Category: Books
Marc Andreessen on Atlas Shrugged
What should I ask Carl Zimmer?
Yes, I will be having a Conversation with him. Here is Wikipedia on Carl:
Carl Zimmer (born 1966) is a popular science writer, blogger, columnist, and journalist who specializes in the topics of evolution, parasites, and heredity. The author of many books, he contributes science essays to publications such as The New York Times, Discover, and National Geographic. He is a fellow at Yale University‘s Morse College and adjunct professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University. Zimmer also gives frequent lectures and has appeared on many radio shows, including National Public Radio‘s Radiolab, Fresh Air, and This American Life…He is the only science writer to have a species of tapeworm named after him (Acanthobothrium zimmeri).
There is much more at the link. Carl has a new book coming out, namely Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Air We Breathe, an in-depth look at the history of aerobiology. So what should I ask him?
My Shakespeare and literature podcast with Henry Oliver
Here is the audio and transcript, here is the episode summary:
Tyler and I spoke about view quakes from fiction, Proust, Bleak House, the uses of fiction for economists, the problems with historical fiction, about about drama in interviews, which classics are less read, why Jane Austen is so interesting today, Patrick Collison, Lord of the Rings… but mostly we talked about Shakespeare. We talked about Shakespeare as a thinker, how Romeo doesn’t love Juliet, Girard, the development of individualism, the importance and interest of the seventeenth century, Trump and Shakespeare’s fools, why Julius Cesar is over rated, the most under rated Shakespeare play, prejudice in The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare as an economic thinker. We covered a lot of ground and it was interesting for me throughout.
Excerpt:
Henry No, I agree with you. The thing I get the most pushback about with Shakespeare is when I say that he was a great thinker.
Tyler He’s maybe the best thinker.
And:
Henry Sure. So you’re saying Juliet doesn’t love Romeo?
Tyler Neither loves the other.
Henry Okay. Because my reading is that Romeo has a very strong death drive or dark side or whatever.
Tyler That’s the strong motive in the play is the death drive, yeah.
Henry and I may at some point do a podcast on a single Shakespeare play.
Updating the best of 2024 lists
Here are my additions to the year’s “best of” movies list:
All We Imagine as Light
A Real Pain (didn’t think I would like it, but it is very good)
Green Border
A strong finish, yes?
I’ve also been listening to Two Star & the Dream Police, and Mount Eerie’s Night Palace, not recommended for most of you but very good nonetheless.
As for the end of the year surprise book, one of the very best from 2024, there is Helen Castor’s The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV. I’ll be writing more about it in 2025.
Patrick Collison on classic novels
Read it here. Recommended. Excerpt:
For me the clear standouts are Middlemarch, Bleak House, Karenina, and Life and Fate. I would enthusiastically reread any of them. If I had to choose just one to go to again, I would probably select Middlemarch. There’s something memorably compelling in Eliot’s affection and empathy for almost all of her characters. If Succession is a show with no likable personalities, Middlemarch is the opposite. Bleak House is a close second. Life and Fate is quite different to the others: it’s not exactly entertaining (or even notably well-written), but it is true and profound.
And this:
Today’s scientific papers are far harder to read, and jargon-replete, than those of 1960. However, the novels of the 19th century use significantly more sophisticated construction (and vocabulary) than those of today. What should we make of the countervailing trends? To me, both seem suboptimal.
Do go and digest the whole thing.
Merry Christmas!
Wishing all our readers a wonderful day and New Year!
What I’ve been reading
Emily Nussbaum, Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV. Despite its excellent reviews, I resisted buying this book for a while, because most books on TV are not good. It is intrinsically difficult to write about the medium, and also many of the people who want to just aren’t that smart. But the Nussbaum book is a true winner, the Candid Camera chapter alone makes it worth it. Did you know that Richard Lewis was on the show at age 16? Recommended, both for its entertainment and its substance value.
Africa: the Definitive Visual History of a Continent, Penguin Random House. One of my favorite picture books of all time. It teaches the broader history of Africa by region rather than by country. First-rate maps and photos throughout.
Rose Lane Says: Thoughts on Race, Liberty, and Equality, 1942-1945. A hitherto little-known corner of libertarian thought, these short essays are very good and could be a useful tonic for some of what has gone wrong. Edited by David T. Beito and Marcus Witcher.
Emily Herring, Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People. It is good to see more on Bergson in English. I had not known that the best man at his wedding was Marcel Proust (they were cousins by marriage and Proust was not yet famous). Still, the book did not convince me that I have been underrating Bergson.
