Category: Books
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American Pastoral
Last book I read this year and it was very enjoyable. It’s America Dream, both as it is and the story it tells about itself. I think it’s a tale, a commentary maybe, on what we all collectively think America was post-WWII through the 60s contrasted with the internal and external experience of people we’d…
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Violent Saviors: The West’s Conquest of the Rest
Saw this recommending on Marginal Revolution and just bought it to read. I’ve recently been reading quite a bit about liberalism, and classical liberalism specifically. This provided quite a bit of awareness for me on the tensions between economic development and freedom. As I think about classical liberalism these days, it’s a sharp edge to…
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Liar’s Poker
by Michael Lewis “You don’t get rich in this business,” said Alexander when I complained privately to him. “You only attain new levels of relative poverty.” Very enjoyable to read throughout. The main thing I’ve come away thinking after reading is just how much activity is going on downstream of the word “finance” that most…
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Stubborn Attachments
A vision for a society of free, prosperous, and responsible invidviduals By Tyler Cowen Opening of the book: “Growth is good. Through history, economic growth in particular has alleviated human misery, improved human happiness and opportunity, and lengthened human lives. Wealthier societies are more stable, offer better living standards, produce better medicines and ensure greater…
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The Revolt of the Public
and the crisis of authority in the new millennium By Martin Gurri A great read. It posed a new theory and one that seems to be aging well: “The information technologies of the 21st century have enabled the public, composed of amateurs, people from nowhere, to break the power of the political hierarchies of the…
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Brave New World
As seems to happen each time I come to recounting a book I’ve read, I don’t like to do it very much because, I’m sorry to say, it requires me to think about it, comprehensively, and I think I’m so ‘of my time’ that thinking this way is uncomfortable. It’s much easy to just read…
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Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
Interesting enough. Got just over half way through and sort of became uninterested, or perhaps I felt like I had a sense of what it was saying/about. Core things that stood out:
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Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
Liked the book. Definitely gives useful frameworks by naming desire and then trying to move away from bad models of it or transform it into good desire. I want what I want because I want it. Intrinsic vs. extrinsic. Don’t feel the need to do a full write out of my thoughts. I think the…
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Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Enjoyed this biography on Ben and ended up reading about 4/5ths. Got bored at the end when Isaacson is detailing his life in Paris. Seems important, especially considering he was America’s representative in securing important aid from the French to take on the Revolutionary War, but it was incredibly detailed in a way I no…
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The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
Really enjoyed this book! ChatGPT suggested it for me and I bought it at Mr. K’s in Asheville for $5. It’s interesting that I was drawn to this book because math was my hardest, and least favorite, subject in school. It was also the source of tense struggle between my father and I as he…