What I’ve been reading

1. Karl Ove Knausgaard, Autumn.  While this volume of very short essays does reflect a literary sensibility, I didn’t find it fun or insightful to read.  By the way, “Vomit is usually yellowish and can range from pale yellow to yellowish-brown, with certain areas of quite different colours, like red or green.”  So I suppose the Knausgaard canon really is just the first two volumes of My Struggle.

2. Alex Millmow, A History of Australasian Economic Thought.  A very good introduction, New Zealand too.  There is no problem filling a book with substance on this topic, in fact it left me wanting more.

3. Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., John D. Jackson, and Robert D. Tollison, The Economics of American Art: Issues, Artists, and Market Institutions.  A useful overview and survey of the role of economics in the development of art markets in American history.

4. Cynthia Estlund, A New Deal for China’s Workers? The best book I know on labor unions and labor policy in China: “It surprises many Westerners to learn that the labor standards established by Chinese law on the books, apart from actual wage levels, track modern Western (especially European) labor standards rather closely in many respects…Professor Gallagher has described China’s labor standards regime as one of “high standards-low enforcement.””

5. Beowulf, translated by Stephen Mitchell.  I cannot judge veracity, but to read this is in the top tier of Beowulf renderings to date.  The Old English is presented on the opposing page, this book I will keep.

6. Orhan Pamuk, The Red-Haired Woman.  Eh. Contrived.

Arrived in my pile are:

Robert Wuthnow, American Misfits and the Making of Middle Class Respectability.

Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good, with nary an equation in sight.