John Callanan, Man-Devil: The Mind and Times of Bernard Mandeville, The Wickedest Man in Europe, is a good treatment of an underrated and still under-read Dutch thinker.
Marshall B. Reinsdorf and Louise Sheiner, The Measure of Economics: Measuring Productivity in an Age of Technological Change, is a very useful and well-reasoned book.
Ann Schmiesing, The Brothers Grimm: A Biography fleshes out of our knowledge of the German Romantic period.
Of interest to some is Oliver Keenan, Why Aquinas Matters Now.
What should I ask Joe Boyd?
Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him. Here is from Wikipedia:
Joe Boyd (born August 5, 1942) is an American record producer and writer. He formerly owned Hannibal Records. Boyd has worked on recordings of Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band, R.E.M., Vashti Bunyan, John and Beverley Martyn, Maria Muldaur, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Billy Bragg, James Booker, 10,000 Maniacs, and Muzsikás. He was also one of the founders of the highly influential nightclub venue UFO…
Boyd was responsible for the sound at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when Bob Dylan played a controversial set backed by electric musicians.
And:
Boyd returned to the United States at the end of 1970 to work as a music producer for Warner Bros. with special input into films, where he collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the sound track release of A Clockwork Orange. Boyd also contributed to the soundtrack of Deliverance, directed by John Boorman, where he supervised the recording of “Dueling Banjos“, which became a hit single for Eric Weissberg.
Here is Joe’s official website. Joe has a new and remarkably thorough and polymathic book out And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music. So what should I ask Joe?
Jefferson’s DOGE (that was then, this is now)
Jefferson swiftly undid twelve years of Federalism. He allowed the Sedition Act to expire and adopted a more catholic naturalization law. He reduced the federal bureaucracy — small even by today’s standards — particularly in the Treasury Department (a slap at Hamilton, who had been Secretary under Washington), slashing the number of employees by 40 percent and eliminating tax inspectors and collectors altogether. He cut the military budget in half, which was then 40 percent of the overall federal budget. He eliminated all federal excise taxes, purging the government of what he called Hamilton’s “contracted, English, half-lettered ideas.” Reluctantly he kept the First Bank of the United States, but paid off nearly half the national debt. “No government in history,” the historian Gordon S. Wood has observed, “had ever voluntarily cut back on its authority.”
That is from the new and very good book Martin van Buren: America’s First Politician, by James M. Bradley. Later things were different:
Martin van Buren went into office deermined to avoid Andrew Jackson’s fateful staffing mistakes. The backbiting and intrigue wasted two years of Jackson’s presidency. This van Buren could not afford.
And a wee bit later:
Then the voters had their say. The November elections in New York were an absolute bloodbath for the Democrats. There were 128 elections for assembly in 1837, and the Whigs won 101 of them.
The book is well-written.
*Goethe: A Faustian Life*
By A.N. Wilson, an excellent book and worthy of being addended to the year’s best non-fiction list. In addition to appreciating the work of Goethe, which one can never do enough of, Wilson argues (with reasonable evidence) that Goethe was bisexual, including with Jacobi (!). Goethe also had, at the very least, alcoholic tendencies, at times drinking three bottles a day for extended periods of time.
Of course there are the extensive Nicholas Boyle volumes (in the works) as well, fortunately you do not have to choose. Recommended, noting that many of Goethe’s best works make sense only in German. Here is a Henry Oliver podcast with Wilson.
*The Triumph of Politics*
The author is David A. Stockman, and the subtitle is Why the Reagan Revolution Failed. This is for me a re-read, all DOGErs and aspiring DOGErs should give this book an initial read, as it covers why the Reagan attempts to pare back government largely failed. Excerpt:
But I hadn’t recoked that there would be so much opposition on our side of the aisle. I was shocked to find that the Democrats were geting so much Republican help in their efforts to keep the pork barrel flowing and the welfare state intact. I had been worried because the votes didn’t add up, not the economic plan.
I had also come to realize that in my haste to get the Reagan Revolution launched in February, we had moved too fast. There were numerous loose ends. The spending reductions needed to pay for the tax cuts had turned out to be even bigger and tougher than I had originally thought.
And:
Over the next eight months, the President’s pen remained in his pocket. He did not veto one single appropriations bill, all of which combined came in $10 billion [sic] over the line. Come to think of it, he did use his pen — to sign them.
Stockman of course was what you might call the DOGE leader of the early 1980s. His final take is that the Reagan Revolution failed because it misunderstood what the American people truly want from their government. For better or worse, they want privilege and also protection from misfortune, not efficiency or maximum economic growth.
