1. Vie Francaise, by Jean-Paul Dubois. He is the French Philip Roth; the bottom line is that I finished it, and not just because of the occasional mentions of Adam Smith.
2. Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious, by Gerd Gigerenzer. The author is a smart guy and an accomplished scholar, but despite his best efforts this book is a few years too late.
3. Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang, by Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok. Inflation vs. cyclic theories, the latter help you stay an agnotheist by resolving the Goldilocks problem; only some of the universes through time have order as we know it. I enjoyed it, even though I am sick of popular physics books. It’s also the first time I’ve understood anything about the Higgs field debates. Recommended.
4. The Right Talk: How Conservatives Transformed the Great Society into the Economic Society, by Mark A. Smith. The main thesis is that right wingers have made America a more conservative society by framing issues in terms of economic reasoning. Maybe I am too close to the topic, but I didn’t learn anything from the book. At the very least it should interest progressives looking to mimic the successes (?) of the right wing.
5. Blankets, by Craig Thompson. This I loved and read in one sitting; it is a very good introduction to graphic novels, especially if you are not thrilled by Alan Moore.
I think for progressives to mimic the success of the right-wing, they would have to get their most extreme pundits into the major news channels, and then get these channels to act as if death threats, conspiracy theories and calls for violent revolution were nothing unusual whatsoever, and perfectly reasonable positions.
Then they wait, and step into the new middle ground.
“Inflation vs. cyclic theories, the latter help you stay an agnotheist by resolving the Goldilocks problem; only some of the universes through time have order as we know it.”
Well, sure, but the problem with an infinite cycle of changing universes is that Murphy’s Law inevitably comes into effect, hard. Over an infinite length of time, whatever could go wrong, will go wrong. So, some cycle would inevitably break the system so it couldn’t go on … unless, of course, the whole system was, uh, designed to avoid those problems in the first place.
But, you’ll notice you haven’t actually explained anything…
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