Books:
Modern Times
I consume a steady diet of liberal propaganda. It was bracing to read a sweeping, epic history as written by a Reaganite conservative. Liberalism is the only rational response to an unjust world, but 20th century American liberals made some serious mistakes.
Freedom
Tom Wolfe writes about American males better than anyone from the last 30 years. But Jonathan Franzen is making a case of his own. This book is beautiful in every way. I promise you’ll cry more than once.
Whole Earth Discipline
Nuclear power is a hobby horse of mine, and it’s fun to see hard-line environmentalists come around to the reality that this is a good technology. But this book addresses
Blogs:
Marginal Revolution
Tyler Cowen is obnoxious, but he’s brilliant. A very large piece of me lives whenever someone plays devil’s advocate and takes an unpopular but likely correct position.
Econometrix
Any NY Times blog is worth reading, due to the quality of writers it attracts, the resources at their disposal and the editorial leeway they are given in developing their material. Econometrix provides a great platform to aggregate interesting pieces of work. And Times blog format is very clean and elegant.
Magazine:
Esquire “What I’ve Learned”
A bit too celebrity focused, but even when they interview celebrities they pick the interesting ones. Life is long. There’s nothing wrong with building a narrative on the back end.
Economist Obits
My favorite element of the Economist is the sense of fun that they bring to the journalistic table. The obituary page let’s them display a bit of sentimentality as well. As with “What I’ve Learned”, it’s only when we get to see the aerial view that the pattern shows.
