Category: Books & Authors

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Why is F.A. Hayek #1 on Amazon?

I have no idea.

The New Deal and the Great Society didn’t turn America into fascist Italy or Nazi Germany, as some followers of the Nobel laureate economist predicted. Despite that fizzled prognostication, and the fact that he’s been dead since 1992, Hayek has the the  number one book on Amazon right now. What’s the deal? Did Glenn Beck talk him up? (Yes he did.) Or is it because of Hayek’s skills as a rapper? When he puts it in rhyme I find I have to agree with him over John Maynard Keynes. The boom makes the bust.

UPDATE: Champagne corks must be popping at the University of Chicago Press, where The Road To Serfdom went out of stock June 10. Amazon sold more than 13,000 copies in one day, according to The Hayek Center.

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Laurie Garrett on The Black Nile

“Dan Morrison is too young to have been part of the Gonzo movement. But if Hunter Thompson decided to travel the Nile, from its Ugandan source to Alexandria, encountering gun-toting whackos, crazed religious zealots, scary profiteers and a rich cast of characters in one of the world’s most contested regions — well, I think he would have loved to share his trek with Morrison.

“Fasten your seat belts, readers!”

— Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Coming Plague.

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Avast!

Recent articles on book piracy.

In Peru, from Granta.

On the Internet, from The Millions.

And in India and Bangladesh.  Plenty of piracy in Pakistan too. And why wouldn’t there be? Pakistan has a poor selection of books and they’re pretty expensive by local standards.  Same in Bangladesh.

Can’t publishers in Latin America and South Asia produce swift and inexpensive editions to compete with the pirates? That’s what movie distributors have done, selling cheap dvds of first-run films in Russia, and south and central Asia to beat the pirates to the punch.

Want to know how your country’s black economy compares with its neighbors? Check out Havocsope’s online database of the global black market. They follow it all – flesh, drugs, software, movies and books.

What does any of this have to do with Sudan’s historic elections? Nothing. But I hope to have a piece that subject published very soon.