What I’ve been reading

David Woodman, The First King of England: Aethelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom.  An excellent work.  One of the best books on early English history, and also one of the best books on how the Dark Ages morphed into early Medieval times.  Usually I find treatments in both areas difficult to follow, but this one produces a coherent and also non-exaggerated narrative.  It also will make you want to visit Northumbria.

Edmund Phelps, My Journeys in Economic Theory.  A fascinating memoir, I had not known he was so obsessed with Rawls and Nagel.  He also loved the tenor Franco Corelli, and was a Birgit Nilsson fan too.  Recommended, for those who like this sort of thing, and who already are familiar with the cast of characters.

Bench Ansfield, Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City.  Whenever a book demonstrates what people in New Jersey have known for decades, usually it is a good book.

Andrew Sean Greer, Less: A Novel.  I do not like much in contemporary American fiction, but so far I am quite enjoying this one.

Bernd Roeck, The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance.  934 pp. of text, covers too many topics in too desultory a fashion?

Pablo A. Pena, Human Capital for Humans: An Accessible Introduction to the Economic Science of the People, is a good popular-level introduction to human capital theory.

There is Carl Benedikt Frey, How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations.