Books finished in May:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)

Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade (2013) by Adam Minter. A fascinating account of the globalized trade in junk. Illustrates how trade connects parts of the world with different specializations. Repeatedly comes back to the fact that the trash trade has an undeservedly bad reputation: Minter several times acknowledges that there are problems with pollution and lack of labor regulations many places, but emphasizes that the trade allows materials to be used again rather than be used as landfills. If the trade in junk was not there, we would see a lot more environmentally harmful mining to extract these materials, that is something to think about for greens denouncing the garbage trade. Recommended.

A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History (2014) by Nicholas Wade. An interesting book. Wade argues that genetic factors are seriously undervalued and indeed repressed as an explanation for human societal diversity. He claims that different social tendencies at the race level have evolved fairly recently and explain much of today’s economic world. His view is a subtle one – these tendencies are not god-given, but have evolved in response different societies’ needs (-“human evolution has been recent, copious and regional”). However, I think he should have gone more deeply into the point that as in the past, whether traits are good or bad depends on the context, both today and in the future. There was an interesting discussion about the book on Andrew Gelman’s blog.

Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (2010) by Dan Ariely. Ok. Often lacking is a discussion of how various seemingly irrational behaviors may not be so dumb in a larger context, but the book is fine enough, good popularization of many findings.

Red April (Vintage International) (2006) by Santiago Roncagliolo. Set in Perú in 2000. Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar investigates murders purportedly carried out by the Maoist terrorist group Sendero Luminoso. Meets and creates several difficulties. The conflict and violence in the novel are modelled on the real world. Despite this, the book was not really my style.

The Atrocity Archives (A Laundry Files Novel) (2007) by Charles Stross. Occult IT expert Bob Howard starts his journeys in the British intelligence organization “the Laundry”. Charlie Stross’ blog is here.

The Jennifer Morgue (A Laundry Files Novel) (2009) by Charles Stross. Second book about Bob Howard working in intelligence organization the Laundry. This time he outlandishly finds himself in a literal James Bond plot, the idea behing which is a little difficult to follow at times.

How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like (2010) by Paul Bloom. “[…] people naturally assume that things in the world – including other people – have invisible essences that make them what they are. Experimental psychologists have argued that this essentialist perspective underlies our understanding of the physical and social worlds, and developmental and cross-cultural psychologists have propposed that it is instinctive and universal. We are natural-born essentialists. (p xii)” Evolution moulded us this way, and our essentialism determines much of how we experience pleasure from food (how old we believe a wine to be), sex, art (the real painting, not a fake); even if many pleasures evolved as by-products. Maybe, but much essentialism still seem quite silly. It was interesting to learn about an experiment by McClure et. al (2004) which showed that difference areas in the brain lighted up in fMRI scans when people knew as opposed to did not know whether they drank Coke or Pepsi.

The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (1907) by Joseph Conrad. Disappointing. About anarchist terrorists in London around the end of the 19th century, but one hears little concrete of either anarchism or terrorism, only about the not too interesting characters. One of the characters is supposed to have been an inspiration for the “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski.

Enigma (1996) by Robert Harris. Picked up this novel set in the codebreaking center Bletchley Park during world war II as a follow-up to reading Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. I learnt less than what I had hoped about cryptography. And I do not find historical fiction in which the protagonists contribute major efforts to historical episodes that interesting. Not recommended.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. We follow two groups of people, one that is attempting to conceal the fact that the Allied powers have broken the German code system Enigma during World War II, and some of their relatives who try to launch a digital currency in the 1990’s. Cryptography plays important roles in both storylines. In contrast to the books of Ramez Naam, which I recently read, the lack of threats of torture is conspicuous and made the plot seem less realistic. The book is good enough, but one should note that it is so long that one can read several other books in the time that it takes to read it.

Ratings and old books are in the library.

Books finished in April:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)

Death with Interruptions (2009) by José Saramago. Silly. Death stops within a country, but continues elsewhere. Much ado about this and also when it starts again. Quite boring, and an annoying meta-narrator, who breaks in to talk about his own narration. Did not finish. Not recommended.

Nexus (2012) by Ramez Naam. Action-filled story about the moral dilemmas related to new technology. The illegal drug Nexus enables users to achieve mind-to-mind contact. The young scientist Kade Lane gets in trouble because he tries to improve it. Everyone interested in the drug has their own agenda. Recommended, I will surely read the follow-up Crux. Recommended.

Crux (2013) by Ramez Naam. Picks up six months after where Nexus ended. Multiple actors are hunting the secrets of Nexus, the drug that enables mind-to-mind communication, and, maybe, control. A possible civil war between humans and post-humans is also looming. Crux is just as action-filled as the predecessor Nexus, and comes back to the same issues about expanding experiences, human tribalism and who should have the right to control.

Why Philanthropy Matters: How the Wealthy Give, and What It Means for Our Economic Well-Being (2013) by Zoltan J. Acs. Most of the book is about the the role of entrepreneurship and the opportunities open for all in American economic development. Acs believes philanthropy underlies American economic success. I learnt much less about philanthropy than I expected from this book.

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science (2003) by Atul Gawande. A great book about the science and practice of medicine. Gawande, a surgeon, gives an insider’s view of the medical profession, a profession that often appears hard-nosed, but is as beset with ambiguity, uncertainty, human judgements, customs, mistakes, and need for practice and learning as other ones. He is not without recommendations, though: Gawande details the benefits of computer-based diagnoses, specialization, the field of anesthesia’s success in reducing human, latent errors by analyzing such errors systematically and comprehensively. Recommended.

Zendegi (2010) by Greg Egan. The setting is Iran in the near future. Iran is now a democracy, but radical innovation in brain-mapping primarily used for games face opposition from several quarters, the issue being the moral status of the (incomplete) uploads. In particular, the Cis-Humanist League objects to enslaved “proxies” (uploads). I did not enjoy the book that much, but I did finish it, and it does raise issues that will become relevant in the future.

Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York’s Underground Economy (2013) by Sudir Venkatesh. Against boxes. Sudir Venkatesh tries to renew himself in New York after the success he had with studying drug gangs in Chicago. He is studying prostitution and drug trafficking, but research progress is often slow and he also has professional doubts. With time he arrives at an understanding about how high and low classes mix to a greater extent in New York than other places, and transcends his pre-conceived conceptions of classes, neighborhoods, and the like. The same type of people, like entrepreneurs, can be found everywhere, everyone has dreams and ambitions, many are driven by the same motives, and the “seekers” connect places. An interesting book, though I did not find the author that rogue.

Stumbling on Happiness (2007) by Daniel Gilbert. We are not good at estimating how happy we will be in the future, and our mind also distorts our memories from the past. Fascinating subject, but I found the book boring, maybe because much of the stuff has become well known. Not finished.

Ratings and old books are in the library.

Books finished in March:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)

American Hippopotamus by Jon Mooallem. The quest to start hippopotamus farming in the US in the beginning of the 20th century. Despite colorful characters, the book is a disappointment, since it takes the far-fetchedness of the idea of importing hippos as given and never gives a clear answer for why it did not happen. Many of the claims about hippos in the book are the oppsite of Jared Diamond‘s explanation in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies for why they were never domesticated in Africa-namely that they are aggressive and terrorial. To me it did what role such good arguments played.

Epic Win for Anonymous: An Online Army Conquers the Media by Cole Stryker. A look on what was the forefront of the internet, from simple message boards to 4chan, and later became common, like the cheezburger networks. Emphasizes the creativity and in some senses meritocracy that the internet has encouraged. Largely refrains from moralizing.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I was not aware that the neurotic Elling had a fat American relative. (Or rather an ancestor, or at least a predecessor, as Ingvar Ambjørnsen’s Elling first appeared in 1993, as opposed to A Conferderacy…, which was published in 1980). Very funny, but I started to become quite tired of Ignatius J. Reilly a bit more than halfway through the book.

Guerrilla Warfare by Ernesto Che Guevare. Mostly practical advice, on organization, equipment, discipline, sabotage, and other things. Measured in tone and clear on things like decency towards the civilian population, etc. Also focus on learning and the need for indoctrination. No exaggerated portaits of the other side. It would be good if the tone of ideological discourse was more often like this.

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick. Information overload is fittingly the topic towards the end of Gleick’s great flood of information topics – language, writing, code, encyclopedias, dictionaries, computing, naming, mathematics, logic, computer science, genetics, the internet. Too much for me to take in, no less do justice to in writing. Recommended.

Nixon-Kennedy Debates. The first televised debates between the US presidential contenders. In the fall of 1960. Much like todays debates. A bit more civilized and a little less spin. Nixon in the third debate: “And I only hope that, should I win this election, that I could approach President Eisenhower in maintaining the dignity of the office; in seeing to it that whenever any mother or father talks to his child, he can look at the man in the White House and, whatever he may think of his policies, he will say: “Well, there is a man who maintains the kind of standards personally that I would want my child to follow.”” Yes. Nixon was going to be elected president in 1968 and 1972, and resigned in 1974. Both were highly professional in the debates, as they would have to be to have come to this stage.

Ratings and old books are in the library.

Books finished in February:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)

Stoner by John Willams. There are many disappointments and setbacks in William Stoner’s life. Although he is successful in a few cases, like caring for his infant daughter and at times in his job. Not an inspirational book, but it makes one think and gives perspective.

We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency by Parmy Olson. Get to know some of the Anonymous. The story of Anonymous and related “groups” told through the stories of the six core members of LulzSec – hackers with different motivations and skills that happened to come together and get the opportunity to create trouble for PayPal, the Scientology church, authoritarian governments, Sony, private citizens and many others. Often just because they could. Decentralization and coordination both play roles. Numbers sometimes important and sometimes not. Recommended.

Ubik by Philip K. Dick. Glen Runciter’s firm is in the “prudence business” – protecting people’s minds against others’ psychic powers, such as mind reading. One mission goes awry, and the team must communicate between living and dead, though it is not easy to tell who is what. Things start to revert to earlier forms, in an entropy fashion.

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. Alternate history, Germany won WWII, slavery is still legal in the US. Not finished.

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior. How are parents affected by their children? Research and anecdotes on parents’ time use, devotion to their children, happiness, marriages, social life, work, parenting styles, and other things. At times heavily geared towards American, not-Scandinavian-style-gender-equal conditions, but in general much to recognize and think about for parents. Tells of a survey where kids wanted less stressed mums more than more time with her. Interesting purported link between child care and happiness.

The Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Fiction Library)
by Thomas Pynchon. Did not catch me, put down quickly, not finished.
Ratings and old books are in the library.

Books finished in January:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)
(Extra warning: This time the list is really long, I do not know what happened.)

Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right by Thomas Frank. Shallow (left-wing) criticism of bankers, politicians and in general the politics of the American recession. There are valid points there, but the author is not likely to convince anyone with his hysterical account (and voice-I listened to this as an audiobook).

The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created by William Bernstein. Fairly standard account of the world’s economic history since the industrial revolution. Starts with the value of John Harrisons’s newly invented chronometer (to compute longitude) to seafarers in the 18th century. The invention was the result of a prize offered by the British parliament to improve navigation at sea. Bernstein talks about four essential factors: property rights, scientific rationalism, effective capital markets, efficient transportation and communication needed for prosperity. First a little bit in 16th century Holland, then spread. Argues that the communication revolution took place with the electrical telegraph from around 1840-bigger change from before that than from the telegraph to internet. I liked the hypothesis that cheap cotton underwear lead to a decline in infectious diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Repeated side remarks about less development in non-western cultures and the dangers of cultures crashing do not add to the discussion and just drag the book substantially down.

The Outlaw Album: Stories by Daniel Woodrell. Short stories of people on the edge.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch.

What is wrong with American schools? Apparently, measurements become goals and people are not aware of their limitations, and so we might be better off without the measurements in the first place. This point should have come before over halfway into the book.

Ravitch was for many years a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education at the Hoover education. A co-member there was economist Erik Hanushek. Hanushek has done several appearances at the podcast Econtalk. In one of those episodes the host Russ Roberts asked if it might be a problem that people were “teaching to the test” and Hanushek responded that you just had to design good test, implicitly assuming that that was possible and actually done.

