In my last reading update, I mentioned that I had read the first book in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series. Since then, apart from reading for my dissertation, that’s pretty much all I’ve read. I just finished The Yellow Admiral, which means that I’ve read 18 of the 21 books (one left unfinished at the author’s death) in the series. Because I was so engrossed in dissertation research on the one hand and these historical novels on the other, I dramatically cut down on my longform reading in Pocket, so this update will be much shorter than past ones. My biggest recommendation would be to give the O’Brian novels a try. They’re engaging, candid, humane, and funny.
Books
Books 2-18 of the Aubrey-Maturin series.
Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel American Born Chinese. A quick read, and quite good.Longform Journalism
Jennifer Breheny Wallace making helpful distinctions between empathy and compassion in the Washington Post.
Chris Berg, Sinclair Davidson and Jason Potts writing on Medium about what they call "byzantine political economy."
Sean Illing's interview with Nikole Hannah-Jones in Vox about racial segregation (in schools and housing) in America.
Brian Oliver's Guardian article about vegetarianism and veganism in top-level sport.
Todd Gitlin writing for the Washington Post on the history of campus 'free speech.'
A keynote address from John Bogle about big data and index investing.Featured image: “Bollard: San Diego Harbor,” Photos by Clark, CC-BY-NC 2.0