Category: Books

The subtitle is Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.  Is it massive?  Yes.  Does it contain numerous revelations about his childhood, his "slight obsession" with trains, his love of collecting, and his sex life?  Yes.  Is it well written and well researched?  Yes.  Does it cover many financial episodes (most of all Salomon Brothers) and famous characters?  Yes.  Is it number one on Amazon?  Yes.  Does it contain analytic depth?  No.  Did I like it?  Yes, but for a return which is mostly biographical in nature, it’s a lot of detail to wade through.

Part of this new policing mentality is that publishers are becoming more
  risk-averse – children’s book authors, for example, are being asked to sign
  contracts agreeing to ‘appropriate conduct’ in their private lives.

Here is much more, mostly a discussion of how digitalization is changing the literary world.

Here are a few reviews and a few more and more.  Here is the Amazon listing.  A partial read and a browse put me in (temporary?) agreement with this Amazon review:

The story, when it gets going, is exciting and relatively fast-paced
and all that. But it takes some 600-700 pages to get there, during
which time you are immersed in the world of Arbre and its native
culture. The first few pages are chock-full of in-world jargon à la A
Clockwork Orange, and it will be difficult to read. (Not to worry–
there is a glossary, and selections from the Arbran dictionary appear
throughout the text)…Anathem takes eight thousand years of
fictional history and makes it as relevant and meaningful as anything
from the Cycle.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Cryptonomicon is the place to start.  It’s one of my favorite popular fictions from the last twenty years and you don’t even need to like "that sort of thing."

1. The Future of the Internet — and How to Stop It, by Jonathan Zittrain.  The main claim is that everything will be sterile, tethered appliances.  The opening up of the iPhone would seem to bely this message plus competition usually works in giving consumers what they want.  A smart book (that is rare for internet books, oddly) but I suspect it will prove to be wrong.

2. Paul Auster, Man in the Dark.  Reviews for this work have a bimodal distribution.  I like most of Auster’s books but I vote no.

3. The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson.  So far this is excellent junk reading.

4. Epilogue, by Anne Roiphe.  Ideally this book deserves its own post but it is difficult to excerpt.  It’s about why the author, now a widow, finds it hard to fall in love again.  Definitely recommended.

5. The Boy with Two Belly Buttons, by Stephen Dubner.  It’s a children’s book.  I haven’t read so many of these since Mr. Pines Paints a Purple House — my favorite as a tot — but to me it seemed very good.  Ages 4-8.

In Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? Bauman, a former communist, argues that we would be better off altogether if we could control our need for “stuff”.

The longer book review is of interest.  The longer book is not.  In other words, Bauman has helped me control my need for "stuff."

That’s Ryan Holiday’s query.  This is not about quality, this is about "representing a literary era" or perhaps just representing the era itself.  I’ll cite Bonfire of the Vanities and Fight Club as the obvious picks.  Loyal MR reader Jeff Ritze is thinking of Easton Ellis ("though not American Psycho").  How about you?  Dare I mention John Grisham’s The Firm as embodying the blockbuster trend of King, Steele, Clancy and others?  There’s always Harry Potter and graphic novels.

Upper-class pronunciations are all over the place.  The Cholmondeleys are pronounced the CHUM-leys.  The Earl of Harewood is the Earl of HAR-wood.  The Beaulieux are the BEW-leys.  In accordance with the convention that French words should be pronounced as far away from the actual French style as humanly possible, just to show those French people who’s boss, Beauchamp Place, a street in Knightsbridge, BEACH-um Place.  Jacques, in Shakespeare: JAKE-weeze.  Your valet is your VAL-let.  Madame Tussaud’s wax museum?  To some Brits it’s MA-dam TOO-sod’s).

That is from Sarah Lyall’s not fully analytical but often quite amusing The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British.

Here is a picture of Thomas Cholmondeley [CHUM-ley], and with this caption: "The trial has opened in Nairobi of an aristocrat
accused of murdering a black Kenyan man he suspected of poaching on his
family’s 100,000-acre estate."  The case, the second of its kind brought against Thomas, remains pending.  Here is more information.  Here is his girlfriend.

I want you to tell me.  It’s a book that doesn’t currently exist.  It is a work of non-fiction.  The author must be living.  It must be a work the author could plausibly write.  It doesn’t have to be a close cousin of a book the author has already written.

So you could request "Jared Diamond on sexual selection" but not "Joseph Stiglitz on the early history of Ghenghis Khan."

