Writer’s Note: I am in the center of a two week streak of real life madness so blogging time took a serious hit. I have been meaning to write this anyway and remove the ancient dead pages with a bibliography and links page – in fact, this post. So while I am crazy busy, here are the books I read/am reading and the podcasts I absorb with all their links and references.
A couple of fine Internet friends asked for a list of books and resources that are gentler than attempting to get through an Economics textbook. I pour data into my head every moment I can – I read an awful lot. When I’m not reading, I’m driving or working. I have a long commute so I listen to a number of podcasts.
Podcasts
I use the Apple Podcast player that comes on the iPhone. To be honest, as a piece of software, it fails where others have succeeded and I cannot recommend it; smarter people have written better better Podcast players than what Apple ships as default on their phone. But because I moved all my Podcasts there when the software was first released I have been stuck with it.
- Planet Money
- Slate Money Gabfest
- Freakanomics Radio
- Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
- Revolutions Podcast
Books
I admit: I don’t read much fiction. I have given up largely on dead tree books and make heavy use of the Kindle. The search and highlight feature has been the most useful feature. All of these books are available from Amazon. Links provided by Goodreads.
Fiction
- Eco, Umberto. Baudolino, Harcourt, 2003
- Liss, David. A Conspiracy of Paper, Time Warner Books UK, 2001.
- Perez-Reverte, Arturo. The Club Dumas, Mariner Books, 2006.
- Rutherford, Edward. Sarum, Gramercy, 2004.
Non-Fiction
Economics
- Graeber, David. Debt, the First 5000 Years, Melville House Publishing, 2011.
- Ferguson, Niall. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. Penguin Press HC, 2008
- Harford, Tim. The Undercover Economist, Oxford University Press USA, 2005.
- Levitt, Steven and Dubner, Stephen. Freakonomics, William Morrow, 2006.
- Wheelan, Charles. Naked Economics, W. W. Norton and Company, 2010.
History
- Ball, Philip. The Devil’s Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science, Straus and Giroux, 2006
- Erdoes, Richard. A. D. 1000: A World on the Brink of Collapse. Ulysses Press, 1998
- Freely, John. Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe, Overlook TP, 2013
- Greenblatt, Stephen. Swerve: How the World Became Modern, W. W. Norton and Company, 2012
- Hibbert, Christopher. The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall, William Morrow Paperbacks, 1999
- Lester, Toby. The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name, Free Press, 2009
- Lewis, Brenda Ralph. A Dark History: the Popes – Vice, Murder and Corruption in the Vatican, Amber Books, 2009
- Marshall, Peter. The Magic Circle of Rudolf II: Alchemy and Astrology in Renaissance Prague, Walker & Company, 2006
- Matthew, Donald. The Atlas of Medieval Europe, Checkmark Books, 1983
- Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice, Vintage, 1989
- Parks, Tim. Medici Money, W. W. Norton and Company, 2006
- Singh, Simon. The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, Anchor, 2000
- Tuchman, Barbara. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1987
- Van Der Krogt, Peter. Atlas Maior of 1665, Taschen, 2005
- Wills, Gary. Venice: Lion City: The Religion of Empire, Washington Square Press, 2002
- Wood, Michael. The Story of England, Viking, 2010
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