Recently Mentioned Books

The slightly misleading subtitle is How Rogue Chemists are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic .  Why misleading?  So many substance abuse books are a mix of hysterical in tone and a disappointing “paint by numbers” in their execution, but this one really stands out for its research, journalism, and overall analysis.  To give just one example, it is also a great book on China, and how China and the Chinese chemicals industry works, backed up by extensive original investigation.

You can pre-order here .

Interesting and excellent throughout, here is the audio and transcript .  Eric is political scientist at Birkbeck College in London and the author of the recent Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities .  Here is part of the opening summary:

You can order the book here .

I am never quite sure how to evaluate graphic novels with non-fiction content, but the creators of this one do indeed deliver what you might be expecting from it.  You can pre-order here .

A new and considerably updated edition of the classic Land of Plenty .  For my money, one of the best and most valuable books ever produced.  Pre-order here .  And here is my Conversation with Fuchsia Dunlop .

Here is more by Elliott Njus , via Jan Fure and several other MR readers.  Next up perhaps is this …

Recommended, you can buy the book here .

Eric Nelson, The Theology of Liberalism: Political Philosophy and the Justice of God is an interesting look at Pelagianism and related free will ideas as the possible origin for classical liberal ideas.  But is free will so important?  Isn’t there a Hayekian/Calvinist/Straussian case for the limits of political power?  Do the Pelagian roots of liberalism collapse more into current progressivism?  In any case I found this book both readable and stimulating, the discussion of the early theology of...

Adam Minter, Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale delivers exactly what readers of Adam’s previous work would and should expect.  I am a big Adam Minter fan.

Sarah L. Quinn, American Bonds: How Credit Markets Shaped a Nation .  Less broad than the title suggests, this is still a clear and useful history of some parts of American securitization, starting with such (important) oddities as the Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916.

I’ve only browsed Owen Matthews, An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent , but it seems to be based on a remarkable amount of original research.  I do not care so much about the history of spying, but for some of you this should be a very good book.

Gabriel García Marquez, The Scandal of the Century, and Other Writings .  His early journalistic pieces are a revelation, both for their connections to a Borges-Cortázar style, and for how they show the roots of his later more literary productions.  His best-known work is perhaps overrated, but his body of work as a whole is still considerably underrated, and this volume will add to your appreciation of him.

Swapan Dasgupta, Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Beliefs of the Indian Right .  What do those people actually believe and why?  A summary and also a collection of original texts, strongly recommended for insight into one of the world’s most important nations and thus one of the world’s most important intellectual movements.

Vaclav Smil, Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities .  This book was too much a pile of facts for my taste — and facts I already know — but it is about the most important topic, namely growth and economic growth, so some of you should read it.  When you get right down to it, there are worse things than a pile of facts!

In any case, self-recommending, this book shows that Malcolm Gladwell remains on an upward trajectory.  You can pre-order it here .

The author is Charles Fishman, and the subtitle is The Impossible Mission That Flew us to the Moon .  Here is one excerpt:

Chris Sagers, United States v. Apple: Competition in America , is a useful look at the antitrust case over eBook pricing, though the actual book does not start until p.79 or so.

Fiona MacCarthy, Gropius: The Man Who Built the Bauhaus also has plenty of interesting information about Alma Mahler, beyond what is in the Tom Lehrer song .

Leah A. Plunkett, Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online , high time there has been a book with this message, and this is it.

4. John Brockman, editor, The Last Unknowns: Deep, Elegant, Profound UNANSWERED QUESTIONS About the Universe, the Mind, the Future of Civilization, and the Meaning of Life .  My nominated question was: “How far are we from wishing to return to the technologies of the year 1900?” NB : you get only the questions, not the answers.

3. Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan, Game Changer: AlphaZero’s Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI .  Everything you wanted to know about AlphaZero and already have been asking, lots of games and illustrations but also lots of plain text.  Definitely recommended, if you care that is.  AlphaZero, by the way, never plays 1. e4, mostly because it sees 1…e5 in response as giving Black nearly equal chances.

2. Neil Irwin, How to Win in a Winner-Take-All World: The Definitive Guide to Adapting and Succeeding in High-Performance Careers , is another excellent book by Neil Irwin, and it is both subtler and broader than the title alone would indicate.

1. Graeme D. Ruxton, Nature’s Giants: The Biology and Evolution of the World’s Largest Lifeforms .  Picture books are underrated!  They are like a better version of Wikipedia, and with glossy paper at that.

The author is Ana Fifield, and the subtitle is The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un .  I’ve never read a book that has so much actual information about Kim, most of all about his early time in Switzerland.  Or how about this?: