Recently Mentioned Books

James Grant, Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian is a good treatment of someone who was not the greatest Victorian.

Jenny Davidson, Reading Jane Austen .  I hardly know any books about Jane Austen, and indeed I don’t much enjoy reading her novels.  Still, this is the best book on Austen I have seen, take that for what it is worth.  It is very much to the point and furthermore the author writes: “I also hold a degree of suspicion toward those who love Austen, though, myself included.”

Knut Hamsun, On Overgrown Paths .  Hamsun’s memoir, last creation, and maybe most interesting work?  But few like to talk about it, for it is 1945 and the Norwegian government has just come to place him under house arrest and in turn bring him to an institution, for having wholeheartedly supported the Nazis. The story of course is told from his rather matter of fact point of view…

Arvind Panagariya, Free Trade and Prosperity: How Openness Helps the Developing Countries Grow Richer and Combat Poverty .  Self-recommending.  The book has plenty of evidence, not just the usual hand-waving.

That is the new and interesting book by Yair Listokin .  He argues that during a downturn regulators perhaps should be slower to approve utility rate increases, the IRS should run tax policy in a more stimulative manner, construction expenditures should be less regulated, and some environmental review should be eased.  Perhaps during the Greek financial crisis, all prices and debt contracts should have been lowered, by law, an immediate ten percent, to ease the deflation.

Here are previous MR entries on Knausgaard .  Here is Knausgaard’s forthcoming book So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch .

Recommended to anyone with an interest in the topic, you can pre-order here .

Andrew S. Curran, Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely .  A good filling-in of what were to me many blanks in the life of Diderot, a figure whom I never can decide whether he is underrated or overrated.

Kenneth M. Pollack, Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness .  Pollack takes a look at the systematic dysfunctionalities behind Arab militaries, arguing most of them have been worse than the North Korean or Somalian fighting forces.  Jordan in 1948, Hizbullah, and early ISIS are the main exceptions here, British training in the former case being a factor and morale a factor in the latter two cases.

Linn Ullmann, Unquiet: A Novel .  A novel, yes, but also a not so thinly veiled memoir of life with her two very famous parents Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann.  Fantastic if you already know the back story, but at the very least readable if you don’t.

Adrian Tinniswood, The Royal Society & the Invention of Modern Science is the best short introduction to its stated topic.

The Story of Silver , by um…William Silber , probably is the best book on silver, as I suppose it should be.  How many other books have this same property of coincidence of name and topic?  Did James Igel ever write a book on hedgehogs?

I would suggest an alternative channel of influence: urban areas with high inequality have both better food (see An Economist Gets Lunch , but basically imagine the wealthier people generating demand and the poorer people supplying cheap labor) and more building restrictions.  The wealthier people decide to do something to keep the poorer people out of their neighborhoods.

I will be doing a Conversation with her, no associated public event.  She is the translator of a splendid and highly readable Homer’s Odyssey , which I named as the very best book of the year for last year.  She is also a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, a classicist, a Seneca scholar, and an all-around very smart person.  Here is her Wikipedia page .

That is from the forthcoming interesting book by Andrew B. Hall .  He also argues that while voters can elect moderates, they cannot force more extreme candidates to govern as moderates.  Furthermore, devaluing office leads to more extreme candidates being interested in running for office.

I will be doing a Conversation with him , no associated public event, and note he has a new book coming out The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave Community Behind .  So what should I ask him?

Here is the Wikipedia page for Marie Tharp .  Here is a biography of Marie Tharp , which I just ordered.  Timefulness is by Marcia Bjornerud and you can order it here .

Here is the Wikipedia page for Marie Tharp .  Here is a biography of Marie Tharp , which I just ordered.  Timefulness is by Marcia Bjornerud and you can order it here .

There is much more at the link.  I am very happy to recommend their forthcoming book Persecution and Tolerance: The Long Road to Religious Freedom .

4. Tony Spawforth, The Story of Greece and Rome .  Highly readable and useful, not comprehensive on say the economics side but a fresh look and what we know and do not know and how the various pieces fit together.

3. Peter Doggett, Are You Ready for the Country? Elvis, Dylan, Parsons and the roots of country rock .  Five hundred pages of text, and consistently interesting throughout, at least if you care about the topic.  Otherwise not.  I have pre-ordered the author’s forthcoming biography of CSNY .

3. Peter Doggett, Are You Ready for the Country? Elvis, Dylan, Parsons and the roots of country rock .  Five hundred pages of text, and consistently interesting throughout, at least if you care about the topic.  Otherwise not.  I have pre-ordered the author’s forthcoming biography of CSNY .

2. Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States — and the Nation .  A serious and scholarly book, rather than the kind of hysterical falsehoods we’ve come to expect on such topics.

1. Josh Rosenblatt, Why We Fight: One Man’s Search for Meaning Inside the Ring .  An actual conceptual phenomenology of fighting, there should be more books like this about more different topics.  Think of the model “X is actually like this.”  Recommended.

That is all from Eric Kaufmann’s excellent Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities .