Bad Books

Talking about Stephanopoulos in that last post reminded me that his book about his time in the Clinton administration, All Too Human, was possibly the worst book I've ever finished.

I was assigned it, once upon a time, and aside from being hilariously self-sycophantic (yes, I wouldn't have believed that was possible either) it was in general so poorly written that it was a slow struggle just to finish each page. During the long slog through, I literally thought I might have some kind of a brain disorder that was erasing my ability to read. I thought there was no way a book could be pseudo-high-brow fluff, airport bookstore fodder, while at the same time having syntax and sentence construction subtly impervious to speedy absorbtion.

Turns out I was wrong: it wasn't me, it was him. But then, that's usually the case, isn't it?

Next Up: Books

So having finished one book, what will I be reading next? I've got a stack of books to pick from but I'm thinking it'll likely be "Basic Economics" by Tom Sowell at home (it's a big hardcover, too large for rush-hour subway reading) and either "Rain and Other South Sea Stories" by Somerset Maugham or possibly "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein for the train.

Basic Economics lays out economic principles with real-world examples. So far (chapter 4) I'm finding it to be an excellent source of easy-to-relate economic explanations. The comment on "greed" and prices from earlier was inspired by the book.

Rain, etc. is a book of Maugham's short stories. I've been on something of a Maugham kick recently, after being reminded of how amazing his fictionalized life of Gauguin, "The Moon and Sixpence" was. (Seriously, read that book immediately, it's amazing.) I recently read his fictionalized biography of himself, "Of Human Bondage", which was decent, though not as good as the Moon and Sixpence.

"Time Enough for Love" is the latest on my Heinlein kick. It's science-fiction, so if you're the type to dismiss that out of hand, skip over the rest of this paragraph. I've recently read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", which is about a libertarian revolution on the moon, and "Starship Troopers", which is a heavily, heavily militarized tale about a war with aliens. But mostly it's about military culture and life.

I've also got a paperback copy of Joseph Schumpeter's "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" which is one of the Great Books of economics that I always wish I'd read but I don't think I could take it for the train while reading econ at home as well. Maybe after I finish Basic Economics it'll become my train book.

There are a bunch more on my "unread" stack, but those are the ones that are in the warm-up circle, so to speak.