Bibliography, July 2025

BOTM: T. Chivers, Everything is predictable: how Bayesian statistics explain our world (2023)

C. Adiche, Purple Hibiscus (2003)
C. Adiche, Half of a yellow sun (2006)
A. Byatt, Ragnarok (2011)
A. Bashford, The Huxleys (2022)
M. Bahari, Then they came for me (2013)
J.M. Coetzee, Youth (2002)
J. Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
M. Grant, Gone (2008)

I loved Chivers' book on Bayes. I regret not doing more statistics beyond 18. In a minor key, I'd have been well placed to do a paper on historical statistics in my first year at university; more majorly, I do wonder if I should have done economic history more generally. There aren't many status in first millenium. Sadly. Anyway, had I done so, I hope I would have been part of the debates and communities he describes. It's done very well (though I think could be slightly shorter) and it has songs!

It's a good job it did have songs. Half of a Yellow Sun is an outstanding book. Everyone says so; they're right. It was very close.

Bibliography, June 2025

BOTM: P. Morris, Black Butterflies (2023)

L. Baston, Borderlines: A history of Europe told from the edges (2024)
A. Berkeley, Malice Aforethought (1931)
J. Elledge, A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders (2024)
B. Ehrman, Heaven and Hell: A History of the afterlife (2020)
J. Haidt, The anxious generation (2025)
S. Harvey, The Western wind (2018)

B. Malone, Country Music USA (5th edition, 2018)
N. Nicholson, Portrait of a marriage (1940)

B. Unsworth, The quality of mercy (2011)

J. Vinge, The snow queen (1980)

D. Wright, Breaking Bread (2025)

If I was just judging books on their first parts, then this would be a straight clash between Ehrman and Malone. I thought the early history of country music and the early (read: Jewish) history of the afterlife, was absolutely fascinating. They did not sustain their excellence, with Malone in particular really falling off and losing focus. I often find this with music history. By the 1970s, it just gets too fragmented. Several decent novels Iles (pen name for Anthony Berkeley), Morris, Vinge all very good. Morris the best, though I thought some part were naively done, especially about religion. It was powerful though (it's the story of the siege of Sarajevo). By a whisker though, I would put it ahead of Baston's book . I read that in a pair with Elledge, and it is by far the better book. My main dilemma is whether it's really history or travelogue, but I decided it was history, and a very good vignette-led history it is.