Results for “my favorite things” 259 found
My favorite things Iceland
1. Saga: First choice goes to Njal’s Saga. It’s the clearest and crispest of the lot.
2. Novel, modern: How about Audur Ava Olafsdottir’s The Greenhouse? This is a boom area. There are one hundred twenty Icelandic novels translated into German each year [correction of earlier estimate].
3. Popular music: Sigur Ros, Agaetis Byrjun. This CD has a transcendental and also anthemic sound, even if the group never quite lived up to their initial promise. Bjork albums I usually find pretentious and I would rather listen to her earlier group The Sugar Cubes.
4. Annual tournament: Ram groping.
5. Sea bird: The puffin, followed by the guillemot.
6. Video: Daniel Tammet learns how to speak Icelandic in a week. That’s hard.
7. Economist: Erik Brynjolfsson, although I do not believe he was born in Iceland.
8. Movie: Maybe 101 Reyjkavik? I have yet to see The Deep.
9. Movie, set in: Die Another Day, an underrated Bond movie in my view.
10. Vista: How about Höfn?
I am excited that we are arriving this morning. And as for the food, don’t forget the glories of skyr.
My favorite things Oklahoma
1. Humorist: It is hard not to pick Will Rogers. But was he funny? You tell me. I’ll go with Chuck Norris.
2. Jazz musician: Charlie Christian, and as runner-up Chet Baker.
3. Folk music: Woody Guthrie, here is Do Re Mi.
4. Popular music: Eddie Cochran, and overall the music categories are turning out better than one might have expected. I feel there should be lots in country music but I could not tell you who that might be.
5. Musical, set in: Duh. A favorite of my favorites.
6. Novelist: Ralph Ellison.
7. Painter: Ed Ruscha.
8. Outlaw: Pretty Boy Floyd.
9. Movie, set in: I can think only of Rumblefish.
Here are images of Tulsa Art Deco.
People, this is an underrated state. I hope to end up there later tonight.
My favorite things Guatemala
I am headed there this morning for a Liberty Fund conference. In terms of the list, I came up with a bunch rather quickly:
1. Writer: Miguel Ángel Asturias. I don’t see why he isn’t a bigger deal with U.S. readers, given that he won a Nobel Prize for literature. His Hombres de maíz is a beautiful book. There is also Francisco Goldman.
2. Blogger, tweeter, and economist: Andres Marroquin.
3. Painter: Julian Chex, from the naive school of Comalapa, and some of his relatives too. Carlos Mérida is also Guatemalan and not Mexican as many believe.
4. Movie, set in: You’ve got Predator and El Norte, for a start. As for filming, the Star Wars medal ceremony was shot in part in Tikal National Park, scroll all the way down here.
The country has some of the best textiles in the world and in great profusion. It has an important university with a superb museum. A hotel run by Frances Coppola. And much more.
My favorite things Israel
1. Film: A rich and rapidly improving genre. My favorites are Lebanon or Waltz with Bashir, with a sentimental nod to Yana’s Friends, which isn’t great but I saw it on my second date with Natasha.
2. Movie, set in (non-Israeli): I don’t like Exodus, so can I cite the Mel Gibson movie? Are we totally sure that it is indeed set in Israel? What else am I missing? “Painting, set in” would be a fun category, but too hard to choose.
3. Actress: Natalie Portman is excellent in Closer.
4. Classical musician: Daniel Barenboim, Yefim Bronfman, Ivry Gitlis, and Eliahu Inbal would be at the top of a pretty long list. Perlman has a style too aggressive for my taste, at least as it comes across on disc.
5. Fiction author: I very much admire and enjoy David Grossman’s To The End of the Land.
6. Philosopher: Joseph Raz, especially his The Morality of Freedom.
7. Non-fiction author: Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow is splendid. Tom Segev could be a runner-up.
8. Co-author: Amihai Glazer, from UC Irvine.
9. Other economists: Donald Patinkin, Ariel Rubinstein, Ehud Kalai, Jacob Frenkel, Dan Ariely, Robert Aumann, Sergiu Hart, Elhanan Helpman, Reuven Brenner, Zvi Hercowitz, Oded Galor, Michael Bruno, and Stanley Fischer would be a few others. Overall the country is strong in game theory and monetary economics, as well as economics more generally.
I strike a zero when it comes to popular music. I don’t like Kiss/Gene Simmons, and Israeli popular music I don’t know well but from a distance I do not expect to like it much. The visual arts are also not obviously strong, though perhaps you can enlighten me in the comments.
My favorite things Korea
1. Movie. If I had to pick one, I might opt for Old Boy. The deeper point is that you should watch them all. If it is a Korean movie, and you can get your hands on it (as a non-Korean), it is probably excellent. This is a remarkable regularity and a good selection filter for exploring. This list is one place to start but not to stop. The Host is a fun spoof of monster movies and Shiri is a gripping thriller. Watch any Korean movie which Scott Sumner recommends. Even some of the clunkier Korean movies, such as The Housemaid, are better than most Hollywood fare.
2. Actress: Grace Park from Battlestar Galactica, and there is also Shin Eun-kyung.
3. Actor: John Cho, of Harold and Kumar fame. It is unlikely he is the best.
4. Video artist: Nam June Paik.
5. Classical pianist: Kun-Woo Paik, I find he is better represented on disc (Ravel, Liszt, Scriabin) than on YouTube. For violinist there is Sarah Chang, YouTube here.
6. Economist: Ha-Joon Chang comes to mind, although I disagree with most of his work. Here is my podcast interview with him.
7. Poet: Ko Un is the only one I have read. It is hard to judge any poet outside of his or her native language, but I definitely had the feeling something was there.
8. Novelist: Kyung-sook Shin is alas the only one I can name.
9. Movie, set in: Korean movies aside, you might consider Pork Chop Hill.
10. Painter: Contemporary art is a rich vein for South Korea. This catalog is one good place to start.
The bottom line: This is an impressive showing and it is improving rapidly. The killer categories is movies.
My favorite things China
1. Novel: Soul Mountain, by Gao Xingjian. Parts of Dream of the Red Chamber are splendid, but it is hard to keep track of the whole thing and also I wonder whether any of the available editions in English are satisfactory.
2. Movie: The Story of Qiu Ju. A real charmer.
3. Comedian: Jackie Chan.
4. Movie, set in, but not a Chinese movie: How about Transsiberian? Shanghai Noon? Are any of those old movies set in China any good?
5. Book, non-fiction: James Fallows, China Airborne. I am also a fan of the book where the guy drives a car around China. The Private Life of Chairman Mao is a stunner, maybe the best book I know on tyranny.
6. Book, set in, fiction (not by Chinese author): Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China. Pearl Buck I find boring.
7. Sculpture: Tang horses, some images are here.
8. Contemporary Chinese artist: Cai Guo-Qiang, images here. His one man show at the Guggenheim is one of the best exhibitions I’ve ever seen. Try this video, apologies for the ad at the beginning.
9. Chinese traditional music: I am interested in Chinese opera, but don’t quite feel I’ve heard the real thing. I once heard an electrified performance, but my sense is the music is all about the timbre and needs to be heard in an nowadays-almost-impossible-to-achieve setting, given that I am not a 17th century Chinese noble. Any advice? By the way, here is a good article on recent developments in Chinese (semi-classical) music.
10. Cookbooks: Fuchsia Dunlop’s two Chinese cookbooks are not only two of the best cookbooks ever they are two of the best books ever.
11. Best book about Chinese fiction: Sabina Knight, Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction. This short book is a marvel of economy, substance, and style.
12. Pianist: Yundi Li, try this video of Chopin’s 2nd Scherzo.
13. Architect: I.M. Pei. We have friends who live in a Pei-designed house, and it is splendid.
14. Movie director: John Woo was born in China. The Killer might be his best movie, but Once a Thief is arguably the most underrated. WindTalkers is quite good too and also underrated.
I am not counting either Hong Kong or Taiwan for these categories. I also am not counting American-born, ethnic Chinese, such as Maya Lin. And J.G. Ballard was born in Shanghai, but what category do I put him in?
My favorite things Romania
1. Schubert pianist: Radu Lupu.
2. Conductor: Sergiu Celibadache. A high variance obsessive, Amazon doesn’t seem to carry his important recordings. At his peak he is one of the best conductors ever and can force a total rethink of the music upon you. He demanded so much rehearsal time, and so much perfection, that he was often impossible to work with. There is a short YouTube bit here.
3. Painter: I can’t name one, sorry. I have seen some nice folk art icon paintings on glass, see the image at the bottom of this post.
4. Sculptor: Constantin Brâncuşi, with a preference for Bird in Space.
5. Chopin pianist: Dinu Lipatti, especially the Waltzes.
6. Producer of maxims: Emil Cioran. I have enjoyed all of his books.
7. Poet: Paul Celan. I am surprised he is not more widely read in the United States. At his peaks I don’t think any 20th century poet is better or more important.
8. Novelist: Herta Müller, better in German than English, both linguistically and culturally.
9. Violinist: Georges Enescu, of course he was a composer too.
10. Mozart pianist: Clara Haskil.
11. Movie: I’ve tried a bunch of the famous recent ones, but I can’t get through them and this is from a man who gladly watched the entire 7 hour, 12 minute Sátántangó .
12. Former NBA basketball center: G. Muresan.
13. Economist: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen.
The bottom line: There is some real beauty here, and aesthetic romance, but I don’t have a good theory for why novels and painting are not stronger.
My favorite things New Mexico
If I haven’t done one of these in a while, it is because the processes which rule my life keep sending me back to the same states. Here is a new one, since my last visit predates blogging at MR:
1. Entrepreneur: Jeff Bezos, for $75 a year you can step into a new universe. This will go down as one of the most significant innovations of our time. Furthermore, Microsoft was founded in New Mexico and spent its first four years there.
2. Painter: Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, Georgia O’Keefe are all strong contenders, though they do not hail from the state but rather moved there to work.
3. Museum: Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe. You can take this place as a stand-in for all the superb New Mexico visual arts of old, such as the santos and retablos.
4. Music: James Tenney, most of all his Postal Pieces.
5. Movie, set in: It is hard to think of anything other than Them!, though I suspect there are better candidates. Contact is a good movie.
What else? Cormac McCarthy I have never warmed to, and anyway he moved there later in life. Don’t they have a bunch of astronauts? Is there any popular music from this state not including John Denver? You’ll get a separate report on the food.
The bottom line: It’s a state I’m fond of, and it has contributions in surprising areas.
My favorite things South Carolina
This is a week belated but now I am in New York so here goes:
1. Music: James Brown was born in the state; my favorite James Brown song is Bewildered. Reverend Gary Davis is associated with North Carolina but he too was born in the state; try Sally Where’d You Get Your Liquor From? My favorite Dizzy Gillespie album is Dizzy’s Big 4.
2. Comedian: I’ve enjoyed a few clips of Stephen Colbert, though I do not pretend to have a good sense of his average quality.
3. Artist: Jasper Johns, though Georgia claims him too.
4. Political theorist: John Calhoun was brilliant, despite his repugnance on a number of obvious dimensions.
5. Federal Reserve chairman: Guess.
I can’t say I like Robert Jordan or Andrew Jackson or John Watson or John Edwards or Jesse Jackson. My father loved Barton MacLane but he never much registered with me.
This list is so thin I must be failing and forgetting people. I feel that many movies have been set in Charleston, or other parts of the state, but I can’t think of one of them, much less a good one. Nonetheless the peaks on the above list are high.
My favorite things Hungary
The Austro-Hungarian empire does not count per se, so I will use the Hungarian language for demarcation. As you might expect, there is lots:
1. Author: Peter Nadas, A Book of Memories, is a classic novel of ideas which is under-read in the United States. Nadas has a new book coming out this fall. Imre Kertesz doesn’t do much for me.
2. Movies: Bela Tarr, Satantango. It’s over seven hours long, but don’t be put off. It has some of the best shots of grazing cows and angry peasants committed to reel, and I wanted it to be longer. It’s mesmerizing in a way that makes it one of the film classics of the new century. I find Werckmeister Harmonies too corny but it has some fine scenes. Less traditionally thought of as Hungarian is the great Emeric Pressburger, who collaborated with Michael Powell on numerous fine films. Alexander Korda did The Thief of Baghdad.
