Recently Mentioned Books

Ajantha Subramanian, The Caste of Merit: Engineering Education in India .  A critique of casteism and growing inequality, this book also doubles as a fascinating history of IIT.  Best read in Straussian fashion as a sympathetic story of origins.

Roderick Floud, An Economic History of the English Garden .  Every page of this book does indeed have economics.  It just does not have interesting economics.  Which may mean that gardens are not so interesting from an economic point of view.  Which in turn would make this a good book.  But not an interesting book.

The author is Boye Lafayette de Mente, and he seems to know a lot about Korean bowing.  Do note the book is mainly about South Korea.  Reviewers, by the way, complain that there are significant mistakes in the Korean characters.  Recommended nonetheless, albeit with caveats, you can buy it here .

The Conversation is Acemoglu throughout , you also get to hear me channeling Garett Jones.  Again, here is Daron’s new book The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty .

The authors are David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart, and the subtitle is A Documentary History of the Early Virginia School .  This is the true history, told by people who know, and with extensive citations from correspondence and primary documentation.

Matthew D. Adler’s Measuring Social Welfare: An Introduction is a very good take on its chosen topic.

Vicky Pryce, Women vs. Capitalism: Why We Can’t Have It All in a Free Market Economy .  Compared to what, I am inclined to ask?  Still, if you are looking for a readable book on how and why capitalism does not lead to gender equality, this is now the place to go.

Greta Thunberg, No One is Too Small to Make a Difference . Some of her speeches, transcribed.  Call me crazy, but I think of her and Donald Trump as the two great orators of our generation, regardless of what you think of their content.

Todd S. Purdum, Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution .  Of course the music is worth learning about, but this volume is also a splendid take on managerial teamwork in a duo.

Justin Marozzi, Islamic Empires: Fifteen Cities that Define a Civilization .  Did the Islamic Middle East invent the notion of a truly splendid city?  This book makes the case for yes, starting with 7th century Mecca, moving to Damascus, Baghdad, and Cordoba, and finishing in 21st century Doha, “City of Pearls.”

Ben S. Bernanke, Timothy F. Geithner, and Henry M. Paulson, editors, with Nellie Liang. First Responders: Inside the U.S. Strategy For Fighting the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis .  Too many people will judge this volume by its editors, for better or worse.  In reality, almost everything here is by other people, and well-informed ones too.  This is one of the best comprehensive books on the crisis, and it is usefully organized by topic (“Crisis-Era Housing Programs,” or say Jason Furman on fi...

You can order Todd’s book here .  Recommended, though with significant caveats, mainly for lack of evidence on some of the key propositions.

Sally Rooney, Normal People: A Novel .

Broken Stars: Contemporary Science Fiction in Translation , edited and translated by Ken Liu.

Aladdin , a new translation by Yasmine Seale.

Guzel Yakhina, Zuleikha .

Pekka Hämäläinen , Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power , more here .

Robert Alter, translator, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (or should that go under “fiction”?).

Matthew Gale and Natalia Sidlina, Natalia Goncharova .

I will blog this book a bit more, for now I’ll just say it is very much in the running for very best book of the year.  It brings Native American history to life in a conceptual manner better than any other book I know.  You can buy it here , I found every section gripping and highly instructive and fun to read as well.  Here is a very good and accurate Parul Sehgal NYT review .

I’ve also discovered the amazing music of Sunn O))) , a kind of black death metal, hat tip S, start with Black One .

My favorite rap album this year was Tyler the Creator, IGOR .

Janelle Monáe, Dirty Computer .  At first I thought this was a good pop album, but it kept getting better and better.

Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? , with “You should see me in a crown” as the favorite song.

Makaya McCraven, Universal Beings .