"Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire." - William Makepeace Thackeray

Suggested Non-Fiction Reading from 2019 - 2020

The following is a short list of recommendations from Chris Reim on some of the best non-fiction titles over the past year that may not have been widely covered in the media, primarily on issues in Economic Policy, History, and Public Philosophy:

- The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind

Raghuram Rajan (Penguin Press)

- Fully Grown: Why a Stagnant Economy is a Sign of Success

Dietrich Vollrath (University of Chicago Press)

- Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism

Anne Case and Angus Deaton (Princeton University Press)

- Unworthy Republic: The Dispossesion of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory

Claudio Saunt (W.W. Norton & Company)

- The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization Began

Valerie Hansen (Scribner Books)

- The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy

Mariana Mazzucato (Allen Lane)

Suggested Non-Fiction Reading from Prior Years

The following is a short list of must-read recommendations in non-fiction by Chris Reim, from previous years:

- What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (2004)

Michael Sandel (Harvard University Press)

- The Venturesome Economy (2008)

Amar Bhide (Princeton University Press)

- No Slack: The Financial Lives of Low-Income Americans (2012)

Michael S. Barr (Brookings Institution Press)

- Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology (2015)

Kentaro Toyama (Public Affairs Books)

- Advantage: How American Innovation Can Overcome the Asian Challenge (2011)

Adam Segal (W.W. Norton & Company)

- American Dreams Lost & Found (1980)

Studs Terkel (The New Press)

- A Short History of Nearly Everything (2005)

Bill Bryson (Doubleday (UK); Broadway Books (US))

So Glad You're Here.

What we read does not necessarily say much about who we are, but it can say volumes about our curiosity and our willingness to absorb differing opinions. Talking points on issues do not get to the real complexities of the matter - just as brief summaries of books, even reviews, simply do not convey the depth of detail, and the realm of possibilities, that may move us ever so slightly from our preconceived notions of how things are and how they should be.

We should each endeavor to continue in the lifelong process of unfolding, of discovering our own unique capabilities. And in sharing our passions without fear, we should endeavor to understand that to abide our many differences, to tolerate ambiguity in a complex modern world, we may find our own sense of place in a Common Life. - Christopher Reim