3. Actor, Peter Lorre is the obvious choice, plus Bela Lugosi made the best Frankenstein ever, forget about Dracula.
4. Conductor: You have George Szell, Antal Dorati, Georg Solti, and Eugene Ormandy. Szell was so often perfect, Dorati cut some of the best sounding records of all time, Solti’s whiplash style was either offputting or splendid, and Ormandy was deeper than he was given credit for. Ivan Fischer is a more recent contender, for instance his Mahler’s 4th reflects a scrupulous concern with rehearsals. Péter Eötvös is an excellent conductor of contemporary music.
5. Pianist: Gyorgy Cziffra and Ervin Nyiregyhazi are two memorable eccentrics. Solti and Szell were underrated as pianists and Zoltan Kocsis is very good. Don’t forget Franz Liszt, even though no recording has survived.
6. Scientist: There is Szilard, Teller, and von Neumann and many many others but can they come close to this top tier? The options for Hungarian mathematicians defy belief. Hungarian inventors were critical to the “great non-stagnation” of 1870-1940, including for the all-important electrical transformer; few if any of those names have survived much into general Western history which I suppose says something.
7. Artist: Victor Vasarely is the obvious choice, but I don’t like him so much. This area seems oddly weak. Am I forgetting something? Mihaly Munkacsy anyone?
8. Economist: Janos Kornai comes to mind, and Melchior Palyi remains underrated. I believe Milton Friedman’s parents were from Hungary.
The bottom line: You can’t gush enough about music and math and physics and science and invention. The achievements from a small country are staggering and unprecedented. Yet literature and painting are relatively weak. Hungarian composers will get a post of their own, but there is a strong line-up of Liszt, Bartok, and Ligeti. What else am I forgetting? I can’t think of major films set in Hungary and I don’t count the Hollywoodesque The Shop Around the Corner even though nominally it is Budapest.
My favorite things South Africa
Torr writes to me:
Please will you consider doing a “favorite things South Africa” on Marginal Revolution. I’m also curious: have you ever visited South Africa?
I have yet to go, but here is what I admire so far:
1. Visual artist (you can’t quite call him a painter): William Kentridge. He is one of the contemporary artists who is both a realist and has a lot of the emotional power of the classics. His extraordinary body of work spans film, drawings, prints, and mixed media. Here are some images.
2. Home design: I am an admirer of the Ndebele, some photos of their colorful homes are here. They are better represented in picture books than on the web.
3. Movies: I don’t know many. I enjoyed The Gods Must be Crazy, even though some might find it slightly offensive. Nonetheless I hand the prize to District 9 for its interesting take on ethnic politics, its deconstruction and mock of Afrikaaner settler myths, and its commentary on how South Africans view Zimbabwean immigrants to their country.
4. Movie, set in: Zulu, 1964 with Michael Caine.
5. Novels: My favorite Coetzee is Disgrace, though I like most of them very much, including the early Life and Times of Michael K and Waiting for the Barbarians and the later semi-autobiographical works. Nadine Gordimer I find unreadable, call the fault mine. Same with Alan Paton. A dark horse pick is Trionf. Agaat sits in my pile, waiting for the trip of the right length.
6. Music: Where to start? Malanthini, for one. As for mbqanga collections, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto series is consistently excellent. Singing in an Open Space, Zulu Rhythm and Harmony 1962-1982 is a favorite. Random gospel and jazz collections often repay the purchase price and in general random CD purchases in these areas bring high expected returns.
7. Economists: Ludwig Lachmann was an early teacher of mine and I owe him my interest in post Keynesianism and also financial fragility hypotheses. G.F Thirlby remains underrated. W.H. Hutt was one of the most perceptive critics of Keynes and his insights still are not absorbed into the Keynesian mainstream. His book on the economics of the colour bar remains a liberal classic. Who am I forgetting?
The bottom line: There’s a lot here. Here are previous MR posts about South Africa.
My favorite things Egypt
1. Novel: I like all of the Mahfouz I have read, but the Cairo Trilogy is the obvious pick. Here is a very useful list of someone's favorite Egyptian authors and novels.
2. Musical CD: The Music of Islam, vol.1: Al-Qahirah, Classical Music of Cairo, Egypt. The opening sweep of this is a stunner, and it shows both the Islamic and European influences on Egyptian music. Musicians of the Nile are a good group, there is Hamza El Din, and there is plenty of rai. What else? I can't say I actually enjoy listening to Um Kalthoum, but her voice and phrasing are impressive.
