Finished reading: London’s Fields by Mark Waldon 📚 ⚽️
A delightful oral history looking at some of London’s football clubs: their histories, rivalries, grounds, & fan bases. I most enjoyed chapters on Orient, Millwall, Brentford, Wimbledon, Fulham, & Charlton—clubs that don’t get much attention state-side.
Eswar Prasad, The Future of Money Reading Eswar Prasad’s The Future of Money was an odd experience. Let’s start by clarifying the author’s starting point. Prasad is the definition of an elite: a graduate of some of the world’s most prestigious universities (Madras, Brown, U of Chicago) a long stint at the IMF an occupant of a endowed chair in economics at an Ivy League school a senior fellow at the center-left-think-tank-to-rule-them-all Brookings Institute possessor of an advisory appointment as research associate at the National Bureau for Economic Research I mention all these roles not to impress you, but rather to give you a sense of what to expect from The Future of Money: cryptocurrency filtered through the perspective of someone deeply entrenched in the structures, institutions, and frameworks that define the world as it currently is.
Incredibly excited for the future of Slant Books. They have some wonderful titles coming in their first year as an indie not-for-profit press. 🔗📚
R.I.P, Robert Bly, one of Minnesota’s great poets. I’ll remember him most for his translations of Thomas Tranströmer; among if not the first translations into English of the incredible Swedish poet. 📚 🔗
Currently reading: The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance by Eswar S. Prasad 📚
R.I.P., great author, publisher, and literary scholar Roberto Calasso 📚 🔗
Currently reading: Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings by Peter Pettinger 📚
Currently reading: The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist 📚
Robert Pogue Harrison reviews several recent books by and about the wonderful Shirley Hazzard. 📚
As she once remarked to me, were Virgil to sail into [the Bay of Naples] today, he would recognize all the lineaments of his adoptive city.
The NYT obit for Adam Zagajewski is quite touching.
I remember talking with a peer at a conference. She taught with A.Z. at the University of Houston. She spoke glowingly of him: “Adam is such a sweet, wonderful man.” He was clearly a colleague of hers, not the superstar. 📚