What I’ve been reading

1. The Naked Brain: How the Emerging Neurosociety is Changing How We Live, Work, and Love, by Richard Restak.  A good summary of a bunch of results I already knew, but a suitable introduction for most readers.  It doesn’t cover neuroeconomics.

2. Light in August, by William Faulkner.  I am rereading this, wondering whether I should use it for my Law and Literature class in the spring.  My memory was that this is the "easy" classic Faulkner but the text is tricker than I had remembered.  Not quite as good as As I Lay Dying or Absalom, Absalom.

3. Matthew Kahn, Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment.  From Brookings, a good and balanced treatment of the intersection between environmental and urban economics.  Here is Matt’s blog.

4. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.  I’m still at p = .05, if only because I fear such a heavy reliance on the anthropic principle.  This book didn’t sway me one way or the other.  And while I am not religious myself, I am suspicious of anti-religious tracts which do not recognize great profundity in the Bible.  Furthermore, as Dawkins recognizes, civilization requires strong loyalties to abstract principles; I’m still waiting to see a list of the relevant contenders to choose the best.  Here is Dawkins speaking.

5. Michael Lewis, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game.  I loved Liar’s Poker and Moneyball but this one did not grab me at all.  I stopped.  Perhaps the reader needs to love football.  Here is a radio interview with the author.  Here is his NYT article.

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