3. Non-fiction book, about: Max Rodenbeck, Cairo: The City Victorious. Few cities have a book this good. There is also Dream Palace of the Arabs and Tom Segev's 1967. Which again is the really good book on the 1973 War?
4. Movie, set in: Cairo Time. This recent Canadian film avoids cliche, brings modern Cairo to life, and is an alternative to many schlocky (but sometimes good) alternatives, such as The Mummy, Death on the Nile, Exodus, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and so on. There is Agora. Egyptian cinema surely has masterpieces but I do not know them. If you're wondering, for books, I could not finish Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings.
5. Favorite food: I was impressed by the seafood restaurants on the promenade in Alexandria. Food in Cairo did not thrill me, though I never had a bad meal there.
6. Philosopher: Must I say Plotinus? I don't find him especially readable.
7. City: I enjoyed Alexandria, but I can't say I liked Cairo beyond the museum (much better than any Egyptian collection outside of Egypt) and the major mosques. The Sphinx bored me. The air pollution prevented me from walking for more than an hour and there was cement, cement. and more cement. The ride between Cairo and Alexandria was one of the ugliest, most uninspiring journeys of my life. The Egyptians were nice to me but I never had the sense that anything beautiful was being done with the country. Let's hope that changes.
8. Opera, about: Philip Glass, Akhnaten. But wait, there's also Aida, with Callas. And there's Handel's Israel in Egypt. Handel set a lot of his operas in Egypt, including Berenice and Giulio Cesare.
Diane Rehm is Egyptian-American but I don't know her show. The new biography of Cleopatra is smooth but the narratives made me suspicious. Was Euclid Egyptian?
My favorite things Berlin
1. Movie, set in: One, Two, Three captures a bit of comedy from the Cold War and shows Jimmy Cagney to be a surprisingly versatile actor. Wings of Desire has stunning moments, most of all in the Staatsbibliothek with the angels and in the indie music club. Goodbye, Lenin! shows German movies can be funny, as does Run, Lola, Run!. I don't like films about either the rise or fall of the Nazis and I couldn't get through Berlin Alexanderplatz.
2. Essayist: Kurt Tucholsky. He is hardly read by Americans, and perhaps does not translate well, but is arguably one of the most eloquent and also funniest essayists of his century. Heinreich Heine also spent time in the city, although he is not a "Berliner" in the same way.
3. Painter: George Grosz and Otto Dix have lost their shock value. I'll pick Lucien Freud, who was born in Berlin, though he ended up in England. Käthe Kollwitz deserves consideration, as well as for sculptor.
4. Symphonic performance: Furtwängler's 1942 performance of Beethoven's 9th, recorded live. Has to be heard to be believed. Obviously there was a lot at stake and furthermore Hitler was in the audience. This performance will terrify you.
5. Sociologist: Georg Simmel, especially his book on the philosophy of money.
6. Political philosopher: Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action, which to this day remains one of the best statements of libertarian political philosophy.
7. Playwright: Lessing's Nathan the Wise is a beautiful plea for tolerance. Bertolt Brecht was a compelling writer despite his communist politics.
8. Architect: Walter Gropius or Erich Mendelsohn.
9. Philosopher: Schopenhauer and Hegel both taught in Berlin. Even Hegel, while he is full of gobbledy-gook, is brilliant on a frequent basis. Don't start with Phenomenology of Spirit. At the very least, read Schopenhauer's aphorisms.
10. Film director: Ernst Lubitsch was born there, and filmed silents there, though he later had to leave. His Trouble in Paradise (1932) is today an under-viewed movie, plus his later romantic features, such as The Shop Around the Corner, Heaven Can Wait, and To Be Or Not To Be, all merit attention.
11. Non-fiction book, about: Two that come to mind are Richard Grunberger's The 12-Year Reich and Anthony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin 1945. I do like books about the rise and fall of the Nazis; I just don't think the topic lends itself well to film.
12. Novel, set in: Uwe Johnson, The Third Book About Achim [Das dritte Buch über Achim] and John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.
