Recently Mentioned Books

You can buy the book here .

That is the title of a new and excellent book by Alison K. Smith .  I have watched other people eat this food for eighteen years, and now I am beginning to understand:

Reading the new Nicholas Wapshott book and also Krugman’s review (NYT) of it, it all seemed a little too rosy to me. So I went back and took a look at Paul Samuelson the macroeconomist. I regret that I cannot report any good news, in fact Samuelson was downright poor — you might say awful — as a macroeconomist.

Interesting throughout.  And again, here is Andrew’s new book Out on a Limb: Selected Writing, 1989-2021 .

It does not make sense for me to read Emily Oster’s The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision-Making in the Early School Years , but it is very likely more reliable information than you are likely to get from other sources.

Peter Kinzler, Highway Robbery: The Two-Decade Battle to Reform America’s Automobile Insurance System is a useful look at where that debate stands and how it ended up there.  Here is a good summary of the book .

4. N.J. Higham, The Death of Anglo-Saxon England .  In 1066, five different individuals were recognized as de facto King of England — how did that come to pass?  Why was Aethelred the Unready not ready?  (He was only 12 when he assumed the throne, though much of the actual criticism concerned the later part of his reign.)  I find this one of the most intelligible and conceptual treatments of Anglo-Saxon England out there.  I don’t care what the Heritage Foundation says , beware Danish involvemen...

3. Jamie Mackay, The Invention of Sicily: A Mediterranean History .  While it was less conceptual than I might have preferred, this is perhaps the single best general history of Sicily I know of.  Short and to the point in a good way.

2. Nicholas Wapshott, Samuelson Friedman: The Battle over the Free Market .  Quite a good book, though it is interior to my current knowledge set and thus better for others reader than myself.  Contrary to what I have read elsewhere, Wapshott points out that Samuelson did not support Nixon’s wage and price controls, but this LA Times link seems to suggest Samuelson thought they were a good idea?

1. Richard Zenith, Pessoa: A Biography .  942 pp. of text, yet interesting throughout.  Brings you into Pessoa’s mind and learning to a remarkable degree.  (Have I mentioned that the world is slowly realizing that Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet is one of the great works of the century?)  His favorite book was Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, and he very much liked Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus .  This biography is also interesting about non-Pessoa topics, such as Durban, South Africa in 1900 (Pessoa did li...

1. Richard Zenith, Pessoa: A Biography .  942 pp. of text, yet interesting throughout.  Brings you into Pessoa’s mind and learning to a remarkable degree.  (Have I mentioned that the world is slowly realizing that Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet is one of the great works of the century?)  His favorite book was Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, and he very much liked Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus .  This biography is also interesting about non-Pessoa topics, such as Durban, South Africa in 1900 (Pessoa did li...

That is from the new and excellent book Nazis and Nobles: The History of a Misalliance , by Stephan Malinowski.  This book builds on themes from Arno Mayer’s old and excellent The Persistence of the Old Regime .

That is from the new and excellent book Nazis and Nobles: The History of a Misalliance , by Stephan Malinowski.  This book builds on themes from Arno Mayer’s old and excellent The Persistence of the Old Regime .

And he has written the well-known and excellent book How to See .  He directed the Hollywood movie Search and Destroy , starring Christopher Walken.  So what should I ask him?

I have not had a chance to read Masaaki Shirawaka, Tumultuous Times: Central Banking in an Era of Crisis ; he was Governor of the Bank of Japan from 2008 to 2013.

I found rewarding Lily Collison and Kara Buckley, Pure Grit: Stories of Remarkable People Living with Physical Disability .

There is William L. Silber, The Power of Nothing to Lose: The Hail Mary Effect in Politics, War, and Business .

Andrew W. Lo and Stephen R. Foerster’s In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio: The Stories, Voices, and Key Insights of the Pioneers Who Shaped the Way We Invest is a good look at the development of portfolio theory, starting with Markowitz.

Adrian Woolridge’s The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World is absolutely correct.  It is remarkable how many deeply wrong books the world has been generating about this topic.

2. Alex Ferguson with Michael Moritz, Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United .  Short, but nonetheless one of the very best books on leadership and also talent search.  You also don’t have to know anything about soccer, or care about soccer.  Recommended, and this one supports my view that the best management books are about sports and music, not “business management” in the mainstream sense of that term.

2. Graham Johnson, Poulenc: The Life in the Songs .  An A+ book if …you give a damn.  Here is one song by Poulenc .  Compare it to this also beautiful recording .  And this one .  The book also serves as an excellent biography of the composer, the songs making up for the fact that his life did not see amazing amounts of action and dramatic tension.

1. Richard Lapper, Beef, Bible, and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro .  A very good country-specific book, it takes you from “Brazil is the country of the future and always will be” to “Brazil was the country of the future and maybe never will be again.”  Did you know that the Pentecostals and Evangelicals have five times the number of radio stations as does the Roman Catholic Church?

That is the new forthcoming Ross Douthat book , focusing on his struggles with Lyme disease.  It is very much a memoir, starting with talk of Connecticut, deer, and his family’s dream house, all leading to an unfortunate bite from a tick.  Visits to many doctors ensue, motivated by chronic pain and weakness.

Here are her pieces on scholar.google.com .  And I will take this chance to plug her new, forthcoming book Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity .

You can pre-order here , I got my copy from the UK .