What I’ve been reading

1. Walter Lippmann: Public Economist, by Craufurd D. Goodwin.  An excellent study of the man who was probably the most influential economics columnist and commentator of his era, even though he is not usually remembered as such.

2. The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age, by Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh.  A popular book on how a lot of future jobs will be very short-term and how to deal with this world on a practical basis.

3. Jonathan Rottenberg, The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic.  More intelligent and thoughtful than most other books in this area, this treatment stresses the (partial) cognitive advantages of having a tendency toward depression.

4. David Eimer, The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China.  A look at China’s outermost regions and their ethnic minorities, an excellent perspective on The Middle Kingdom.

5. Steven Conn, Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century.  Good background for understanding today’s blue-red divide and the origins of progressivism.

6. Lawrence A. Cunningham, Berkshire Beyond Buffet: The Enduring Value of Values.  Maybe the title doesn’t sound promising, but this is a substantive take on what actually goes on out there.

Arrived in my pile are:

6. Paul Know, editor, Atlas of Cities.

7. Dan DiSalvo, Government Against Itself: Public Union Power and Its Consequences.

8. Stephen L. Carter, Back Channel: A Novel.