchsia , including links to my two earlier CWTs with her.

That is from Louis Awad, the Egyptian literary critic, reproduced in Islam Issa’s quite interesting Milton in the Arab-Muslim World .

That is the new book by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, with the subtitle Data-Driven Answers to Basketball’s Biggest Questions .  Most notably, it was written in thirty days with the help of GPT-4.

42 minutes long , Henry and I are both big Mill fans.  And here is Henry’s forthcoming and very good book Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life .

That is from Nikhil Krishnan, A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy and War at Oxford 1900-1960 .  Another recent book dealing with both philosophy and war at Oxford is M.W. Rowe’s very thorough J.L. Austin: Philosopher & D-Day Intelligence Officer .  Here is that book’s best weird philosopher anecdote:

That is from Nikhil Krishnan, A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy and War at Oxford 1900-1960 .  Another recent book dealing with both philosophy and war at Oxford is M.W. Rowe’s very thorough J.L. Austin: Philosopher & D-Day Intelligence Officer .  Here is that book’s best weird philosopher anecdote:

As for a useful, and well-written text, there is Karol J. Borowiecki, Charles M. Gray, and James Heilbrun, The Economics of Art and Culture , now in its third edition.

6. Henrik Berggren and Lars Trägårdh, The Swedish Theory of Love: Individualism and Social Trust in Modern Sweden .  A fascinating book about how the Swedes pursue a kind of “statist individualism,” namely that they value personal independence very highly, and are happy to use state action to pursue that kind of freedom.  They don’t like being so obligated to help each other, thus enter a large welfare state.

5. Paul Vallely, Philanthropy: from Aristotle to Zuckerberg .  Too much of this book is interior to my knowledge set, but for many people this is an excellent overview.  743 pp. of text, and it is pretty comprehensive.

4. Evan Thomas, Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II .  The real topic of this book is the decision to use the atomic bomb twice against Japan.  Riveting, and provides plenty of detail on the Japanese side, even if some of the interpretative choices are controversial.  The author also makes a good point about ending the war sooner, namely it saved a large number of Southeast Asian lives, arguably about 250,000 a month, due to the tyrannical Japanese occupatio...

3. Hawon Jung, Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’s Rights Worldwide .  A good and sobering look at one side of Korean culture.  This is also (I hope) an especially effective book to hand to anti-feminist types, since the examples are not coded to standard left-wing vs. right wing American disputes.

2. Robert Darnton, The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1789 .  Perhaps my expectations were too high with this one.  I don’t see anything wrong with it, and it is beautifully written.  But somehow it didn’t add much to my picture of those events, given I have read many other Darnton books.

1. Isabel Kershner, The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel’s Battle for its Inner Soul .  An interesting look at Israeli society on the eve of the current war.

3. You can now pre-order Henry Oliver’s excellent Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life .

And yes he does propose concrete solutions, most of all at the level of the law.  The whole thing is only 84 pp., and this is one of the books that comes closest to diagnosing what is wrong with our country.  The subtitle is Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society .

Age 99, the reissue of his Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger is due out December 5 from Stripe Press.  And my planned CWT with him will have to be rescheduled …