Recent Books I Have Read
Roscoe by William Kennedy. The most recent Albany book (the same series as Ironweed); set between the Great War and WWII. Excellent. Kennedy is Gore Vidal's only rival in American historical fiction.
The Great Influenza (The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History) by John M. Barry. Worth reading for its history of American Public Health (and in particular for its account of the founding of Johns Hopkins medical school); but a failure in its attempt to fit the frantic search for the cause of a health disaster into the conventional form of a thriller.
Chronicles by Bob Dylan. Surprisingly good, particularly if Dylan did not use a ghostwriter. The book is a sort of autobiography by sample; it leaps around from Dylan as a college dropout in Dinkytown, MN, to the New Orleans recording of "Oh, Mercy," and around his early months in New York, meeting the characters on the folk scene. I hope he keeps writing these to fill in the gaps.
The World is Flat by Tom Friedman. Worth reading, but preachy and about 200 pages too long. Friedman distills a lesson from a bunch of facts, then spends a few pages beating you over the head with the lesson, then ties that lesson in with the previous lessons he taught you in the previous chapters. He also takes the trouble to tie in his lessons with the experiences of his friends, tying those lessons to all of the previous lessons, etc. Again, the lessons are worth knowing-- the world and its commercial relationships are changing at breakneck speed-- but the overt preachiness of the book is off-putting.
Hamilton's Blessing (The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt) by John Steele Gordon. I had read about this before and was glad I got around to reading it. Published in 1997, it is one of the early examples of the "long subtitle-- short book-- founding father" genre that has become very popular these days. The book starts with a biographical sketch of Alexander Hamilton and with a history of Great Britain's use of defecit financing to finance its empire. It follows up with a survey of Federal Budgets of the last 200 years; points out that the incentives faced by politicians do not encourage responsible budgeting, and adds that the government does not use double entry bookkeeping, which is a scandal and a travesty. It has a nicely done description of the federal tax code as a byzantine mass of Keynesian incentives, and questions the use of tax policy for anything more than raising revenue.
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials Book I) by Phillip Pullman. I picked this up after reading this article in the New Yorker. Other than Harry Potter and a re-reading of the Lord of the Rings I had not read any fantasy or science-fiction since I was 15. I thought the book was well-imagined, well-written, and original (if puzzling at times). However, now that I have read the sequel (which is excellent on every level), I like it even better.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. The book that started the trend of statistical social analysis mixed with neat-o societal obsevations. (Without this book there would have been no Freakonomics, for example). Very enjoyable while you read it, although not a whole lot of it sticks with you. My favorite part was the chapter dealing with Sesame Street and the studies of how children learn. There is also a great Bernard Goetz chapter. Gladwell just started blogging this year. Here is his take on the abortion crime "link" found in Freakonomics.
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. It was a bad idea to read this right after reading the Tipping Point; I think I overdosed on "neat-o." Surowiecki is the business writer for the New Yorker; he used to have the same position for Slate, and he is one of the best at what he does. His book is "The Tipping Point" with more statistics and economics. The point to take home from his book is that futures markets (like this one) are the best way to take advantage of collective wisdom. There is a particulaly good look at the failure of the Space Shuttle Columbia's "Debris Assessment Team." In spite of the fact that a couple of the committee members saw the disaster coming, they were bullied out of saying anything by the small group dynamics. Any MBA type should read this right away.
The Smithsonian Instutituion by Gore Vidal. A lesser book, certainly, by the best essayist and historical novelist alive, but worth reading if you like his themes. In 1939 a boy genius is called to the Smithsonian, which is filled with living manequins capable of time travel. The mechanics, of course, are less important than the issues raised by the great men; there is a particularly interesting moment when Jefferson asks Lincoln why he resorted to butchery to stop citizens from exercising their right to rebellion.
The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials Book II) by Phillip Pullman. A real gem-- masterfully written. I actually stopped and read the first chapter (an account of a small boy watching his mother descend into mental illness) twice. The first Dark Materials book was noteworthy; this one is a masterpiece.
