Category: Books

Fiction:

1. The da Vinci Code (in English)

2-9. All in English, four more Dan Brown titles plus Paulo Coelho, etc.

10. The da Vinci Code (in Arabic)

Non-fiction:

1. Easiest Way to Learn Arabic

The bottom line: English is the number one language here, and the natives truly are a minority.

I just stopped in to the Fairfax County Public Library, and found it was flat out empty.  Could it be that everyone is at home reading…?

Yes the new Harry Potter will be a big hit, but the real growth in publishing revenue is coming elsewhere:

In 2004, religious books represented 7 percent of all book sales, with $1.95 billion in net revenues. The book industry overall totaled $26.45 billion in net revenues, according to the Book Industry Study Group. Translated into consumer spending, readers spent $3.7 billion on religious books, a category that includes Christian books. That is an increase of nearly 285 percent from 1983.  "It is the only book category where we’ve seen that kind of growth rate," Greco said.

Here is the full story.

Last year before leaving for Liberia, I solicited book recommendations from a few friends (including Alex).  I wanted to come up with a fairly short list of books that Liberian leaders should read if they were interested in building an economic system that would be conducive to economic growth.

Here is the list of books that I took and donated to a college library:

1. The Birth of Plenty, by William Bernstein
2. The Noblest Triumph, by Tom Bethell
3. The Mystery of Capital, by Hernando De Soto
4. The Elusive Quest for Growth, by William Easterly
5. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, by David Landes
6. How the West Grew Rich, by Nathan Rosenberg and L.E. Birdzell

My lectures last year were essentially built around the material in Easterly’s book.  This year, I’ll be lecturing from Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity, by James Gwartney, et al.  In fact, Jim Gwartney personally donated twenty-five copies of this book for me to take along for the Liberians!

So what books would you take if you were headed off to sub-Saharan Africa, with the chance to lecture to academicians and policy makers?  I have opened up the comments section for you to post your suggestions.

Remember Reason Papers?  Starting in 1974, they provided serious discussions of "nutty" libertarian issues before the mainstream took notice.  Here is the link.  Here are the archives.  Here is Jeff Hummel’s excellent Problems with Austrian Business Cycle Theory, circa 1979.  Here is Loren Lomasky’s review of Nozick’s Philosophical Explanations, plus his review of Derek Parfit.  Or try this familiar guy on the economics of epistemology.

In a new blog, Radley Balko destroys Morgan Spurlock and his new book on the fast food industry – and it didn’t take him thirty days.  Lots of amazing stuff including this hilarious takedown of ACORN.

Thanks to Julian Sanchez at Hit and Run for the link.

Read it here, and thanks to Craig Newmark for the pointer.

I am writing this after only ten fun-filled pages of John Twelve Hawks’s The Traveler, the new publishing sensation.  I dragged Alex and Robin Hanson to Borders after lunch yesterday and picked up a copy from the front table on the first day of release.  Is it a spy story?  Fantasy?  Science fiction? 

The author, by the way, claims to "live off the grid," here is a profile (of sorts).  To maintain his anonymity he (supposedly) speaks only by satellite phone to his publisher and agent.  Here is the book’s entertaining website, which includes Q&A with the author.  Here is a strong Janet Maslin review, from The New York Times.

Mathematics and Sex caught my eye at the bookstore yesterday.  My review?  Not enough math.

I’ve been tagged by both John Moser and Arnold Kling, here are my answers to the book questions:

1. How many books I own: I have a large pile of paperbacks to take on plane trips.  I own classics such as Leibniz and George Eliot.  Plus a small number of economics books — accidents rather than choices — for reference.  The major Haitian art catalogs.  Reference books on film and music.  Many cookbooks.  My own books. 

2, 3. Last books I bought and read: Just scroll down MR.

4. Five books that have influenced me most: Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream, by David Marsh.  Jean-Christophe, by Romaine Rolland.  The Crimson and the White, by Michael Faber.  The Once and Future King, by T.H. White.  Starmaker, by Olaf Stapledon.  The Buru Quartet, by Pramoedya Toer.  Selden Rodman, Popular Artists in Tune with Their World.

5. Favorite Michael Jackson songs: I Want You Back, Billie Jean, She’s Out of My Life, Girlfriend, Black or White, The Way You Make Me Feel.

Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City.

Contra Tyler, the problem with the market for textbooks is not monopoly but monopsony, and a peculiar kind of monopsony at that.  Twenty states, including the big three, California, Florida and Texas are "adoption states" where a bureaucratic committee of so-called experts chooses which textbooks are to be used in all state schools (non state-approved textbooks are not funded).

Centralized adoption encourages politicization.  Interest groups of all stripes lobby for their pet issue to be included or their pet peeve to be removed.  As a result, textbooks tend to get longer but blander and dumber.  Not only must all textbooks contain appropriate numbers of men and women, blacks and whites, Indians Native-Americans and Caucasians – all doing gender-neutral, politically correct activities – in California you can’t even mention ice cream because it’s fattening.

The adoption system, by the way, didn’t become politicized it was born of politics.  It began during Reconstruction when Southern states demanded central control of textbook adoption so they could require textbooks to write about "the war for Southern Independence" instead of say the civil war.

The necessity of passing through the state hurdle creates a winner take-all-market. Navigating the committees and their thousands of requirements takes
years of preparation –  it can cost $20 million just to create a textbook proposal.  Thus, in this case, monopoly is caused by monopsony.

The solution is to get rid of state-wide adoption systems altogether and let the teachers decide – preferably in a fully funded voucher system.

This book is a cross between Dr. Seuss and Ayn’s Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand would be proud of the message and Dr. Seuss would be proud of the beautiful illustrations and rhyming verse in this lively tale of free-markets versus excessive government regulation. †¢ Hardcover, 27 beautifully illustrated pages! †¢ Follow the trials of bright Bridget Blodgett as she struggles to produce her widgets and wodgets in the face of increasing taxation!

Here is the link.  If you are wondering, I found this among the blog ads on Brad DeLong’s site; we’ve been advertising the plight of the unemployed.

In the spirit of Indiana’s attempt to simplify math by legislating Pi to be equal to 3.2, California Democrats in the Assembly have just approved a bill (soon to go to the Senate) shortening textbooks to a maximum of 200 pages.  I imagine that there are some school board members in Kansas who know just what should be cut.

Thanks to David Theroux for the pointer.

Black Rednecks and White Liberals, here is one summary by Sowell:

The culture of the people who were called "rednecks" and "crackers" before they ever got on the boats to cross the Atlantic was a culture that produced far lower levels of intellectual and economic achievement, as well as far higher levels of violence and sexual promiscuity. That culture had its own way of talking, not only in the pronunciation of particular words but also in a loud, dramatic style of oratory with vivid imagery, repetitive phrases and repetitive cadences.