I won't be able to read the Silmarillion for a while after all, because apparently I can't download from bn.com overseas. :(
liberty student: krazy kaju: Danny Sanchez:Not really. I just need to plumb my brain for mental notes on non-free books I've been meaning to read. Maybe something by Jane Jacobs? Or maybe Rework? [...] There generally doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in non-ideological, non-academic, non-fiction capitalist literature here [...]
krazy kaju: Danny Sanchez:Not really. I just need to plumb my brain for mental notes on non-free books I've been meaning to read. Maybe something by Jane Jacobs? Or maybe Rework?
Danny Sanchez:Not really. I just need to plumb my brain for mental notes on non-free books I've been meaning to read.
Maybe something by Jane Jacobs? Or maybe Rework?
[...]
There generally doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in non-ideological, non-academic, non-fiction capitalist literature here [...]
I yearn for it.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I bought A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. This will be by far one of the largest books I'll ever own.
I started in on the massive eleven-volume history series The Story of Civilization by Will Durant. Starting with the first volume 'Our Oriental Heritage', which is about 1200 pages.
I also started reading a bit of David Icke's The Biggest Secret just for laughs.
Funnily enough, they are both history books and procede in a similar manner and sequence.
I plan to get around to reading the rest of Robin Dunbar's How Many Friends Does One Person Need? and Idries Shah's Learning how to Learn, which I just put on my Kindle.
Daniel Muffinburg:I yearn for it.
Linchpin
Crush It
Our work related
Eat That Frog
Cashvertising
Finished Hazlitt's Foundations of Morality. Phew! Now to focus on Hume and Durant...
It's been about 4 weeks. What are people reading now?
Myself, I just finished Hume's Treatise of Human Nature on my Nook eReader, as well as Mises' Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (the latter of which was my waiting-in-line iPhone read). Both works were incredibly mind-expanding.
I'm going to continue reading Mises' smaller works on my iPhone: next is Causes of the Economic Crisis. Next up on my Nook is Hoppe's A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. I'm about 90% through listening to Our Oriental Heritage, the first volume of Will Durant's Story of Civilization series. As always, the erudition and insight abounds in Durant's writings. It was so wonderfully surprising to find that this series is freely available in its entirety online. It is truly a treasure.
Hume's Treatise is great. I got sidetracked when I first started reading, then returned to it last year and was engrossed. Book III is fantastic.
I'm several chapters into Randy Barnett's The Structure of Liberty. It's really good so far; he sees any social order as having to address the problems of knowledge, interest and power, and explains why private property, freedom of contract and the classically liberal conception of justice best deal with these problems. It also starts with a good explanation and defense of natural rights. My only complaint so far is that, in the pursuit for clarity, Barnett repeats himself a whole lot. Still, it's worth keeping an eye out for an affordable used copy. I got a near-mint hardcover for $8.
The most recent book I read was a re-reading of Spencer's The Man Versus the State. I am also reading issues of American Affairs.
Finished reading Plato's Republic for the second time. I'm now reading the first book in the fantasy quadrilogy "The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe; the first book is Shadow and Claw.
The atoms tell the atoms so, for I never was or will but atoms forevermore be.
Yours sincerely,
Physiocrat
Mises, Human Action
Hazlitt, The Conquest of Poverty
Always worth reading and re-reading. I have gotten throug the audiobook version 4 times, and read the whole book once.
I'm a bit over halfway through this read. I hadn't thought of trying the audio version - thanks for the tip.
Recently Finished:
Currently Reading:
Planning to read soon:
Any other suggestions would be great!
I get sidetracked and rarely finish books consistently, so that's not good. But I'm currently getting through Bourbon for Breakfast, Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape, picking and choosing chapters in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (already read it and already my favorite piece of literature), and a book titled Camus and Sartre: A Historic Confrontation.
I like some of Hume's ideas, but for some reason I've never been able to digest him very well. Maybe it's something about his writing style.
I'm reading Israel Kirzern's The Economic Point of View; I've been reading it for quite some time now, actually. The problem is that I only read every three or four days. I've started to read more in between classes. In the mean time, I've also decided to read Stephen Cohen's and Brad DeLong's The End of Influence, which so far seems taken straight from the mercantilist era.
Speaking of this, I went into a Barnes and Noble today for no other reason than having a couple dollars to spend and being bored. Much to my surprise, I found Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson on a "buy 2 get the third free" shelf. I figured that was too good to pass up, so I bought that in addition to Stephen Hawking's and Leonard Mlodinow's A Briefer History of TIme and a theoretical physics book by Micho Kaku.
I've read about six books on wolves lately noting the details of territorial boundaries and property disputes among the packs. I've amassed about 2500 words of notes and I'm about a 1000 words deep into article/journal. I've also been reading Anarchy and The Law again
Read until you have something to write...Write until you have nothing to write...when you have nothing to write, read...read until you have something to write...Jeremiah
Please do explain more, Jeremiah.
Political Atheists Blog
Great thread, I thought about starting one like this a while ago but didn't because I'm fairly thread starter averse. I've been on a huge reading tear as of late, but am starting to get a bit fatigued and burned out, but still I press on. Mostly Libertarian and AE books. I have a hard time reading fiction, for an activity that takes a lot of time I don't like to waste it on something that feels frivilous and fleeting.
Books recently finished:
Currently Reading
Future Reading:
I can't decide what to read next or if I'll still have the stamina for it, but any other suggestions?
krazy kaju: Please do explain more, Jeremiah.
