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.
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/
On reading, see this:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/12/how_to_read_fas.html
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.
“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?
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.
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