Recently Mentioned Books

1. Anne Enright, The Green Road .  Could Enright be the least heralded, English-language novelist in the United States today?  I also was a big fan of her last book Actress .  Her short pieces are wonderful as well.  Having won a Booker, she is hardly obscure, and yet I have never had anyone tell me that I absolutely must read Anne Enright?  Even after the very recent burst of interest in Irish writers…I will read more of her!

1. Anne Enright, The Green Road .  Could Enright be the least heralded, English-language novelist in the United States today?  I also was a big fan of her last book Actress .  Her short pieces are wonderful as well.  Having won a Booker, she is hardly obscure, and yet I have never had anyone tell me that I absolutely must read Anne Enright?  Even after the very recent burst of interest in Irish writers…I will read more of her!

7. New (free Kindle) book: The Essential UCLA School of Economics .

Recommended, engaging throughout.  And again, here is Amia Srinivasan’s new and (in the UK, just published yesterday in the U.S.) bestselling book The Right to Sex: Feminism in the 21st Century .

That is all from E.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine .  This book is difficult to read for two reasons.  First, the print is too small.  Second, the author wastes no time regurgitating “the usual” from all the others book on Irish history.  On a given page, most of what is on that page one learns, and thus the book is slow to read.  Which is a sign of a very good book, though do note it is quite the time commitment.  One of the more essential books on Irish history.

That is all from The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 , a quite good book by Diarmaid Ferriter.

David also has a new book out The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream .  So what should I ask him?

3. Fintan O’Toole, Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks .  Most educated outsiders approach Ireland through the lens of its rather prominent literary history (Joyce, Yeats, etc.).  That’s fine, but also somewhat misleading.  This book gives you an alternate tour — focused on modernism and the 20th century — through the visual arts, design, television, theatre, and more.  It should prove eyeopening to many people, and is also a wonderful book for browsing or as a guide to further study.  Harry Clarke’s...

2. David Dickson, The First Irish Cities: An Eighteenth-Century Transformation .  One of the best books on cities in recent years, and more general than the title might indicate.  I had not known that Waterford was once a rival for Dublin, or fully realized that Ireland has no significant city which is not right next to the coast.  Readable throughout, and gives you an excellent sense of how the Irish pecking order for cities evolved.  Recommended.

1. Susan McKay, Northern Protestants on Shifting Ground , and also Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People .  These two books straddle a journalistic and anthropological approach to what the titles indicate.  As one Protestant in the text remarked, Irish reunification would work just fine, it is the ten years getting there that everyone is afraid of.  It seems increasingly muddled what actually the Northern Irish Unionist is supposed to stand for — passionate attachment to union with an unwill...

1. Susan McKay, Northern Protestants on Shifting Ground , and also Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People .  These two books straddle a journalistic and anthropological approach to what the titles indicate.  As one Protestant in the text remarked, Irish reunification would work just fine, it is the ten years getting there that everyone is afraid of.  It seems increasingly muddled what actually the Northern Irish Unionist is supposed to stand for — passionate attachment to union with an unwill...

I did David Cutler and Ed sequentially, based on their new co-authored book , here is the joint episode but there is also a separate link concerning Cutler.  Here is one excerpt from the general summary:

I did Cutler and Ed Glaeser sequentially, based on their new co-authored book , here is the joint episode but I will create another link concerning Glazer.  Here is one excerpt from the general summary:

There is also Robert Wuthnow’s Why Religion is Good for American Democracy (true), and Michael Taylor’s The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery , which dashed my hopes when I learnt that Alexander McDonnell, the Belfast-born 19th century chess player who famously sparred with Louis de la Bourdonnais, also was a strongly pro-slavery and pro-imperialism economist in his time.

There is also Robert Wuthnow’s Why Religion is Good for American Democracy (true), and Michael Taylor’s The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery , which dashed my hopes when I learnt that Alexander McDonnell, the Belfast-born 19th century chess player who famously sparred with Louis de la Bourdonnais, also was a strongly pro-slavery and pro-imperialism economist in his time.

5. James Hawes, The Shortest History of England .  One can pick nits with books such as these, but I found this one useful.  It stresses the role of the French in English history, and also the ongoing clash between the South and the North over who will rule whom.

4. Mathilde Fasting and Øystein Sørensen, The Norwegian Exception: Norway’s Liberal Democracy Since 1814 .  “This book started as an idea to explain Norwegian society to a broader public.”  I am not sure they quite succeed, but still it is the best single Norway book I know.  I hadn’t known for instance that Norway has two different official written languages.  In general there should be more books trying to explain highly successful countries!  This is a move in the right direction, and I am ha...

3. Jeevan Vasagar, Lion City: Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia .  Selective rather than comprehensive, but entertaining and balanced and insightful.  Those interested in Singapore should read this book, and even Singapore experts will learn some new nuggets.  The author was the FT correspondent in Singapore from 2015 to 2017.

2. Harald Jähner, Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-55 .  A quite interesting book which considers how German women were disappointed in German men, how eastern German women dealt with Soviet soldier rape, how the Soviets resumed classical orchestral concerts within weeks (for their own pleasure), currency conversion, and more: “But Beate Uhse fell foul of the law for the first time, not because of violation of the moral code of corrupting the young, but for breach of price...

1. Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green, The Vaxxers: The Inside Story of the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine and the Race Against the Virus .  Self-recommending (they were leaders on the team), most of all it is striking how much time they spend covering and complaining about problems in the science funding network.  Let’s improve that.  In any case I enjoyed the book.

From Priya Satia’s recent and interesting Time’s Monster: History, Conscience and Britain’s Empire :

Aubrey Clayton, Bernoulli’s Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science .  I found this most interesting as a history of probability theory, and with more coverage of Quetelet than one usually finds.

Carole Hooven, T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us .  Recommended.

3. Frank Herbert, Dune .  For me a reread, I loved it when I was twelve, but how does it stand up?  I am struck by how excellent and pathbreaking the best chapters are, including the introductory chapter.  The influence on Star Wars is obvious, as is the role of Islam in the story.  It strikes me as remarkably cinematic, with the right kinds of transitions to boot — how was this never put successfully on the big screen?  I am about two-thirds through it right now, and maybe it 2/3 holds up?  But...

2. Lachlan Goudie, The Story of Scottish Art .  Even if you don’t care about art, this is a wonderful way to learn the history of Scotland.  My takeaway favorite painters were Allan Ramsey (friends with Smith and Hume), Henry Raeburn , David Wilkie , and John Duncan , more or less consistent with my earlier views but now they are better informed.  A good book with a nice blue and yellow cover.