I'm trying to show how property rights form in nature even though they still lack development in comparison to the human animal. Here is my notes on wolves http://jeremiahdyke.blogspot.com/2011/02/notes-on-wolves-and-territory-markings.html
Jeremiah Dyke: I'm trying to show how property rights form in nature even though they still lack development in comparison to the human animal. Here is my notes onwolves http://jeremiahdyke.blogspot.com/2011/02/notes-on-wolves-and-territory-markings.html
I'm trying to show how property rights form in nature even though they still lack development in comparison to the human animal. Here is my notes onwolves http://jeremiahdyke.blogspot.com/2011/02/notes-on-wolves-and-territory-markings.html
Fascinating, I look forward to a polished and finished work from this.
My job is so very technical that it's hard to spend too much time in economic text books, so I try to limit myself to the most impactful ones. Other then that I read a lot of fiction. Things I am reading now.
My reading is so sporadic that it's hard to tell what I have finished recently. I know I recently just finish Bastiat's the Law, as well as Towers of Midnight(WOT Series). Anything else I finished I don't remember, as I probably deleted it from my kindle already!
He was. He just wasn't a Benthamite deontological "act" utilitarian (what Hazlitt refers to as "ad hoc utilitarianism"). He was an individualist, consequentialist, "rule" utilitarian.
I would still tend to agree with William, though, his consequentialist and coherentist approach is really divorced from any reference to 'utility'; he is not saying this will maximize 'utility', he is saying that it will produce consequences which are generally lauded and certain general approaches (like interventionism) will systematically undermine these consequences.
Hume kept calling me back, so I'm switching to An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding on my Nook.
Just finished Durant's Our Oriental Heritage. One of my favorite passages: "Europe and America are the spoiled child and grandchild of Asia, and have never quite realized the wealth of their pre-classical inheritance."
On to "The Life of Greece"! Favorite passage so far: "This persistent effort to subordinate fancy to reason is the dominant quality of the Greek mind, even of Greek poetry. Therefore Greek literature is 'modern,' or rather, contemporary; we find it hard to understand Dante or Milton, but Euripides and Thucydides are kin to us mentally, and belong to our age. This is because, though myths may differ, reason remains the same, and the life of reason makes brothers of its lovers in all times, and everywhere."
"Europe and America are the spoiled child and grandchild of Asia, and have never quite realized the wealth of their pre-classical inheritance."
It is amazing how a deeply felt sentiment I have had lingering for so long can get expressed so wonderfully in a single sentence. Thanks for that. Though I may take it a bit further than the "classical" era.
William:It is amazing how a deeply felt sentiment I have had lingering for so long can get expressed so wonderfully in a single sentence. Thanks for that.
That's Will Durant for you. His stuff is just packed with trenchant epigrams like that.
William:Though I may take it a bit further than the "classical" era.
Eh? He said "pre-classical".
Oh wow, as far as I can tell: I find nothing particularly remarkable about Non-mediterranean Europe until almost the 16th Century, after that it becomes very interesting.
I'm currently reading Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. It's a fascinating description of why centrally planned schemes not only tend to fail, but bring about untold misery. It's about the mechanics of how social engineering fails. After that I plan on starting on Human Action with the help of Robert Murphys study guide.
Sure, I'll bite. I'm reading Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None".
At the moment I am reading Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal by Ralph Raico. A really fantastic work, which inspired this blog post.
I'm dropping DeLong's book for the time being and reading a number of essays in Yeager's The Fluttering Veil: Essays on Monetary Disequilibrium.
I decided to start reading some biographies, at the moment I'm tackling "Einstein, his Life and Universe" by Walter Isaacson. Interesting to note how heavily Einstein was influenced by Hume, also interesting that Einstein was a believer in the deductive method rather than inductive.
It's also made me wonder if Austrian Econ wrongly presupposes a Newtonian universe, in regard to time preference. I'm not sure there are any implications, but it's something I intend to ponder.
Just finished An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. I heartily recommend that anyone considering diving into the principles of Hume's philosophy should read the Enquiry before reading Book I of A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume is much more eloquent, clear, and direct in the former than the latter. However Treatise would be a great follow-up read, because it is more complete. On to An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals!
I started reading Man, Economy, and State on Friday.
I'm reading The 4 hour body.
http://www.fourhourbody.com/
Primarily because the book claims to give you tips for getting by on ridiciousl amounts of sleep. I figure if I can get myself down to 4 hours of sleep that might make the book worth it.
Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine - Elvis Presley
Student:Primarily because the book claims to give you tips for getting by on ridiciousl amounts of sleep. I figure if I can get myself down to 4 hours of sleep that might make the book worth it.
I hope your not an athletic person! I power lift at least 3 nights a week. Getting anything less then 8 hours of sleep is full body scuicide for me.
Student: I'm reading The 4 hour body. http://www.fourhourbody.com/ Primarily because the book claims to give you tips for getting by on ridiciousl amounts of sleep. I figure if I can get myself down to 4 hours of sleep that might make the book worth it.
You can ‘get by’ but you’ll slowly loose you mental rigour. Mises slept long hours. Don’t try your brain.
Merlin:You can ‘get by’ but you’ll slowly loose you mental rigour. Mises slept long hours. Don’t try your brain.
Still it would be interesting to see what that book says.
Man, Economy, and State - Rothbard
Blowback - Chalmers Johnson