Two from last Oct's NYT Book Review

The last two weeks passed quickly. The workload and amount of material is quickly ramping up for us. In fact, here it is late on a Friday night and I'm doing some bond duration calculations.

But in between Tex-ing up this problem set (which might be more trouble than it's worth--but it's actually fun to be using it again), I've been trying to clear out a few old e-mails. I've got a lot of the NYT Books Update e-mails piled up. I usually skim it when it arrives, and if there's a review in there that looks interesting, the e-mail doesn't get deleted.

So here are two from last September(!): a review of Jeff Chang's book, and an interesting essay about Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind."

I still haven't picked up Chang's "Can't Stop Won't Stop"--and sad as it is to say, now that I'm getting into the MFE, I'm realizing such readings might have to be put on hold. (Just have to be mindful that they don't get put on hold forever).

I read most of "Closing" about 6 years ago, and more recently read Bellow's "Ravelstein." As the essay notes, Bellow prodded Bloom into writing "Closing." What I remember most about "Closing" is the wonderful overview of Western philosophy Bloom provides.

OK, I can delete that e-mail...more soon, hopefully. One event of interest I wanted to blog was a visit to the Commonwealth Club last week, to see Amartya Sen speak. And another one coming up this weekend is the SFJazz Collective, which we're going to check out Sunday evening, as a birthday present from my in-laws.

I got some links saved about both those.