Books

Day three: Basic Economics 

Ok, banger. 

I read this on the strength of its appearance at the top of https://danromero.org/books/ and I loved it. 

Its North Star is “Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.”

Even the genuinely basic parts felt refreshing and instructive. 

But the application of the fundamental principles to real life cases like rent control had me going “yeah… yeah!”

It’s strongly pro-market, and part of why I liked it is that it deftly confirmed my priors. 

But I think even a flag waving socialist would have to concede that it’s well crafted (even if they believe that it’s ultimately misguided). 

I gave copies as gifts last year to friends and family. I’d recommend it over Wealth of Nations by a mile (reading Adam Smith didn’t change my life lol). 

5 stars, strong recommendation

Day four: Master and Commander

One of the all time heavyweight champions of historical fiction. Bill Bryson calls it his favorite escapist reading. Keith Richards shouts it out at the end of his book Life.

There are a bunch of red flags on this book for me:
- this book is the first in a series of 20
- it’s a historical seafaring adventure
- it was written in the 60s but uses period language
- it’s laden with esoteric jargon

Given the red flags, I expected a cheap swashbuckling novel hiding its poor writing behind unfamiliar language. But the exact opposite is the case. The whole series is outstanding.

The prose is excellent, once you get your head into it. The character development is first rate and continues throughout the series. The stories are subtle and nuanced in a way you’d never expect from historical military fiction.

O’Brian is the John Williams of his niche. You’d never mention them in the same breath as confirmed masters like Beethoven or Jane Austen, but we should.

Five stars easy

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Hellno, you cannot. 

Jk you can but I couldn’t resist the opportunity. 

The first book stands on its own but the series doesn’t fully hit its stride until the 4th book 

I read the 1st and enjoyed it but took some work to learn the language. The 2nd is a bit of a grind because there’s less adventure, kind of like a Jane Austen novel. I binged 3-20 in 3 or 4 months

can I just read the first book and move on with my life? I can’t commit to read all 20

The movie is based on the tenth book, Far Side of the World. It does a great job of capturing the spirit of the series. The movie also gets the highest possible recommendation.

never read or watched this, and i’ve been intending to do both

thanks for the reminder