13. Poet: Rilke.
Kurt Weill belongs somewhere, as does Christopher Isherwood, Gustav Grundgens, or for that matter E.T.A. Hoffmann. In popular music there is Ricardo Villalobos (born in Chile, but a Berliner), Einstürzende Neubauten (start with Halber Mensch), and Peter and also Casper Brötzmann. I confess that most Mendelssohn bores me.
The bottom line: How many countries could beat this line-up? And most of it comes in a relatively short period of time.
My favorite things *Modern Principles* (Cowen and Tabarrok)
I'm writing to thank so many of you for your interest in Modern Principes: Microeconomics, Modern Principles: Macroeconomics, and the two-in-one edition. Alex and I have been pleased to see how many of you have adopted the book or shown interest in it; all the books are doing great and thanks to your interest. Translations to other languages are already in the works.
Here are a few of my favorite things Modern Principles:
1. It has the most thorough treatment of the interconnectedness of markets and the importance of the price system; most texts only pay lip service to this.
2. It is the most Hayekian of the texts on micro theory without in any way ignoring the importance of externalities, public goods and other challenges to markets.
3. It has an entire chapter on ethics and economics. We do present economics as a value-free science, yet we all know how much ethics shapes people's economics views. The book helps the student sort out common confusions and explains the ethical presuppositions behind many "economic" arguments.
4. It has an entire chapter on incentives and incentive design (e.g. piece rates, tournaments, pay for performance). Oddly, many micro books do not discuss this crucial topic.
5. International examples–from Algeria to Zimbabwe–are written into the core of the book and not just ghettoized in a single "international chapter."
6. It is obsessed with the idea of teaching students to think like economists.
7. It is grounded in the belief that reading an economics text should be fun, not a chore.
8. It has balanced coverage of neo-Keynesian and real business cycle approaches.
9. It covers Solow "catch-up" growth, and Paul Romer's increasing returns, much more thoroughly than do the other texts. The macro book (section) starts off with the idea of why growth matters and is central to macroeconomics.
10. The financial crisis was written into the core of the book, rather than being absent or treated as an add-on. This means for instance plenty of coverage of financial intermediation and asset price bubbles.
11. The book's blog, a teaching tool with lots of videos, powerpoints and other ideas for keeping teaching exciting, is lots of fun and updated regularly (FYI, this is a great resource for any instructor of economics.)
In addition, of course, there is a full range of supplements including lecture powerpoints, test banks, student's guide, Aplia support and coming in the fall EconPortal (even better than Aplia, IMHO).
My favorite things Turkey
1. Novelist: Orhan Pamuk. My favorite books by Pamuk are the ones rooted most firmly in Istanbul and Turkey, namely The Museum of Innocence and Istanbul and also Snow. Those are some of my very favorite books, period.
2. Non-fiction book, set in: There is Runciman and Kinross and Stephen Kinzer. Is the Osman book good?
3. Movie, set in: From Russia With Love and Topkapi come to mind; my knowledge of Turkish cinema is weak.
4. Opera, set in: The Abduction from the Seraglio, maybe the Beecham recording, or Krips, plus I like the overture of the Harnoncourt version, much more Turkish-sounding than the others. And I don't have to tell you my favorite Rondo.
Uh-oh, suddenly there is too much Orientalism in this post. Reverse course!
5. Favorite recording showing the unities behind Turkish and classical music: Istanbul, Dimitrie Cantemir, by Jordi Savall. Quite the revelation and it makes you wonder how well we understand the true story of classical music.
6. Singer: Tarkan comes to mind and he is well represented on YouTube. There is an entire strand of Turkish popular song, in the direction of Sezen Aksu, YouTube here. But overall my pick is Edip Akbayram, imagine a Turkish version of Tropicalia.
7. Economist: Dani Rodrik, Daron Acemoglu, Timur Kuran, and Faruk Gul are the best-known Turkish economists I can think of. I believe Nouriel Roubini was born in Turkey but I don't think he counts as Turkish.
8. Music mogul: Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records.
9. Classical pianist: I still have mixed feelings about Fazil Say, who is very subjective with the score. Idil Biret has some good recordings of romantic music and piano transcriptions.
10. Cynic: Diogenes, who in a few ways was an early version of Robin Hanson, though I am not suggesting Robin is a cynic in the lower case sense.
The bottom line: Textiles and the decorative arts weigh in as strong additional positives, but I wish there were more Turkish writers I liked.