Essential reading, for some of you.
*The Nvidia Way*
I quite liked this new book by Tae Kim, offering a 245 pp. history of the company. Here is a useful review from the WSJ.
I can note that recently, a bit before Thanksgiving, I had the chance to visit Nvidia headquarters in Santa Clara, receive a tour, see some demos, and (a few days earlier) chat with Jensen Huang. I am pleased to report very positive impressions all around. My intuitive sense also jives with the portrait painted in this book.
As for my impressions of Nvidia, I was struck by the prevalence of large, attractive plant displays in the headquarters, and also how much care they take to ensure quietness on the main corporate floors and spaces (I notice funny things about companies). The geometric shapes and designs, for whatever reason, reminded me of the early 1970s movie Silent Running. If I visit an AI company, in the hallways many people will recognize me. At Nvidia nobody did, except those who invited me in. That too is an interesting contrast.
I am honored to have seen their lovely facilities.
My Conversation with the excellent Paula Byrne
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is part of the episode summary:
Tyler and Paula discuss Virginia Woolf’s surprising impressions of Hardy, why Wessex has lost a sense of its past, what Jude the Obscure reveals about Hardy’s ideas about marriage, why so many Hardy tragedies come in doubles, the best least-read Hardy novels, why Mary Robinson was the most interesting woman of her day, how Georgian theater shaped Jane Austen’s writing, British fastidiousness, Evelyn Waugh’s hidden warmth, Paula’s strange experience with poison pen letters, how American and British couples are different, the mental health crisis among teenagers, the most underrated Beatles songs, the weirdest thing about living in Arizona, and more.
This was one of the most fun — and funny — CWTs of all time. But those parts are best experienced in context, so I’ll give you an excerpt of something else:
COWEN: Your book on Evelyn Waugh, the phrase pops up, and I quote, “naturally fastidious.” Why can it be said that so many British people are naturally fastidious?
BYRNE: Your questions are so crazy. I love it. Did I say that? [laughs]
COWEN: I think Evelyn Waugh said it, not you. It’s in the book.
BYRNE: Give me the context of that.
COWEN: Oh, I’d have to go back and look. It’s just in my memory.
BYRNE: That’s really funny. It’s a great phrase.
COWEN: We can evaluate the claim on its own terms, right?
BYRNE: Yes, we can.
COWEN: I’m not sure they are anymore. It seems maybe they once were, but the stiff-upper-lip tradition seems weaker with time.
BYRNE: The stiff upper lip. Yes, I think Evelyn Waugh would be appalled with the way England has gone. Naturally fastidious, yes, it’s different to reticent, isn’t it? Fastidious — hard to please, it means, doesn’t it? Naturally hard to please. I think that’s quite true, certainly of Evelyn Waugh because he was naturally fastidious. That literally sums him up in a phrase.
COWEN: If I go to Britain as an American, I very much have the feeling that people derive status from having negative opinions more than positive. That’s quite different from this country. Would you agree with that?
Definitely recommended, one of my favorite episodes in some while. And of course we got around to discussing Paul McCartney and Liverpool…
*A Boy’s Own Story*
By Edmund White, I enjoyed this paragraph from the preface:
In A Boy’s Own Story I touched on all the themes of my youth: the exaggerated consolations of the imagination; the sexy but crushing teenage culture of the 1950s; the importance of Buddhism, books and psychoanalysis to my development; my first contacts with bohemianism, the sole milieu where homosexuality was tolerated; and finally my cult of physical beauty. In recent years politically correct gay critics have taken me to task for my *looksism.” I never respond, but if I were to I’d say “Put the blame on Plato, who originated the seductive if unwholesome idea that physical beauty is a promise of Beauty, indistinguishable from Truth and Goodness.” All artists are responsive to beauty in any form it appears.
How did “looksism” get turned into “lookism“?
How to read a book using o1
You don’t have to upload any book into the system. The Great Cosmic Mind is smarter than most of the books you could jam into the context window. Just start asking questions. The core intuition is simply that you should be asking more questions. And now you have someone/something to ask!
I was reading a book on Indian history, and the author reference the Morley reforms of 1909. I did not know what those were, and so I posed a question and received a very good answer, read those here. I simply asked “What were the Morley reforms done by the British in India in 1909?”
Then I asked “did those apply to all parts of India?”
You can just keep on going. I’ll say it again: “The core intuition is simply that you should be asking more questions.”
Most people still have not yet internalized this emotionally. This is one of the biggest revolutions in reading, ever. And at some point people will write with an eye toward facilitating this very kind of dialogue.