Recently Mentioned Books

That is the subtitle, the title of this very interesting book is News from Germany and the author is Heidi J.S. Tworek.  Here are a few things I learned:

Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis .  Here is an article on the book .

That is from David Kirby’s review of the other CSNY biography to have come out this month, also a good book.

That is the new Allison Schraeger book , the subtitle is And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk , and here is one excerpt:

Daniel S. Milo, Good Enough: The Tolerance for Mediocrity in Nature and Society , on a quick browse seemed to have interesting points.

5. John Barton, A History of the Bible: The Book and its Faiths .  Anglican, British, highly reasonable, full of useful information, I read it all the way through.  Barton teaches you the Bible is not always easy to understand and why that is.  Already out for ordering on UK Amazon.

4. Fuchsia Dunlop, The Food of Sichuan .  A much-expanded version of her earlier Land of Plenty .  No, I haven’t touched this one yet, but if the word self-recommending ever applied, it is here.  If you don’t already know it, here is my earlier CWT with Fuchsia Dunlop .

3. Harold Bloom, Possessed by Memory: The Inward Light of Criticism .  Bloom is now 89 I believe, but unlike in some of his recent shorter books this one seems as thoughtful as much of his best later work.  Yes, it is a bunch of largely separate, short, multi-page essays on topics of Bloom’s choosing, but at this point that is optimal.  It won’t convince the skeptic, but if you are on the fence I say yes, though try The Western Canon first.

3. Harold Bloom, Possessed by Memory: The Inward Light of Criticism .  Bloom is now 89 I believe, but unlike in some of his recent shorter books this one seems as thoughtful as much of his best later work.  Yes, it is a bunch of largely separate, short, multi-page essays on topics of Bloom’s choosing, but at this point that is optimal.  It won’t convince the skeptic, but if you are on the fence I say yes, though try The Western Canon first.

2. David Brooks, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life .  David’s best book this century, it has many subtle points.  It is a “wisdom book,” noting that not everyone likes wisdom books.

1. Peter Doggett, CSNY: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young .  A good management study of a creative foursome doomed to split and splinter pretty much from the beginning.  Oddly, their best work still sounds good to me, even though I never hear much new in it with repeated listenings.  That is a rare combination.

That is from Matthew Goodwin in The Times , there is also Matthew’s book National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy .  Remember how we used to praise parliamentary systems for their decisiveness?

That is from the new and interesting Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business , by Anja Shortland.

Ladders runs an excerpt from my book Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero , here is one part:

4. “The Travis Corcoran novel (a sequel to last year’s winner) the moon colonists consult a “Cowen wiki” to figure out where to eat, and Corcoran says in the Afterword that this is a hat tip to you.”  Or so I am told.

That is from the new and interesting Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream , by Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson, two very eminent economists.  And if you are wondering, I believe those numbers are referring to government efforts, not the private sector.  I am myself much more optimistic about the economic prospects for the oceans than for outer space.

6. Guzel Yakhina, Zukeikha .  Translated from the Russian by Lisa C. Hayden, a Tatar woman is sent into exile in the Soviet Union of the 1930s.  This is one of the novels I enjoyed this year, several others I know concur.

5. Rucker C. Johnson and Alexander Nazaryan, Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works .  A good summary of what the subtitle promises, though I was hoping for more attention on the costs and losers from those arrangements.

4. Andrew Lambert, Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict that Made the Modern World .  Covers the Phoenicians, Venice, the Dutch Golden Age, the rise of the British empire, and more.  Interesting throughout, but I most liked the final section on why there are no seapowers today, and why China and Russia never will be seapowers.  Overall a nice integration of geopolitics and culture.

3. Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Struggle over Freedom and Security .  An important contribution to political science, expanding on their concept of “weaponized interdependence,” namely how the U.S. (and sometimes other political actors) uses access to international networks, such as SWIFT, to push other nations around.  See #weaponizedinterdependence on Twitter for an introduction.

2. Jonathan Bate, How the Classics Made Shakespeare .  “One key argument is that Shakespeare’s form of classical fabling was profoundly antiheroic because it was constantly attuned to the force of sexual desire.”  Bate is very smart and this book shows it.

1. Ruby Warrington, Sober Curious: The Blissful Sleep, Greater Focus, Limitless Presence, and Deep Concentration Awaiting Us All on the Other Side of Alcohol .  Both the title and content make it self-recommending.

That is from David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present .

The book also covers Indonesia, Africa, Vietnam and Cambodia, Peru, Nepal, and more, all with an emphasis on China’s earlier foreign policy role.  Every chapter is full of fascinating information with strong but not overreaching conceptual framings.  Very strongly recommended, it comes out in America in September , I ordered my copy from the UK, available now and cheaper too .  Here is a review from The Economist .

The book also covers Indonesia, Africa, Vietnam and Cambodia, Peru, Nepal, and more, all with an emphasis on China’s earlier foreign policy role.  Every chapter is full of fascinating information with strong but not overreaching conceptual framings.  Very strongly recommended, it comes out in America in September , I ordered my copy from the UK, available now and cheaper too .  Here is a review from The Economist .