Alternatives to summer beach trash “B
each trash,” those three-inch-thick paperbacks diverting you from serious thought while sunning on the beach or beside the pool, are never in short supply. So, here are more serious books to add to your beach wagon or slip into your ice chest with the Molson.
For each book completed, paste a star on your summer reading card!
Medical drugs have skyrocketed in price this year. Are you beginning to wonder if markets function as advertised? If so, strap up to follow Professor James Galbraith — the son of John Kenneth Galbraith and the Lloyd M.
Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the University of Texas at Austin — into the lawlessness of “The Predator State.”
What happened that our culture produced a cataclysmic financial collapse originating in moral hazard? And, how was it our laws were changed to permit our moral failure? Professor Galbraith surveys the topics of ‘free markets,’ taxation, de-industrialization of the United States, and the profitable partnership between government and private enterprise. Excellent history, keen insight, and surprising conclusions, this is well worth the time.
“Justice” by Professor Michael Sandel of Harvard College is what you need if Libertarianism sounds good, but just doesn’t feel right. Professor Sandel teaches the most popular undergraduate course at Harvard; you can even watch videos of his packed lectures on YouTube.
With an extraordinary capacity to articulate ethical conundrums and the unexamined assumptions behind our decisions, his book is readable, applicable to daily life in commerce, and will revive your sense of why you do what you choose.
You will also learn the verdict in a German murder case of consensual cannibalism in which a libertarian killed, cooked, and ate a fellow libertarian who agreed to come to dinner — as the main course!
Are you a deficit hawk? Dr. Simon Johnson’s “White House Burning” is like climbing onto your kitchen table to get a new look at the room. Dr. Johnson was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund for 20-plus years; he now teaches at MIT.
You will be surprised and delighted when you discover that he starts his consideration of the United States’ budget with a history of The War of 1812. Thus, White House Burning. You will enjoy 18th century British and French economic history, a review of the fight between Hamilton and Jefferson, and a down-in-the-weeds look at our current budget and projections. I highly recommend this book.
Jack Beatty works as a freelance journalist; he publishes frequently in The Atlantic, Harpers, and The New Yorker. If you don’t think we are in a second Gilded Age, take an enlightening ride with Mr. Beatty through the first Gilded Age.
Meticulously researched, “The Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900” will expand your knowledge of American history tenfold, i.e. the elimination of distance by the railroads, the scam of the Homestead Act, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field’s subjugation of citizens to property, and the Populist Movement in Georgia led by Tom Watson. Beatty is remarkable in the clarity of his account; his notes include text from private letters and contemporary news reports.
Beatty’s history ends with a portrait of a ‘charity ball’ given by Bradley and Cornelia Martin of New York. The Times’ headline was “No Such Social Function Ever Before Seen in America.” Beatty’s description of the affair with its 35,000 galax from South Carolina, 3,000 orchids, guests dressed as courtiers of Louis XV, and 250 Pinkerton guards outside the Waldorf to ward off ‘thieves and men of socialistic tendencies’ is a gem.
Lastly, you can join Berry College’s incoming freshman reading Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy” this summer.
Stevenson is an attorney who has devoted his life to fighting for justice and mercy for condemned prisoners in the South.
A MacArthur Fellow, director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, and professor at New York University Law School, Stevenson’s work illuminates the injustice and cruelty we too readily accept.
It is a meditation on mercy, the desperation of the outcast, the powerlessness of those without voice, and the obligation we have to our neighbor.
Bryan Stevenson will speak at Berry’s Conson Wilson Lecture in September; it is free and open to the public.
Remove a star from your summer reading card if you don’t read “Just Mercy” and attend his lecture. MICHAEL REYNOLDS Bill Day, Cagle Cartoons