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During the long period of relative calm in the world economy, macro economists forgot (or rather intentionally threw away) the many insights of John Maynard Keynes. The recent world financial crash and recession has demonstrated that Keynes and the economists who built on his insights are still very relevant. This book does a nice job of explaining how it all went down.

I read this after someone commented on Paul Krugman’s blog about the book’s prescience. I found the book itself a bit boring, but Vonnegut’s far-sightedness in matters human and social is on full display.

Norman’s first book focused on practical usability in everyday things. This time around he is concerned with their meaning and significance in people’s lives. And it’s another good read.

This is an odd book. The author is very, very worried about the rise of China and he seems to have done a great deal of research to back up his case. And as an antidote to some of the more naive proclamations about the inevitable Westernization of China (we’re looking at you Thomas Friedman) it probably serves some good.

However, I remain unconvinced the situation is as dire as the author would have us believe. Here are his claims as I understand them:

While this is a comprehensive guide to jQuery, I’m not sure it’s worth the money. The online docs are already extremely good, and I found myself skimming through much of the book’s content. And the author spends far too many words telling us how nice jQuery UI is. Just tell us how it works and its awesomeness will be evident, or not.

A good addition to the series, though not as strong as the earlier ones, I thought.

Pretty good book about a pit bull who rose to the top of the competitive disc dog world. The writing isn’t always the best, but the story is great.

A lovely little book about our relationship with made objects (doors, radios, light switches, etc.) and what makes them easy or hard to use and why. A lot of useful wisdom presented in a very accessible way.

My first attempt to understand what the Haskell folks are really up to. I have a feeling many more attempts will be required!

A quirky little self-published introduction to jquery. Pretty decent for the price, but the lack of an editor is apparent in some pretty relaxed grammar.