BOTM: C. McCullers, The Heart is a lonely hunter
A. Christie, Three Act Tragedy
G.M. Fraser, Royal Flash
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters*
M. Ondaatje, The English Patient
A. Trollope, The Warden*
E.O. Wilson, Anthill
P.G. Wodehouse, Pigs have wings
I was lazy last month. I pondered reading all the Booker, but couldn't really be bothered. And then I went to France and didn't publish this. Some great stuff too. I was disappointed with Anthill, but the rest were great. BOTM was McCullers. Nicely written, sparse, sad, very Faulkner. Economical too, I thought, with a lot left unsaid. Anna has been banging on about it me reading it for a while. I'm glad she did.
Tuesday 25 September 2012
Saturday 1 September 2012
Bibliography, August 2012
Read: 6
BOTM: P. Krugman, End this depression now!
G. Garcia Marquez, Leaf Storm
G. Garcia Marquez, Love in the time of Cholera*
M. Frayn, My Father's Fortune
D. Millar, Riding through the Dark
P.G. Wodehouse, Full Moon
Hmmm. I'm not sure what I make of these. I liked all of them, but I'm struggling for an absolute standout (as an aside, I'd not noticed the first time round how unpleasant a lot of Garcia Marquez's heroes are. Yet it's the abiding conclusion to be drawn from his most famous works). Krugman edges it, though I was tempted by Millar's gripping account of his cycling career, especially his doping. It's a strong thesis, well presented, and almost certainly right about the broad causes and solutions to the economic problems. Were you to believe in the value of democracy, the fact that democratic systems have failed to produce leaders who implement something along these lines would be profoundly depressing.
NB. That's not to say Krugman is devoid of fault. It is simplistic about the politics. There's a really annoying bit toward the end where he just goes 'oh, and we should stop China manipulating its exchange rate,' the likelihood of which I am sceptical of. And it doesn't dig down to the country level enough for the UK context. Specifically, the UK is bound more than the US to consider co-ordination with what others are doing - you don't want to be the only person spending in a crash. As an aside, it also steps over the inconvenient truth that while the point about output is true at the global level, it's not true for individual countries. The pre-crash level of output may be quickly restored under this model. The West's share of consumption will not.
BOTM: P. Krugman, End this depression now!
G. Garcia Marquez, Leaf Storm
G. Garcia Marquez, Love in the time of Cholera*
M. Frayn, My Father's Fortune
D. Millar, Riding through the Dark
P.G. Wodehouse, Full Moon
Hmmm. I'm not sure what I make of these. I liked all of them, but I'm struggling for an absolute standout (as an aside, I'd not noticed the first time round how unpleasant a lot of Garcia Marquez's heroes are. Yet it's the abiding conclusion to be drawn from his most famous works). Krugman edges it, though I was tempted by Millar's gripping account of his cycling career, especially his doping. It's a strong thesis, well presented, and almost certainly right about the broad causes and solutions to the economic problems. Were you to believe in the value of democracy, the fact that democratic systems have failed to produce leaders who implement something along these lines would be profoundly depressing.
NB. That's not to say Krugman is devoid of fault. It is simplistic about the politics. There's a really annoying bit toward the end where he just goes 'oh, and we should stop China manipulating its exchange rate,' the likelihood of which I am sceptical of. And it doesn't dig down to the country level enough for the UK context. Specifically, the UK is bound more than the US to consider co-ordination with what others are doing - you don't want to be the only person spending in a crash. As an aside, it also steps over the inconvenient truth that while the point about output is true at the global level, it's not true for individual countries. The pre-crash level of output may be quickly restored under this model. The West's share of consumption will not.
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