Do please tell us your pick.  Comments are open…

That’s the title of the forthcoming Jeff Madrick book.  "Don’t we already have big government?" was my first reaction.  This book is a good summary of one point of view, but if you’re already familiar with the basic arguments it won’t extend your understanding of the debates.  There’s not much on the public choice arguments (e.g., self-serving special interests and irrational and underinformed voters) against growing state power, only a general sense that we "should" do good things with government.  Nor is there much realization that Americans are skeptical about government, in large part, because of their daily experiences with it.  We’re also told that many of the proposed progressive measures will nearly pay for themselves.

Yana’s reaction was: "Why didn’t he publish it with a government press?"

An occasional MR reader sent me these:

I.
Anyone intending to embark on a major work should be lenient with
himself and, having completed a stint, deny himself nothing that will
not prejudice the next.    
   

II.
Talk about what you have written, by all means, but do not read from it
while the work is in progress. Every gratification procured in this way
will slacken your tempo. If this regime is followed, the growing desire
to communicate will become in the end a motor for completion. 

III.
In your working conditions avoid everyday mediocrity. Semi-relaxation,
to a background of insipid sounds, is degrading. On the other hand,
accompaniment by an etude or a cacophony of voices can become as
significant for work as the perceptible silence of the night. If the
latter sharpens the inner ear, the former acts as a touchstone for a
diction ample enough to bury even the most wayward sounds. 

IV.
Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain
papers, pens, inks is beneficial. No luxury, but an abundance of these
utensils is indispensable.    

V. Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.   

VI.
Keep your pen aloof from inspiration, which it will then attract with
magnetic power. The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea,
the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. Speech
conquers thought, but writing commands it.   

VII.
Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Literary honour
requires that one break off only at an appointed moment (a mealtime, a
meeting) or at the end of the work.   

VIII. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written. Intuition will awaken in the process.   

IX. Nulla dies sine linea — but there may well be weeks.   

X. Consider no work perfect over which you have not once sat from evening to broad daylight.   

XI. Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You would not find the necessary courage there.   

XII.
Stages of composition: idea — style — writing. The value of the fair
copy is that in producing it you confine attention to calligraphy. The
idea kills inspiration, style fetters the idea, writing pays off style.   

XIII. The work is the death mask of its conception.

A US woman has been arrested and handcuffed for failing to pay fines for two overdue library books.

Heidi Dalibor, of Grafton, Wisconsin, is the first to admit that she ignored calls and letters from her local library.

She also admits that she ignored a notice to appear in municipal court or pay the fine, reports the News Graphic.

But the last thing she expected was a knock on her door by Grafton police.

Here is more.  Here is my previous post on library fines.  By the way, she paid the fine and kept the books.

Ad Bergsma says yes:

Advice for a happier life is found in so-called ‘self-help books’, which are
widely sold in modern countries these days. These books popularize insights from psychological science and draw in particular on the newly developing ‘positive psychology’. An analysis of 57 best-selling psychology books in the Netherlands makes clear that the primary aim is not to alleviate the symptoms of psychological disorders, but to enhance personal strengths and functioning. Common themes are: personal growth, personal relations, coping with stress and identity. There is a lot of skepticism about these self-help books. Some claim that they provide false hope or even do harm. Yet there are also reasons to expect positive effects from reading such books. One reason is that the messages fit fairly well with observed conditions for happiness and another reason is that such books may encourage active coping. There is also evidence for the effectiveness of bibliotherapy in the treatment of psychological disorders. The positive and negative consequences of self-help are a neglected subject in academic psychology. This is regrettable, because self-help books may be the most important–although not the most reliable–channel through which psychological insights find their way to the general audience.

Here is the full issue, of the Journal of Happiness Research, and I thank whichever web site led me to this, sorry I forget.

I like that word: bibliotherapy.

From the UK:

"Libraries are facing competition from television, magazines, the
internet, e-books, yet they have this archaic and mad idea of charging
people money for being slightly late," said library consultant Frances
Hendrix – a loud voice in the debate which has been taking place on an
online forum for librarians. "It’s all so negative, unprofessional and
unbusinesslike; like any business, libraries need not to alienate their
customers." Liz Dubber, director of programmes at reading charity The
Reading Agency, agreed. "My personal view [is that] they’re past their
sell-by date because they do sustain a very old-fashioned image of
libraries which is out of sync with today’s modern library environment
and the image libraries are trying to project – tolerant, responsive,
flexible, stimulating," she said.

Some critics have described the fines as "alienating."  But are there alternatives?:

One librarian suggested adopting the ancient practice of some
monasteries, in which monks who offended in the handling of books were
publicly cursed. Another pointed to Soviet Russia, where they said that
offenders’ names were published in newspapers to shame them into
returning their books. In New Zealand town Palmerston North next week,
library users returning late books are being challenged to beat
librarians on Guitar Hero to have their fines waived.

In any case this economist will suggest higher fines for very new and popular books and also commonly used reference manuals, combined with lower fines for everything else.