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What I've been reading
1. The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, by Victor Pelevin. A fun Russian weird novel; here is a good review of it. It's one of the few works of fiction I've finished lately.
2. The Patron's Payoff: Conspicuous Commissions in Italian Renaissance Art, by Jonathan K. Nelson and Richard J. Zeckhauser. Put together a collaborating art historian, a first-rate microeconomist, an interest in signaling and a preface by A. Michael Spence and this is what you get.
3. White Heat: The Friendship Between Emily Dicksinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, by Brenda Wineapple. Yes, this is a very good book. But it has the same problem that most other Emily Dickinson books have. Her poems are so short you can fit them into a narrative and they are so strong they tend to overwhelm any non-fiction context they are put in.
4. Geoffrey Heal, When Principles Pay:Corporate Social Responsibility and the Bottom Line. The main point is that socially responsible behavior is often profitable for business in the long run. I know that doesn't sound like such a compelling message right now, but this is a highly intelligent and now a sadly neglected book.
5. Samuel Johnson: A Biography, by Peter Martin. This is only the third best biography of Johnson (Walter Jackson Bate is #2) and it is still one of the best books of the year. What does that say?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 9, 2008 at 05:18 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Omg, Pelevin.
Try Sorokin if he's translated, he's a better example of modern Russian literature.
Posted by: Blogger at Oct 9, 2008 5:32:11 AM
I recommend Pelevin's "Omon Ra"- its a fictional recount of the Soviets' Moon Mission- where they find they are falling behind the Americans so they "decide" that it is far too dangerous to risk sending men to the Moon and will instead send a remote control rover... but then they find that the technology isn't advanced enough, so instead they'll make the rover pedal powered and secretly send a Cosmonaut up inside of it. And that's just the beginning.
Posted by: John F at Oct 9, 2008 8:30:18 AM
This is only the third best biography of Johnson (Walter Jackson Bate is #2) and it is still one of the best books of the year. What does that say?
That pompous windbags make for good biographies?
Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at Oct 9, 2008 12:23:37 PM
From one who doesn't yet own a biography of Johnson -- what do you think is the best?
Posted by: Kyle Mathews at Oct 10, 2008 9:29:55 PM
