Best books read in 2011

[Kutilya]

Well Michel Houellebecq’s "La Carte Et Le Territoire" is out, finally they gave him an award after banning his previous work. I’m still waiting for it be translated to English...

[pj]

Who has banned Michel?

I was able to read all (except for the

last one) of his books.

And it's being translated even into Lithuanian (!).





And not looking forward to read the newest one.



I loved "la Platforme" and "Les Particules élémentaires" and was frankly deceived by "La Possibilité d'une île".

[chiral3]

We've had this discussion over the years... I agree completely, I loved Elementary Particles, esp. the premise, but felt the rest of his work seemed, IMO, hackish. If I recall correctly, certain groups took offense to his writing, and he was banned by book shops and certain individuals, but never at the level of a censure. In fact, American objection probably led to more franco-nationalism I look forward to the new work.

[pj]

Definitely where are the customers yachts?

by F. Schwed Jr.



I couldn't find a pdf, so I bought a hard copy.

Worth every penny.

Everyone should read this jewel

from 1940 (Especially the chapter about options).



BTW, the coin flipping contest

analogy seems to be his.

[SirAppleby]

Just read Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, a very interesting look at the culture of N Korea. Much of the book looks at the famine in the mid-1990s and how people survived or died. Highly recommend!

[pj]

Thank to Ayache I have reread Intellectual Impostures

by Sokal and Bricmont.

Well, I have read the second edition in Phrench. But it's a definitely the book to read.

BTW, I didn't know that certain Michel Houellebecq, was also attacking them

ad hominem.

[Nonius]

Just e-bought Civilization by Niall Ferguson. Any comments.



By the way, im taking a keen interest and pleasure on reading more about Carthage. Listened to the iTunes University lectures from Stanford about Hannibal. Craving more info. Anyone have reading recommendations?

[tripitaka]

Ferguson just finished a stint at the LSE as XYZ professor of bliberty babbit. Four (I think) lectures he gave are available on MP3 via:

http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/podcasts/publicLecturesAndEvents.htm

One I think pertains to the book Civilisation.



They are entertaining listens, but (and you may well know more about him than i do) i think that some of his arguments are a bit meh. He loves doing the classic oxbridge tactic of finding some piece of conventional wisdom and arguing the exact opposite, he really likes finding some previous historian's work and ripping it apart (the classic example being Paul Kennedy's 'Rise and Fall of the Great Powers' which I recall quite liking). Also in at least one of the lectures above, I came away thinking his argument made literally zero sense whatsoever, but hey, it was well delivered and funny in parts. He has, IIRC, done some interesting things with counterfactual history (arguing that it ought to be more important in mainstream academic history).



I vaguely mean to read some of his books.

[tripitaka]

I would be interested in some Itunes university recommendations, too. I've listened to a few, and enjoyed them, but I find the menu for searching them utterly exasperating.



Oh, and an actual book read in 2011: Lavinia, by Ursula le Guin. It's a novel taken from a minor character in the aeniad (a bit like Margaret Attwood's recent book about Penelope, wife of Ulysses, only way better).



For classics, I am very ill informed, but I really enjoyed Tom Hollands books on Julius Caesar et al, and on Thermophylae (his one on the middle ages i gave up on)

[redox]

I liked "Eat People and Other Unapologectic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs" by Andy Kessler. It has a high-tech bias, but offered up a couple of insights that made sense to me about finding your niche and scaling up to make a business out of it.