She tells a tale of murky politics arround the introduction of new methods. Difficult to assess. The critique of the foundations who give money to everyone is also not altogether well-argued, in my opinion. Huge variation in charter schools – both really good and really bad.

Catalogue of how tests can have bad consequences: overfocusing on narrow tests, overfocus on basic reading and math, as opposed to science, history, social science, civics, reduced emphasis on subjects not tested, reducing standards, selecting only those that one believes will do best, outright cheating, too hard sanctions, underemphasis of responsibilities of parents and students themselves, intrasparent value-added-schemes. Ravitch commits some inaccuracies regarding the usefulness of data when going through all this, but the case is largely well made: Measures often lead to overfocus on that which is measured to the detriment of other valuable things, and their limitations will typically not be recognised.

A book worth to read for those who are interested in basic education. I lacked one thing: A discussion of the value of testing for learning about teaching, i.e. without the accountability part. Sometimes it sounds like Ravitch believes that the dangers with tests are so great that they should be avoided whatsoever. However, whatever one’s opinion on test-based accountability, tests and measurements do have roles to play in providing information.

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Martians come to earth and dominate. Humans, though they have adapted, must flee or be eaten. Classic.

Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto. Modern schooling is a tool for stifling thinking and controlling the masses. Endless examples of people without much formal education who have made it big, nothing about the failures. Reasoned critiques of the school system are valuable. This book is not.

Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner by Martin Gardner. Gardner was the legendary writer of a column called “Mathematical games” between 1956 to 1981, and also a prolific writer on other topics. A keen and able magician, he seems to have come across many interesting characters through the magician community. Not a professional mathematician, but says that the fact that he struggled to understand what he wrote helped him “write in ways that others could understand (p 136).” Recommended.

Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done by Ian Ayres. How to use contracts with real incentives to reach your goals. The goals can be anything, from quitting smoking and losing weight to read more books, be on time or call your grandma more often. The key is to have a contract that says if you do not reach your goal, you will give money to a friend, a charity, an enemy, or teach a class wearing only a speedo. If the threat in the contracts is credible, it allows one to commit. The simplest contracts can be based on self-reporting and honesty, but often there is a designated referee and verifiable information involved. Ayres and Dean Karlan set up a website (stickK.com) that allows people to enter into these contracts. Dean Karlan tried to make voting contracts to enable people to make a credible promise to vote, but although effective, they did not catch on so far. Thomas Schelling was early into this field as many others, he wrote about self blackmail-writing a incriminatory letter to be published if the letter-writer was not drug-free at a later testing. These contracts do not solve every problem in the world, but the changes people actually use them for can make a big difference to them.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman. Small boy gets caught up with supernatural stuff. Book of the year of 2013 in the British National Book Awards. Not my style.

The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Robert Frank. Most of the explanations seemed trivial or silly. I put it down quickly.

Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century by Tony Judt.

Recommended.

Historian Judt’s essays about various people and themes of the post war period in Europe, often in the form of extended book reviews. Intellectual commitment or opposition to communism a red thread. Israel another. I guess the book is sort of like a supplement chapter to the big Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945 from 2005.

Believes today’s political squabbles are often foolish. Clear about the welfare state as “born of a cross-party twentieth-century consensus. It was implemented, in most cases, by liberals or conservatives who had entered public life well before 1914 and for whom the public provision of universal medical services, old age pensions, unemployment and sickness insurance, free education, subsidized public transport, and the other prerequisites of a stable civil order represented not the first stage of twentieth-century socialism but the culmination of late-nineteenth-century reformist liberalism. A similar perspective informed the thinking of many New Dealers in the United States (p. 10).”

Interesting thoughts on what is the relevant counterfactual for Italy – could it be that some of the inefficiency helped keep a fractious country together?

One great thing with Judt is that he is almost always criticizing all sides of a debate. But he clearly has much sympathy with what used to be the left. The last chapter is partly about how the left must come to terms with its own responsibilities for what went wrong in the 20th century to become a good alternative again.

Ratings and old books are in the library.