What I’ve been reading

1. John B. Thompson, Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century.  By an order of magnitude, this is the best book on the economics of contemporary publishing.  It covers the UK scene as well.

2. Adam Feinstein, A History of Autism: Conversations with the Pioneers.  A lengthy and informative treatment of how thought on autism evolved, and most of all a tale of how badly science can misfire, even "these days."  I am not sure how much the portraits of researchers are intended as positive, but overall I take away from this book the message that many of them are arrogant and also partially incompetent.  It is possible that this is a better book (and for different reasons) than the author himself realizes.

3. Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail.  An excellent book, based on a blockbuster combination of writer and topic.

4. Jean-Christopher Valtat, Aurorarama.  Think French steam punk, Inuit characters, a strange dark ship hovering over an ice-locked retro-futuristic town, and a plot which might have come from an incoherent Japanese anime movie.  So far I like it and it's also my favorite book cover in some time:

Aurora 

There were other books which I put down quickly or not quickly enough.  I'm also reading more Thomas Bernhard, never a mistake.

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