2 posts tagged “economics”

Here's the last comment on the whole child-in-peril genre, brought to you by Douglas McGrath reviewing "The Film Club"  in today's NYTimes Book Review:

"Since I became a father, I have read stories about parents and their children with a humiliating lack of emotional armor. Right after our son was born, someone gave me a copy of Scott Berg’s biography of Charles Lindbergh. I thought it was wonderful until the Lindbergh’s baby was kidnapped, and then my stomach knotted up so badly I had to put the book away. Instead I read Knut Hamsun’s “Hunger,” a story of a homeless writer almost starving to death, and it was like a light comedy by comparison."

Thanks, Doug! You put it better than I ever did, not in my forty posts on the subject. And I'm spent.

School's out, so I'm fervently rearranging books in my library at work, and, like, dusting shit and opening mail from six months ago, and getting to read a bit more. In this past week, it's been Gee I Never Thought Of It Like That economics and Asian Power.

First, the Economic Naturalist -- I guess economists finally realized that their occupations are kinda bullshit (I heard one on NPR last week opining that oil might reach $180 a barrel by 2030. Right, or maybe next month, douchebag) because now there are all these Freakonomics-ish books like this one, trying to make economics Accessible and Hip! This was a series of Why Is That? questions answered with an economics slant, but done so superficially that I was pretty disappointed. I didn't want my life back after reading it, but nor did it give me any kind of new perspective on those Perplexing Questions of Life, like hot dog vs. bun ratios and the like. Whatever.

Much more enjoyable was the first in this YA series: KUNG FU PRINCESS! Pretty much I just love the title and have to say it over and over again. "Eric, I left my book KUNG FU PRINCESS on the bed. Could you please bring me KUNG FU PRINCESS so I can sit on the deck and read KUNG FU PRINCESS until I've finished KUNG FU PRINCESS?"

But seriously, it's very well done. Poor middle schoolers that discover they have a Destiny To Fulfill. From the first book, it appears that there are at least five demons for her to vanquish, and she's only bested but the two, so I'm looking forward to the next books!

Let us turn now to Japan, where Haruki Murakami continues to rock my world. For me, my first encounter with an author determines unequivocally my opinion of that author forevermore -- even if it's tainted by, say, reading the book during a bad breakup, or the stomach flu, or while I'd rather be swimming with dolphins in Bermuda, or whatever. I read Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World in high school and it took my face off so comprehensively that everything I've read since then has automatically been awesome, even though I have a sneaking suspicion that they are not actually that fantastic. (Compare this with Philip Roth, whom I first read while men were repulsing me anyway, and despite his many effortful attempts to win me back, I'm still iffy on him. Him and John Updike, those nasty old men.)

 

I guess there's a little sub-genre these days in "Why are we so stupid?" books, which I've largely encountered by

accident. A few months ago, I read Stumbling on Happiness, which was chock-a-block full of psychological studies on how we are constantly making choices opposed to our personal self-interest, and have no creativity to imagine how things might be in the future, but are firmly rooted in the present despite all attempts to extrapolate to different situations. Like, for instance, you might refuse a restaurant gift certificate because you just ate some potato chips and aren't really hungry. This might be actually the "Why Does the Reptile Brain Rule Us"  subgenre.

Now I'm in the midst of Predictably Irrational, which somehow is the exact same book. I mean, same psychological experiments, same conclusions, same kinda informal "I don't know about you, but I ..." author tone. Different and better title, though! And great Mets colors! Anyway, both titles briefly inspired me to try to outsmart my own brain, but alas, to no avail.

Instead, I've enjoyed some brain candy lately, including Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett (because I heard you had to in order to get your tax relief check) and most recently the totally inappropriate YA gem  Boy Toy, which I read expecting to acquire for my library but now of course cannot. Why? Well, it's the heartwarming tale of a young teacher who has a torrid sexual affair with her middle school student! With some steamy teacher-on-student sex scenes! Really, how could I possibly recommend this to *any* of MY middle school students? I mean, I love all my Scrabble boys, I really do ... but Not In That Way.

Speaking of Scrabble, we are deep into Scrabble March Madness -- we have a whole elaborate tournament bracket, with "byes" and all, and it is just awesome. They are getting so good, and so hyper-competitive! Anytime some takes a little long over one of their plays, the cry of "Rain delay!" goes up all over the room and the guilty party is shamed into playing. In other elective news, the damn yearbook that has dried my soul to a desiccated husk has just gone to print and Scrabble got three shout-outs in the graduating eighth graders' farewell writeups. I'm so proud.