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January 11, 2018

From The New York Times (Niall Ferguson on "What books are on your nightstand?"):
I am a few pages from the end of Tom Holland’s marvelously readable “Rubicon” and about a quarter of the way through Mary Beard’s somewhat more earnest “SPQR.” Those were part of my challenge to myself this year to get better educated about the fall of the Roman Republic. I’m still dipping into Maya Jasanoff’s beautifully written travels in the footsteps of Conrad, “The Dawn Watch.” Newcomers to the nightstand, which were both recommended to me by friends: “China in Ten Words,” by Yu Hua and “Lives Other Than My Own,” by Emmanuel Carrère.

From The New York Times (Niall Ferguson on "The last great book you read"):
Great in the sense of “up there with the Columbia Core”?I would nominate “2084,” by the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal. As a vision of Islamic totalitarianism, it is blood-chilling. But it is also a masterly piece of writing.

From The Economist:
The marrying classes have become ever better at picking partners who are similar to them. Three academic economists, Pierre-André Chiappori, Bernard Salanié and Yoram Weiss, have shown that white Americans are increasingly likely to marry partners of the same educational level. This trend is sometimes ascribed to the growing numbers of female graduates, but the economists control for that and still find evidence of growing selectivity. Other studies show that women tend to marry men who share their attitude to financial risk, and that people with similar levels of parental wealth tend to end up together.

From Harper's:
The first evidence of robust numerical reasoning in wild animals was established, in a troop of baboons.

From The Guardian (Jon McGregor on Jeffrey Boakye’s Hold Tight):
I thought grime had passed me by, but one pleasure of Jeffrey Boakye’s excellent collection of essays was the discovery that I knew a lot of the tracks he writes about. Boakye writes affectionately and incisively about the music, lyrics, and the social context of each of the 50 or so tracks featured, tracing their nuanced connections. It’s one of the best music books I’ve read and the YouTube playlist only makes it better. Read it, and you too will start hearing the Amen break everywhere.
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