Results for “favorite writers” 54 found
*In the First Circle*
I was reading Solzhenitsyn’s novel during my time in Brazil and I believe he has become oddly underrated. He is too often viewed as a historical artifact rather than as one of his century’s best writers. Here was one of my favorite passages from what is perhaps his best novel (Cancer Ward is another favorite):
“My husband’s been in prison nearly five years,” she said. “And before that he was at the front…”
“That doesn’t count,” the woman retorted. “Being at the front isn’t the same thing! Waiting is easy then! Everybody else is waiting too. You can talk about it openly; you can read his letters to people. But when you have to wait and keep quiet about him, that’s something else.”
Assorted links
1. Being overweight as a function of region.
2. Coffee shortage in Venezuela.
3. Laura Miller on drugs; she remains one of my favorite current writers.
The wisdom of William James
I ran across this on Gretchen Rubin's blog:
Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
William James holds a secure position as one of my favorite thinkers and writers.
Addendum: Maybe it's not James, see the comments.
Assorted links
1. The corruption of accounting standards; an important article.
2. A good smash of the pallid Benjamin Button.
3. Should Eugene be annoyed by "Happy Holidays"?
4. Writers pick their favorite books of the year.
What I’ve Been Reading
1. Henning Mankel, Depths. I loved this story. Have I mentioned that Mankell is one of my favorite contemporary writers?
2. Nick Lane, Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. One of the best popular science books I’ve read in the last few years. Among other matters he explains why curing aging isn’t so easy, why eukaryotes seem to have evolved only once, and why it often should be "The Selfish Cell" and not always "The Selfish Gene." His book Oxygen is excellent as well.
What I’ve Been Reading
1. Love, Life, Goethe: Lessons of the Imagination from the Great German Poet, by John Armstrong. The author does not demonstrate overwhelming expertise but this is nonetheless not a bad place to start on the most neglected of all the great writers.
2. The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West, by Mark Lilla. Why Schleiermacher really matters, how Kant painted himself into a corner trying to solve the problems laid out by Rousseau, and why it all springs from Hobbes. I found this well above average for its genre, though you must have a taste for Straussian-like books where big ideas clash at the macro level and there is little attempt at any kind of empirical resolution.
3. How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom, by Garry Kasparov. This is a fun book, except that life mostly doesn’t imitate chess. Chess is characteristic for its lack of self-deception; it is hard to avoid knowing where you stand in the hierarchy and excuses are few and far between. That’s why most chess players are depressed. Kasparov seems to save his self-deception for politics; let’s hope he is still alive a year from now.
4. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, by Richard Rhodes. This favorite book of Jason Kottke is first-rate non-fiction, it is also one of the best books on the Cold War.
5. The Feast of the Goat, by Mario Vargas Llosa. One of the best studies of the psychology of political power and the connection between tyranny and the erotic. A fun albeit sometimes harrowing read. Another superb translation by Edith Grossman, might she be the best translator ever?
Underrated science fiction
Yes it is "Underrated Week" and our next genre is science fiction.
But – sorry guys — I don’t think there is much underrated science fiction. You might think the genre as a whole is underrated, but within the genre there are so many sad desperate souls (I know, I am one of them) who will clutch at straws and elevate the mediocre into the worthwhile and the worthwhile into the superlative.
Science fiction has been treading water since the 1960s. Since that time its most glorious achievements have been on the screen, not on the printed page. There are some excellent individual books, such as Eon or Hyperion, but the genre is mostly retreads. Nor do I think much of attempts to cross science fiction with "serious fiction," whether it is coming from Philip K. Dick or Doris Lessing. Yes the idea is cool but the execution is usually quite flawed.
Still we all must have our picks, so here are mine:
1. Sphere, from Michael Crichton. Forget the last few books. He is the best science fiction writer in contemporary times, though his publisher works very hard to make sure that label does not stick.
2. Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon. Read Stapleton if you fervently believe that British Hegelianism is the missing element in most science fiction. Yet this is probably my favorite science fiction novel of all time, who else can credibly skip over 20,000 years in a single breath? "Civilizations rose and fell, yet now we must move on," or something like that. Honorable mentions go to Stapledon’s Odd John and especially Sirius.
3. Jonathan Lethem, Gun with Occasional Music. This is marketed as contemporary literature, which keeps away the science fiction fans.
It is hard to call Joe Haldeman underrated but still there are fans who don’t know he is one of the best science fiction writers, period.
I guess there is some underrated science fiction after all.
Crying Uncle: OK people, I retract the claim "Science fiction has been treading water since the 1960s." Card and Butler are the most convincing counterexamples.
What I’ve been reading
1. Michael Crichton, Next. Yes it is "writing-by-numbers," yes it is better than his recent work, but no, it is not nearly as good as Jurassic Park, Sphere (my favorite), Congo, or for that matter his book on Jasper Johns. Some critics like it. The start is OK but it falls apart as it proceeds. By the way, here is my previous post on human-chimp hybrids.
2. Robert Bolaño, Distant Star. A minor masterpiece. He is another of those first-tier Latin writers, along with Asturias and Rulfo, who for mysterious reasons no one in the United States seems to read.
3. Richard Powers, The Echo Maker. A deserving winner of a National Book Award, plus I am interested in the neurology theme. I find many of Power’s earlier books too intellectualized, but this one held my attention throughout. By the way, I also tried the non-fiction National Book winner, the book about the Dust Bowl years, but it didn’t hold my interest.
4. The Poor Always Pay Back: The Grameen II Story, by Asif Dowla and Dipal Barua. A very good look at the micro-credit movement.
Addendum: The NYT picks its ten best books of the year.
Cyclopaedia of Political Economy
Have you ever wondered what nineteenth century, classical liberal political economy looked like? No, not the classic writers but rather ordinary political economy?
A new web resource answers your question. John J. Lalor’s Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy collected classical liberal writings on the economic issues of the day, circa 1881. You can now access and read the work in its entirety. Here is information about the book and author.
For one sample, here is the brief article on the political economy of debt. Or try this entry on the balance of trade, still relevant today. The item on the division of labor remains eloquent and insightful. Gustav de Molinari writes passionately on the link between freedom, prosperity, and the arts, a favorite topic of mine. I’ve spent a good bit of time browsing through the book (both recently and much earlier), and it offers surprisingly few clunkers. On social issues it is consistently liberal and progressive.
Kudos to the ever-excellent Liberty Fund for putting the work on-line. Until their efforts, you could buy the book for a mere $675.
Addendum: The links to the previous version of this post have now been fixed.