Friday, September 17, 2010

Last call for book suggestions

Dearest blogosphere,

If you (collectively, individually, or otherwise) have any book suggestions -- a book you've read recently, perhaps, or even one you haven't laid eyes on in years, but that you absolutely must tell someone about -- well, tell me about it. At this point, I'm all queued up through book #45 (I'm still waiting on a mystery title to add it to my "on deck" panel), so I only have five slots left for which I haven't already decided the books.

Now is the time. As a tip, I'm more likely to pick up a book if it's on the shorter side. Until I've actually completed this self-imposed fifty-book challenge, I'll never be quite sure I'm actually going to, so it helps when the book lengths are surmountable.

Thanks for reading!

5 comments:

  1. Jay,
    a few ideas. Not books I have read myself, but ones I'm interested in or have received good reviews. (And reviews off of which I would base future reading decisions ;-)

    Economics:
    - Hernando de Soto, "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumps in the West and Fails Everywhere Else"
    - George Akerlof, "Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism"

    Soccer:
    - Simon Kuper, "Soccer Against the Enemy: How the World's Most Popular Sport Starts and Fuels Revolutions and Keeps Dictators in Power"

    History:
    - Stephen Kinzer, "All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror"
    - John L. Gaddis, "The Cold War"

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  2. i would highly recommend "the last utopia" by samuel moyn, about the creation of the modern "human rights" movement post-WWII. i haven't read the book because it just came out, but it's based on the "historical origins of human rights" class that i took with prof. moyn a few years ago, which was PHENOMENAL.

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  3. (here's the link to the salon review: http://www.salon.com/books/nonfiction/index.html?story=/books/feature/2010/09/23/the_last_utopia_samuel_moyn)

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  4. PPS: you can add the mystery title to your on deck list now ;)

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