Recently Mentioned Books

The subtitle is The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World , I enjoyed the book very much, you can order it here .

Marie-Janine Galic, The Great Cauldron: A History of Southeastern Europe seems impressive, though I have not had time to read much of it.

Marion Turner, Chaucer: A European Life .  This one may not please the Brexiteers.

Uwe E. Reinhardt, Priced Out: The Economic and Ethical Costs of American Health Care .  Uwe is gone but not forgotten.

Thomas Milan Konda, Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America .

Ben S. Bernanke, Timothy F. Geithner, and Henry M. Paulson, Firefighting: The Financial crisis and its Lessons : your model of this book is what this book is.

For prep for my Conversation with Knausgaard, I read a good deal of Ivo de Figueiredo, Henrik Ibsen: The Man & the Mask , and was impressed by how much new material he had uncovered.

5. The Bitter Script Reader, Michael F-ing Bay: The Unheralded Genius in Michael Bay’s Films .  There aren’t enough enthusiastic, intelligent fanboy books, but this is one of them.

4. Rachel M. McCleary and Robert J. Barro, The Wealth of Religions: The Political Economy of Believing and Belonging .  A good overview of their work together on economics and religion, and also more generally a take on what the social sciences know empirically about the causes and effects of religion (not always so much, I should add).

3. Marlon James, Black Leopard Red Wolf .  While the author of this new budding fictional series seems quite talented, this is more a book to admire than to enjoy.  I can’t imagine that people will read it fifteen years from now.  I’ve also read a bunch of reviews which try to praise it, without every telling the reader it will hold their interest.

2. Allison Schrager, An Economist Walks into a Brothel, and Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk .  My blurb: “Allison Schrager’s An Economist Walks Into a Brothel is the best, most readable, most informative, most adventurous, and most entertaining take on risk you will find.”

1. Sarah A. Seo, Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom .  “The revolution in automotive freedom coincided with an equally unprecedented expansion in the police’s discretionary power.”

You can buy Emily’s translation of Homer here , and she is now working on doing The Iliad as well.

That is from the entertaining and insightful David Hepworth book Nothing is Real: The Beatles Were Underrated and Other Sweeping Statements About Pop .  He lists the following as the ten best blues songs ever:

For the pointer I thank Lotta Moberg .

This book is must reading for these days, and it will be making my 2019 “best of the year” list.  Order from abroad here , or in the U.S. it comes out in July .

This book is must reading for these days, and it will be making my 2019 “best of the year” list.  Order from abroad here , or in the U.S. it comes out in July .

That is all from the new and excellent book by Joanna Lillis .  You may also have read that Nazerbayev, who has held power in Kazakhstan since 1991, announced yesterday that he is stepping down , hoping to take on more of a Lee Kuan Yew role in the country.

6. Roderick Beaton, Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation .  Excellent survey and overview, makes the late 19th century intelligible, among other achievements.  “For Greeks, unlike the concept of the nation, the state had always been an object of popular derision.”

5. Gordon Peake, Beloved Land: Stories, Struggles, and Secrets from Timor-Leste .  Mostly analytical, with real information blended with travelogue.  I can’t judge the content, but I was never tempted to put this one down and throw it away.

4. Tim Smedley, Clearing the Air: The Beginning and the End of Air Pollution .  Perhaps the best extant introduction to the air pollution issue, one of the world’s most important and underrated crises, and no I am not talking about carbon.

3. Rowan Ricardo Phillips, The Circuit: A Tennis Odyssey .  Provides a good look at the interior world of tennis competition, with emphasis on very recent times.  A good look at how to think about the game, not only in the abstract, but as it plays out through the logic of particular events and tournaments.

2. Shalini Shankar, Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal About Generation Z’s New Path to Success .  Not as analytical as I was wanting, but more analytical than I had been expecting.

1. Aladdin , a new translation by Yasmine Seale.  A wonderful, lively small volume, a good reintroduction to the Arabian Nights, recommended.

There is much more at the link.  And here is Raghu’s new book The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave Community Behind .