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What I've been reading
1. Douglas Wolk, Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. My consumer surplus from this book was huge. The author calls it an "economic history" of the graphic novel; he hasn't read Bob Fogel but it remains one of the best introductions to any topic.
2. Martin Krause, La Economia Explicada a Mis Hijos, and Por el ojo de una aguja. Economics, explained through the medium of literature and fables, from an Argentinian classical liberal.
3. Jennifer Michael Hecht, The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong. The claim is that happiness follows from self-knowledge, self-control, self-realization, and awareness of death. There is little consideration of what is the proper margin for each.
4. Alfredo Jose Estrada, Havana: Autobiography of a City. One of the best city biographies, almost as good as the books on Cairo.
5. Ruth Rendell, The Water's Lovely. I used to think she was past her peak, but the first third of this is superb and the rest stays pretty good.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 23, 2007 at 06:14 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
I assume you've also been reading the New York Magazine article about you?
http://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/34981/
http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/34982/
Posted by: Pablo H. at Jul 23, 2007 9:57:11 AM
Instead of another post on what you read, I'd love to see a post on how you read. You're obviously a very busy man, but you always seem to be reading 3+ books at once. When do you read? As a substitute for what other activities? And so on.
Posted by: Joshua Holmes at Jul 23, 2007 10:38:00 AM
On reading, see this:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/12/how_to_read_fas.html
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Jul 23, 2007 10:55:28 AM
Re: Douglas Wolk, Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean.
Er, a word of caution : I found glancing through the book's index, which is online at Amazon, a rather underwhelming experience. Major omissions abound. Indeed, one does get the impression that the author is unaware of nearly everything not originally published in the English language.
Posted by: Henri at Jul 23, 2007 11:36:56 AM
He said before he sometimes only read 10 pages of a book and then the book is out.
He doesnt need to finish a bad book.
Posted by: JEAN at Jul 23, 2007 2:36:56 PM
And a faculty need to read 3 books /week , at least, to be a good researcher/professor
Posted by: JEAN at Jul 23, 2007 2:45:17 PM
"WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING" is a common post.
Prof.Cowen,
How you get time to read all these? Roughly four per week.
Do you read every page closely?
How you allocate your non-market time among books?
What are your directions in distinguishing a good book from a bad one?
Does personal prejudices and subjective preferences over rate or under rate some books/authors?
How you dispose the books you already read?
Posted by: GVV at Jul 23, 2007 3:13:15 PM
I wish you'd include the number of pages read, again.
Posted by: eriks at Jul 23, 2007 5:09:28 PM
Salon.com has an excellent article excerpted from Douglas Wolk's "Reading Comics":
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/06/23/reading_comics/
I found the article a great read. As someone who knows little about comics, it got me interested in a new genre, and provoked some interesting thoughts on the genres I do read regularly.
Posted by: RfP at Jul 26, 2007 2:31:13 PM
