Recently Mentioned Books

In short, I’m partial to the view that mark-to-market accounting was both a central impetus for why the crisis was so severe and why action could be taken so decisively without burdening tax payers for generations to come (see Ball’s very good book here and Fragile by Design , both of which you’re likely familiar with). This crisis provides no such “simple” solutions that can be concentrated against a singular sector of the economy by taking decisive action.

In short, I’m partial to the view that mark-to-market accounting was both a central impetus for why the crisis was so severe and why action could be taken so decisively without burdening tax payers for generations to come (see Ball’s very good book here and Fragile by Design , both of which you’re likely familiar with). This crisis provides no such “simple” solutions that can be concentrated against a singular sector of the economy by taking decisive action.

I am doing a Conversation with her, no associated public event (duh) and we are likely to do it remote.  I am a big fan of her novels Station Eleven (about a pandemic, by the way, I promise you that is a coincidence), and the new forthcoming The Glass Hotel .

The author is Camila Russo and the subtitle is How an Army of Crypto-hackers is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum.  Yes, this is the story of Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum.  Very useful, and I am glad there is now a good book on this topic.  Due out July 14, you can pre-order here .

Recommended, especially the new Blu-Ray edition of Bergman’s complete works.

6. Paul R. Josephson, New Atlantis Revisited: Akademgorodok, The Siberian City of Science .  Imagine the Soviets trying to build a “city of science,” and meeting problem after problem.  Yet “Marchuk acknowledged that in a number of fields researchers had contributed to…the speeding up of scientific technological progress.  The physicists built synchroton radiation sources with broad applications; the biologists tacked plant and animal husbandry with vigor; the mathematicians, computer specialist...

5. Sean Masaki Flynn, The Cure That Works: How to have the World’s Best Healthcare — at a Quarter of the Price .  A look at how to translate ideas from Singapore’s health care system into the United States.  It overreaches, but still a useful overview and analysis.

4. Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks .  Power, sex, dating, and romance, but surprisingly substantive.  Much of it is written in paragraph-long segments, and willing to be politically incorrect.  “Rebecca West: “Since men don’t love us nearly as much as we love them that leaves them a lot more spare vitality to be wonderful with.”

3. Steven Levy, Facebook: The Inside Story .  Probably the best history of the company were are going to get, at least for the earlier years of the company.  Even the jabs at the company seem perfunctory, for the most part this is quite objective as a treatment.

2. Peter Johnson, Quarantined: Life and Death at William Head Station, 1872-1959 .  British Columbia had a quarantine station that late, and this is its story.  Leprosy, smallpox, and meningitis are a few of the drivers of the narrative.  It continues to startle me how much pandemics and quarantines are a kind of lost history, though they are extremely prominent in 19th century fiction.

1. Nicholas Hewitt, Wicked City: The Many Cultures of Marseille .  Every city should have a good book about it, and now Marseille does.  I would say you have to already know the city, however, to appreciate this one.

That is the new forthcoming book by Jay Belsky, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie E. Moffitt, and Richie Poulton, which will prove one of the best and most important works of the last few years.  Imagine following one thousand or so Dunedin New Zealanders for decades of their lives, up through age 38, and recording extensive data, and then doing the same for one thousand or so British twins through age 20, and 1500 American children, in fifteen different locales, up through age 15.  Just imagine what you w...

I’d like to do something a little different in this talk from what is usually done. Typically, someone comes and they present their book. My book here, Stubborn Attachments . But rather than present it or argue for it, I’d like to try to give you all of the arguments against my thesis. I want to invite you into my internal monologue of how I think about what are the problems. It’s an unusual talk. I mean, I think talks are quite inefficient. Most of them I go to, I’m bored. Why are you all here?...

The author is Ashley Mears and the subtitle is Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit .  I loved this book, my favorite of the year so far.

That is all from Atul Kohli, Imperialism and the Developing World: How Britain and the United States Shaped the Global Periphery .  The book is quite good.

Also new and notable is Lily Collison, Spastic Diplegia–Bilateral Cerebral Palsy: Understanding the Motor Problems, Their Impact on Walking, and Management Throughout Life: a Practical Guide for Families .

There is also Sidney Powell and Harvey A. Silverman, Conviction Machine: Standing Up to Federal Prosecutorial Abuse is a frank and brutal documentation of why you should never trust a prosecutor or speak to the FBI.

A wonderful book if you care about the lost pianos of Siberia and indeed I do: “Roberts reminds us in this fresh book that there are still some mysterious parts of our world.” (link here )  Also of note is Varlam Shalamov, Sketches of the Criminal World: Further Kolyma Stories , the first third being remarkably moving and incisive as well.

6. Sophy Roberts, The Lost Pianos of Siberia.

5. Gabriel Said Reynolds, Allah, God in the Qur’an .

4. Cheryl Misak, Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers .

4. Simon W. Bowmaker, When the President Calls: Conversations with Economic Policymakers .

3. I was happy to write a blurb for Michael R. Strain’s The American Dream is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It) .

2. Samuel Zipp, The Idealist: Wendell Willkie’s Wartime Quest to Build One World .

1. David Nutt, Drink? The New Science of Alcohol + Your Health .