Ok, these are the books awaiting me, on order, or in progress.
On China, I have:
Jonathan Spence’s The Search for Modern China. This one I’m about two thirds of the way through and am enjoying it. Very readable, and although of necessity it feels skimpy at times (You tell us Russian pilots used ‘cunning ruses’ Mr Spence, but don’t tell us what they were?) I feel pretty confident I know a hell of a lot more than I did previously.
Will Hutton’s The Writing on the Wall. I should have read this when it came out a few years back. I had a look through the first chapter and so far it seems reasonable.
Spence’s, again,The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution. This one covers the end of the emperors to the start of reform. I got it last year with The Search for Modern China. I may opt to not read this one, will take a look after finishing The Search, and then decide if there’s anything to be gained.
That’s all currently for China, but I’d like to get some more academic or heavyweight stuff once that’s all done. Ideally economics and environment, but I’ve been enjoying the history lately. Was also looking earlier at some ‘China in Africa’ books, but couldn’t figure out the best buy. I should also know more about Chinese literature, and now I think of it, should actually be doing some reading in Chinese or it’ll atrophy.
On economics, or sort of on economics:
Just finished Tony Cleaver’s Economics: The Basics, which was intended to give me a bit more of a academic basis to what I’d got from popular economics texts like Freakonomics, The Armchair Economist and . . .well, actually just those two.
Working through a basic maths for economists textbook, can’t remember which off-hand. I don’t actually need this at all, but giving my brain a bit of a mathematical work-out staves off feelings of mental decline. Until I reach logarithms.
Unfinished and needing to be got back to are:
Jared Diamond’s Collapse. Again, a book I should have read when it first came out, or not at all. And
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, who I first came across in the New Yorker. Interesting book, but I suspect I might get more out of it after finishing some more economics reading. That’s not what I stopped reading it though, I just got bored.
I also just ordered a clutch of books on a reading list I found on Greg Mankiw’s site, which is what promoted this little inventory. These are
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers
Paul Krugman, Peddling Prosperity
P.J. O’Rourke, Eat the Rich
Burton Malkiel, A Random Walk Down Wall Street
Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically
John McMillan, Reinventing the Bazaar
William Breit and Barry T. Hirsch, Lives of the Laureates
I have no idea when all these are going to get read. Recreational reading at the moment is, as mentioned, Yiyun Li’s short story collection.
