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What I've been reading
1. Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, by Gene Heyman. This book overstates its claims, but if you wish to see a non-economist defending a (broadly) Beckerian model of addiction, here you go. I couldn't put it down!
2. Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care. I felt I should try one by her to stay in touch. It was better than I had expected though not really smarter than I had expected. Here is an NYT article about her.
3. Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. This new translation by Julie Rose is more or less definitive. But it is heavy. If any book ought to be on Kindle...
4. Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us, by Alyssa Katz. There is lots of good material about our social and policy infatuation with housing, but she commits a mistake that I have been "waiting for" -- she blames part of the housing bubble on the decline of rent control
5. Javier Cercas, Anatomía de un instante. A micro-study of one moment of time (Feb.23) when, post-Franco, Spain ended up sticking with the path to democracy rather than falling back to autocracy. The focus is on conservative Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez and the book blends fictional and non-fictional narrative techniques very effectively. Here is one review. This is a very strong book also with relevance to current events in Iran.
6. Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz, From Poverty to Prosperity. I've only been reading the Amazon blurb for it -- the book isn't out yet -- and here is Arnold on the book.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 21, 2009 at 08:09 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
how would you make a link between the end of rent control and the housing bubble? end of rent control => pushing lower income people into the pool of purchasers?
Posted by: babar at Jun 21, 2009 8:21:32 AM
See The End of My Addiction for a different take on alcoholism as disease. It's by a cardiologist who became an alcoholic and eventually found that Baclofen (a muscle relaxant) eliminated the craving. It may be that high, biologically caused background levels of muscle tension are what alcoholics are trying to relieve.
Our Lot sounds like it backs up what I've been thinking-- that the government push towards home ownership created a very risk-prone investment monoculture.
Posted by: Nancy Lebovitz at Jun 21, 2009 9:03:49 AM
Do you intend to read Eric Falkenstein's book Finding Alpha: The Search for Alpha When Risk and Return Break Down?
Posted by: jsalvati at Jun 21, 2009 11:17:34 AM
jodi, imho, writes insufferable tripe passed off as a "breezy beach read".
Posted by: farmer at Jun 22, 2009 8:00:56 AM
I couldn't put it down!
[rimshot]
Posted by: eddie at Jun 22, 2009 8:24:15 AM
I'm still working my way through Les Miserables (Fortunately, I can read in French and don't have to worry about a translation), having started it over a year ago (I read a lot of books simultaneously, and it takes me a long time to finish a given book). I like it, but I'm surprised at its enduring popularity, given how often (and for how long) Hugo will stop the main narrative to tell you what he thinks about, well, just about everything. On the other hand, that's one of the book's most interesting features.
Posted by: d.cous. at Jun 22, 2009 1:01:10 PM
I feel like any cognitive scientist should agree that addiction is not a disease, since the mechanisms of addiction are well known, and are basically the brains reward system working like they should, but in a direction that reinforces unhealthy or socially unacceptable behavior.
The reason why more of these scientists haven't come out harder against the "addiction is a disease" narrative is that therapeutically it is quite useful and has seen a lot of success in the last couple decades. Particularly when compared to older attitudes towards addiction based on moral condemnation.
So I think you have a reluctance in people to fight against a story that may not be completely scientifically accurate, but that is seen as useful and that if discarded could result in worse results for the treatment of addicts.
Posted by: afu at Jun 23, 2009 7:43:44 AM