The Great Influenza (The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History) by John M. Barry. Worth reading for its history of American Public Health (and in particular for its account of the founding of Johns Hopkins medical school); but a failure in its attempt to fit the frantic search for the cause of a health disaster into the conventional form of a thriller.
Chronicles by Bob Dylan. Surprisingly good, particularly if Dylan did not use a ghostwriter. The book is a sort of autobiography by sample; it leaps around from Dylan as a college dropout in Dinkytown, MN, to the New Orleans recording of "Oh, Mercy," and around his early months in New York, meeting the characters on the folk scene. I hope he keeps writing these to fill in the gaps.
The World is Flat by Tom Friedman. Worth reading, but preachy and about 200 pages too long. Friedman distills a lesson from a bunch of facts, then spends a few pages beating you over the head with the lesson, then ties that lesson in with the previous lessons he taught you in the previous chapters. He also takes the trouble to tie in his lessons with the experiences of his friends, tying those lessons to all of the previous lessons, etc. Again, the lessons are worth knowing-- the world and its commercial relationships are changing at breakneck speed-- but the overt preachiness of the book is off-putting.
Hamilton's Blessing (The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt) by John Steele Gordon. I had read about this before and was glad I got around to reading it. Published in 1997, it is one of the early examples of the "long subtitle-- short book-- founding father" genre that has become very popular these days. The book starts with a biographical sketch of Alexander Hamilton and with a history of Great Britain's use of defecit financing to finance its empire. It follows up with a survey of Federal Budgets of the last 200 years; points out that the incentives faced by politicians do not encourage responsible budgeting, and adds that the government does not use double entry bookkeeping, which is a scandal and a travesty. It has a nicely done description of the federal tax code as a byzantine mass of Keynesian incentives, and questions the use of tax policy for anything more than raising revenue.
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials Book I) by Phillip Pullman. I picked this up after reading this article in the New Yorker. Other than Harry Potter and a re-reading of the Lord of the Rings I had not read any fantasy or science-fiction since I was 15. I thought the book was well-imagined, well-written, and original (if puzzling at times). However, now that I have read the sequel (which is excellent on every level), I like it even better.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. The book that started the trend of statistical social analysis mixed with neat-o societal obsevations. (Without this book there would have been no Freakonomics, for example). Very enjoyable while you read it, although not a whole lot of it sticks with you. My favorite part was the chapter dealing with Sesame Street and the studies of how children learn. There is also a great Bernard Goetz chapter. Gladwell just started blogging this year. Here is his take on the abortion crime "link" found in Freakonomics.
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. It was a bad idea to read this right after reading the Tipping Point; I think I overdosed on "neat-o." Surowiecki is the business writer for the New Yorker; he used to have the same position for Slate, and he is one of the best at what he does. His book is "The Tipping Point" with more statistics and economics. The point to take home from his book is that futures markets (like this one) are the best way to take advantage of collective wisdom. There is a particulaly good look at the failure of the Space Shuttle Columbia's "Debris Assessment Team." In spite of the fact that a couple of the committee members saw the disaster coming, they were bullied out of saying anything by the small group dynamics. Any MBA type should read this right away.
The Smithsonian Instutituion by Gore Vidal. A lesser book, certainly, by the best essayist and historical novelist alive, but worth reading if you like his themes. In 1939 a boy genius is called to the Smithsonian, which is filled with living manequins capable of time travel. The mechanics, of course, are less important than the issues raised by the great men; there is a particularly interesting moment when Jefferson asks Lincoln why he resorted to butchery to stop citizens from exercising their right to rebellion.
The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials Book II) by Phillip Pullman. A real gem-- masterfully written. I actually stopped and read the first chapter (an account of a small boy watching his mother descend into mental illness) twice. The first Dark Materials book was noteworthy; this one is a masterpiece.
posted by Virginian | 7:13 AM
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