1. India, by Michael Wood. This book looks ordinary but it is a wonderful (selective) history which captures the magic of India. Recommended to both the beginner and the expert.
2. Las Benévolas, by Jonathan Littell, the Spanish-language edition of this famous French novel just came out (I don’t read French). Here is the French edition. Here are some of the raves. Here is a critical review. I loved the first twenty pages and was bored by the next thirty. We’ll see how far I get in this Spanish-language edition of almost 1000 pages. My current best guess is that a WWII-themed novel of this kind simply can’t be that original. The French love it, perhaps, because an American-born writer wrote it in the French language.
3. Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD. This is a good summary of knowledge about economic growth, by a premier empirical economist. But, as I am already familiar with the basic literature, I couldn’t find any reason to keep on reading.
4. The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World, by Eric Weiner. This book is well-written, witty, and deserving of its current bestseller status. At first I thought it was just fluff, but its applied, anecdotal, and travel-based approach gives one of the better windows on happiness across cultures. His particular observations are astute, especially on Switzerland and Thailand; in the latter case, referring to sex, he writes that something which cannot be shoved under the rug is now regarded as a piece of furniture.
5. Virginia Postrel on Ron Paul, no spam bots please.
I read Les Bienveillantes last year and I must say that I have a great deal of awe and admiration for the book. Just keep reading.
Floccina,
Why do you want to shift your support to Obama, just because he has a better chance of winning? Even if Ron Paul doesn’t win the political market needs the indicator that there are people thinking in the right direction.
If you really believe in what he says then go for it, your signalling is important!
Abhi and Christina you make a good point, I guess that I mean my hope is now in Obama. I am still a Ron Paul supporter.
I wish someone had warned me about Virginia Postrel before I wasted 45 seconds reading that.
At the first sign of political incorrectness, all the below-the-Beltway “libertarians” have dumped Ron Paul like yesterday’s garbage. Now they can rest easy that they will still be invited to the parties thrown by their lobbyist and government employee and contractor friends, who for a second or two got worried by all those Google searches that Ron Paul might have some influence, resulting in some of them losing their jobs (end the income tax with no replacement?! The guy is obvioiusly a kook, and we don’t invite the supporters of kooks to our parties!). Now everybody around the Beltway can go back to partying at the taxpayer’s expense. All the money will keep flowing in, hooray!
So much for libertarian political activism. It is futile.
All that is to say, Tyler, you were right when you said you weren’t too excited about him.
Concur w/formerbeltway. The piling on RP is amusing. What a bunch of vichy-libertarian fools. No wisdom or morality whatsoever. Keep on collaborating people. Keep believing that a bunch of Southern, racist former Democrats who believe in the rapture really mean it this time about “smaller government” when all they’ve attempted to do is put Jesus’ plan into effect at the federal level. Or that a bunch of pro-union socialist totalitarians will protect anything other than your freedom to swear.
I don’t really understand what vision of the vichy-libs have of the future unless all they care about is continuing to receive their subsidies for meaningless, technocratic work that the free market wouldn’t support. Kudos to the collaborators.
The “nutters” in my view are anyone who would waste a penny or second on any other candidate. Let the masses pick; they’re all the same. This empire will crumble like all the past ones.
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