I caught up a little.
Last weekend we went to the Hay Festival and heard Rebecca Solnit in a conversation with James Lebanks. So I read her latest essay, A straight road won’t take you there. I think it’s one of her best essay collections – surprisingly comforting. A kind of intro title is “by admiring things that are indirect, unpredictable, immeasurable, slow and subtle.” When asked about how to respond to these times, her answer is: Do what you can and save what you can. There’s nothing inevitable, but there’s no easy direct route to better results than we can see at this point.
Also, in Hey Javier Serca, I heard him talk to Kirsty Young about his Terra Alta detective series. The first one, Even on the darkest nightswas amazing, I’ve saved the second, Shadow Preyand the third (in the trilogy), Evil Fortressit’s just out. Highly recommended – and Cercas was very interesting and charistmatic.
I’ve just finished my memoirs of Daniel Dennett. I’ve been thinking. I loved this, it was very easy to read and had a lot of academic world gossip and insights. One of the highlights of my life so far was when I heard him talk about GDP on one of only two times I endured Davos.
Doin Farmers also enjoyed it. Making the meaning of chaos: Better economics for a better worldIt’s now a paperback. As anyone who knows his work would expect, it focuses on complexity and agent-based modeling for better economics. It is a very clear explanation of their advantages and a disadvantage of standard macroeconomic forecasts. I’m not a complete convert, but I probably should be. Two great young researchers he mentions a lot in his book are former Bennett Institute Postdoc Penny Meely and current research affiliate Maria del Rio Chanona. If they think this is the way to go, I don’t want to object to them.
Also, some novels:
Nameless cafe Robert Sheetarer, decent read, but a shame after I saw so many glowing reviews
Measurement of the world Daniel Kahleman, incredible, absolute page-turning, that’s amazing when you realize you’re two 18th century German scientists
