Recently Mentioned Books

That is from the really quite interesting The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers , by George M. Young.  And for more on Russian Cosmism, you might try reading this collection .  It is interesting to get such a different perspective on the issues raised by Bostrom, Hanson, Balaji, Musk, and the longevity writers, among others.  I don’t believe any of those thinkers would be happy with these Russian discussions, but…I suppose that’s the point!

That is from the really quite interesting The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers , by George M. Young.  And for more on Russian Cosmism, you might try reading this collection .  It is interesting to get such a different perspective on the issues raised by Bostrom, Hanson, Balaji, Musk, and the longevity writers, among others.  I don’t believe any of those thinkers would be happy with these Russian discussions, but…I suppose that’s the point!

There is much more at the link, and to consider some other competing questions, do see my new book with Daniel Gross Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World , publication date is today!

5. Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 .  A good and very useful general introduction to the history of the latter part of the story of Italy.

4. Asa Hoffman with Virginia Hoffman, The Last Gamesman: My Sixty Years of Hustling Games in the Clubs, Parks and Streets of New York .  A fun look back at the NYC chess world of the 1970s and trying to make a living as a chess and Scrabble hustler.  I knew Hoffman a bit back then, and even as a kid I wondered “is this guy happy?”  In the book he says he has largely been happy!  I am still wondering.  Maybe the secret is to play a game many discrete times where your losses are temporary and swam...

3. Mason Currey, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work .  One or two-page sections on the work habits of famous artists, the selection of names is intelligent and this book is like potato chips in the good sense of the term.

2. Geoff Dyer, The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings .  A hard book to explain, mostly it is about how careers end or collapse or implode, only some of it is about Federer.  “De Chirico lived till he was ninety but produced little of value after about 1919.”  Calling a book a “tour de force” almost certainly means it isn’t, but this book…is a tour de force.

1. Paul Strathern, The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo .  It is not just Dante and Galileo, there is also Boccaccio, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Giotto, Botticelli, Leonardo, Fra Filippo Lippi, Michelangelo, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and many more, all from one small region of Italy.  This book doesn’t answer how that all happened, but it is perhaps the best survey of the magnitude and extent of what happened, recommended and readable throughout, good as both an introduction and for the veteran read...

With Daniel Gross, here is a (very much) shortened bit from Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creators, and Winners Around the World , published at a16z , excerpt from the chapter on when to use talent scouts:

4. Kevin Kelly on Vanishing Asia .

You can order here on Amazon or here on Barnes & Noble .

An excellent book, full of substance and going well beyond cliche, the author is Julie Phillips and the subtitle is Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem .  Strikingly unsentimental, it covers women writers who balanced (or didn’t balance) their creative urges with their child-rearing responsibilities.  Excerpt:

I have not read Jerry Z. Muller, Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes , but it appears to be a work of promise.

Thomas W. Merrill, The Chevron Doctrine: Its Rise and Fall, and the Future of the Administrative State , “This book is primarily a work of history about the Chevron doctrine — where it came from, how it spread, the fate of attempts to cabin it, and recent arguments that it should be overruled o significantly rewritten.”

Yaffa Assouline, Avant-Garde Orientalists: Tribute to Igor Savitsky .  One of the largest collections of Russian avant-garde art is in Karakalpakstan in northwestern Uzbekistan — you can view the work here, recommended.

William R. Cross, Winslow Homer: American Passage is a definitive biography with wonderful photos, maps, and images.  Not a “picture book” but a book with amazing pictures.  And text.

3. Gregory Forth, Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Humanoid .  The claim is that the Flores mini-humanoids may have existed on the island until quite recently, or possibly even still today.  I am not persuaded (for one thing the villagers promote too many other ancillary hypotheses about these creatures, for instance they fly), but at the very least this is a fascinating take on how to interpret eyewitness evidence.  And the author is a credible authority.  They ...

2. Marc F. Bellemare, Doing Economics: What You Should Have Learned in Grad School — But Didn’t .  A sober and very useful book, covering topics such as “Navigating Peer Review” and “Finding Funding” and “Doing Service.”  The advice offered is on the mark.  Yet the book as a whole makes economics (academia?) as a whole come across as a grim and dysfunctional profession.  You won’t find much on “generating new ideas” or “influencing policy” or “inspiring students.”  I guess they taught all those ...

1. Dervla Murphy, A Place Apart: Northern Ireland in the 1970s .  Imagine a single Irish woman in the 1970s bicycling though Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles.  Charming and perceptive throughout, and remarkably well-written.  Murphy is in general an underrated figure, and note she is still at it, recently in her 90s she did a Lunch with the Financial Times .

Interesting throughout.  And I am very happy to recommend Chris’s new and important book Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Path to Peace .  And here is my earlier 2018 Conversation with Chris .

The author is Bryan Caplan and the subtitle is Essays in Demogoguery.  “How Evil Are Politicians? collects the very best of his EconLog essays on the vicious use of political authority.”  Just out, good price, you can order on Amazon here .

This is a well-known novel, especially in Ireland, and often it is considered the best Irish-language novel of all time.  But I’ve never heard people telling other people they ought to read it, and in that sense it doesn’t seem so very well known in the United States at all.  This is the translation I have been enjoying .

Not just good, they are very good .  I picked up two new ones yesterday at the Arlington Library, and I am excited to spend time with both.  The first is Doris Behrens-Abouseif Metalwork from the Arab World and the Mediterranean , and the second is Salma Samar Damluji The Architecture of Yemen and its Reconstruction , only $17.97 for that one!  Here are some summary reasons why picture books are so underrated:

Not just good, they are very good .  I picked up two new ones yesterday at the Arlington Library, and I am excited to spend time with both.  The first is Doris Behrens-Abouseif Metalwork from the Arab World and the Mediterranean , and the second is Salma Samar Damluji The Architecture of Yemen and its Reconstruction , only $17.97 for that one!  Here are some summary reasons why picture books are so underrated:

His new book is Being Good in a World of Need , and most of all I am delighted to see someone take Effective Altruism seriously enough to evaluate it at a very high intellectual level.  Larry is mostly pro-EA, though he stresses that he believes in pluralist, non-additive theories of value, rather than expected utility theory, and furthermore that can make a big difference (for instance I don’t think Larry would play 51-49 “double or nothing” with the world’s population, as SBF seems to want to ...