Comments on: What are you reading?

By: Robert Morris

Robert Morris — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 06:48:13 +0000

Postwar by Tony Judt. As Europe unravels its interesting to look into how they got started, after World War II and through the Cold War.

By: omar

omar — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 03:55:25 +0000

Grand Pursuit by Sylvia Nassar. Maybe all old news to you, but I didnt even know that Beatrice Potter and Beatrice Webb were the same person, so it has been an informative read. Well written romp through economics. (her husband is an economist).

By: Frederikp

Frederikp — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:27:13 +0000

Thanks for the suggestions TGGP. Both Goodhart’s Law and “Seeing like a State” deal with a fraction of what I mean, but I have something broader in mind, e.g. the penalty area of a football (soccer) pitch is 18 x 44 yard. Had it been designed under the metric system it certainly would not have been 16,5 x 40,32 meter, Schelling points and all that. The effect on football tactics is marginal, but certainly there. The ideal book would start with the immediate consequences on human thinking of the invention/discovery of numbers itself and go from there.

By: Jorge Laris

Jorge Laris — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 04:21:43 +0000

Gaya Science from Friedrich Nietzsche.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:23:19 +0000

Modern Times is a long book and there’s certainly good material there as well, but it would have been better without all the axe-grinding.

FrederikP, are you talking about something like Goodhart’s Law? James Scott’s “Seeing Like a State” might be a bit along the lines you’re looking for. He talks about legibility and the view from a top-down bureaucrat using a map whose features leave out details apparent to someone on the ground.

By: Frederikp

Frederikp — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:40:01 +0000

I’ve just finished “Wolves in the City: The Death of French Algeria” by Paul Henissart. The focus is on the OAS in the last year leading to independence. Very much recommended!

But I have a question someone here might be able to answer: Is there any good book on how the ability to measure something shapes the thinking about it? Say, once someone comes up with the concept of GDP to measure output, it becomes almost impossible to keep in mind that they are still not the same thing and very easy to think more in terms of your arbitrary measurement than in the underlying condition you assume it represents.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:04:23 +0000

I just finished Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá. The authors present some convincing arguments against the standard view of pre-agricultural human sexuality.

It also includes a scathing critique of Pinker’s TED talk version of The Better Angels of Our Nature.

By: FredR

FredR — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:28:34 +0000

TGGP:

Everything you say is true, and I went into it already despising his obvious biases, and yet I found that despite these flaws the book is one of the most enjoyable and informative history books I’ve ever read.

By: Spike Gomes

Spike Gomes — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:47:59 +0000

Currently reading “Buddenbrooks” by Thomas Mann, Just completed “Secrets of Songwriting” by Gary Ewer (this was my third reread). Next in the queue is “Electronic Circuit Building for Dummies”.

I probably read a lot less general non-fiction than the average person here. Mostly fiction and applied non-fiction.

By: Kiwiguy

Kiwiguy — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 03:08:40 +0000

@ TGGP, have you read Johnson’s ‘Enemies of Society’? He really comes off the long run up there. John Derbyshire quotes him in this piece.

http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/Math/trustscience.html

By: TGGP

TGGP — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:27:35 +0000

FredR, there’s waaaaaaay too much special pleading. And he keeps on going on about how the new century brought relativism and that caused all the bad things, even while acknowledging that Japan was in many respects (particularly those he’s criticizing) similar to ancient Egypt, nevertheless moral relativism is to blame even if there’s no demonstrated linkage between what europeans thought and anyone else did. And since I’ve been reading a lot of Sumner as of late, his Rothbardian account of the 20s and Great Depression irritated me. He admits that there’s no evidence of inflation in the 20s but says that’s just masked by productivity improvements (the inflation under Nixon’s presidency gets no mention since Johnson finds it more important to indict the press for revealing things about Nixon that they hadn’t done for previous presidents). Keynes was a sodomite and as far as Johnson is concerned that tells you what to think of his ideas (Hoppe gives an actual argument for a connection between the two, Johnson is pushing an implicit halo effect), monetarism is only mentioned in the Thatcher era and treated only as a tag-line rather than an idea. And since the deaths in the trenches caused many to write about the futility of war Johnson (who never served in a war) responds that many of the casualties were “misfits or failures”. Surely such types number among the casualties as well, but it’s one of the worst arguments I’ve heard.

By: Jason Malloy

Jason Malloy — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:08:22 +0000

Mann’s 1493 and Trivers’ The Folly of Fools.

By: Kiwiguy

Kiwiguy — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:47:04 +0000

For a laugh I’d recommend ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ by Philip Roth. Hilarious, laugh out loud funny.

Paul Johnson’s ‘Intellectuals’ is an entertaining muckraking of the lives of several prominent figures over the last 300 years.

The new Steve Jobs autobiography?

By: Zora

Zora — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:58:09 +0000

_Reamde_, by Neal Stephenson. One-third done, so far so GREAT. Narrative elements: MMORPGs and general geekiness, hackers of various countries/ethnicities (American, Chinese, Hungarian, Eritrean …), marijuana smuggling, bikers, Russian mafia, jihadis, M16, guns, explosions. Waiting to see if Stephenson can pull off a good ending, something at which he often fails.

By: GH

GH — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:27:39 +0000

Just finished “On The Edge: My Story” by Richard Hammond of Top Gear fame, before that “Barnum Brown: The Man Who Discovered Tyrannosaurus Rex” by Lowell Dingus and Mark Norell- very good read. Just started “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” by Mary Roach.

I’ve been challenging myself to read more non-fiction than I have in the past. I do have some fiction on standby as well- “Doc” by Mary Doria Russell, “Gideon’s Sword” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and lots of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries. Now to find more time…

By: pconroy

pconroy — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:21:13 +0000

I find that it’s difficult to read in the subway – where I have most time – as there is a lot of jostling and pushing, so physically difficult to keep a book or book reader steady. As I’m also prone to motion sickness, I can only read for 15 minutes or so before it begins to set in.

A friend recommended Audible.com’s app for iPhone and Android, as you can crank up the reading speed to a max of 3x. I find that 2x is very legible, but 3x a little too demanding. So that might be a good alternative for people in New York or other cities with subways…

Slightly OT, but does anyone have a good introduction/primer for Mises that they have personally read and recommend – for a non-economics major person?

By: Jacob Roberson

Jacob Roberson — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:17:01 +0000

Pieces of Marcus Aurelius from time to time. Never have been able to retain Koine despite schooling and private study, but then again without using it how should I? So I work with two copies and a dictionary and translate bits here and there.

Like Mary says above, the funny thing is the similarity to the thinking of today. Today I was reading: Everyone must do what is in accordance with their constitution, and all other parts of the person have been constituted for the sake of the rational part, just as in every other case the lower exist for the sake of the higher. But rational beings have been made for the sake of each other.

Pretty sophisticated for a cave man.

By: FredR

FredR — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:10:19 +0000

I’m reading Bourdieu’s Distinction and it’s pretty good.

p.s. How could you not like Modern Times?

By: Naughtius Maximus

Naughtius Maximus — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:49:21 +0000

Just past the halfway point of A Dance with Dragons; I read them alll after each other thinking the fifth one was the last. Apparently there are two more and Martin likes to take his time.

By: JB Tait

JB Tait — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:36:40 +0000

1493 by Charles C. Mann