Milo and the Calf

Tag: recommended

  • Review: Banksy’s Wall and Piece

    Ed note: This was written for a now defunct livejournal in 2007. So funny to go through these old reviews and see that I wrote about things like Game of Thrones and Banksy before they became household words, covered int he New Yorker. I was once kinda withit I guess, fifteen years ago. Wall and…

  • Review: Coates’s Between the World and Me

    Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates How does one review a book like Between You a Me? Especially when one is me – an educated, white, straight, middle class dude. What can I possibly say? I can say that it deeply affected me. That even now, over a week after finishing the book, it…

  • Review: Simon’s Homocide

    Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets David Simon You’ve read this right? You have to. The best book on cops ever and its written by the creator of the world’s greatest TV show, the Wire. Baltimore in the early nineties was a violent place, policed by a largely white and often racist police force…

  • Review: Lessig’s Free Culture

    Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity Lawrence Lessig Lessig is a law professor and one of the preeminent thinkers on open source and intellectual property in the contemporary era. This is his popular book in favor of open source software and a rethinking of the law of intellectual property. If you’re interested in…

  • Review: Collier’s Bottom Billion

    The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It Paul Collier Here is the basic argument – while it sucks to be poor in countries like India, India is heading for relative prosperity, and therefore some hope for its poorest citizens. Where is really, really sucks to be…

  • Review: Everitt’s Cicero

    Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician Anthony Everitt Odds are, you have heard of Cicero. Considered one of Rome’s greatest orators, his writings are the major influence on how way we remember the last days of the Roman republic. The story of Cicero’s life is the story of end of last years…

  • Review: Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues

    Stone Butch Blues: A Novel Leslie Feinberg This novel/memoir chronicles the world of a working class lesbian, gay, and transgendered people in New York from the days before Stonewall to the early nineties. It is a classic and was at the time it came out the most important book written to date on transgender issues.…

  • Review: Marx’s Capital Volume I

    Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics) Karl Marx This is another one of those reviews that feels a bit silly. If you’re interested in a life of a mind, you should read Capital. It’s one of the top ten most important books in history, and I am profoundly unqualified to review…

  • Review: Sebold’s The Lovely Bones

    The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold The plot of this one (young girl narrates her life and murder from heaven) put me off when I first heard it but, when many smart friends read, and loved it, I decided to give it a go. I am really glad I did. Seabold walks a fine line between…

  • Review: Robinson’s Gilead

    Gilead: A Novel Marilynne Robinson On the surface, this book should not have appealed to me at all. The story of the domestic life of a small town minister in the mid-west, it has nothing of interest to me (besides some references to John Brown). But Gilead is one of the most highly realized and…