What I've read and my reading queue

I've been busy this summer/early fall, but still have been reading some new books.  Much of it has been for books that will go into the new political economic thought class (see post here), but not all.  Some other books that I've read in the past few months:


Economics/Social Science related books:

John Stossel's "No We Can't":  This book does a great job of explaining the libertarian philosophy and the problems with big government.  In fact, I think this book helps illustrate why I usually vote republican.  It's not that I agree with republicans that much more than democrats.  However the regulations, red tape, and lack of rewards for success that too many democrat elected officials tend to support makes me absolutely sick.

Charles Murray's "Falling Apart: The State of White America": Wow - what a compelling book.  I'm only 100 pages in, but it's already worth the money (and time) I've spent.  Does a great job explaining why our society may be dividing.  The book focuses only on whites to make sure any confounding factors of race aren't present in his analysis (and he's had his share of race-related controversy in the past).  Very good book.  I've always liked his book - "What it Means to be a Libertarian".  That's worth a read if you get the chance.



Non-Economics books:

The Hunger Games trilogy:  Outstanding books.  Both entertaining and also useful to read to get a sense of government dictators gone wild.  The parallels to communist governments are jump from the pages.

The Hobbit: My oldest son read this and has started on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  I am following behind, and we plan on watching the movies together soon.  

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring:.  I'm only part way into it, but I like it.  I think this J.R.R. Tolkien author might be big someday.


In the Queue:

The Food Police: By Jayson Lusk (started this, but not far enough into it to comment yet.  I'll provide a full review on this site in the near future.)

Priceless: Curing the Health Care Crisis.  By John C. Goodman

An Economist Gets Lunch.  By Tyler Cowen  (Again, I've started this and gotten through about 25% or so of it.  Good but other books have jumped ahead in the queue.)

The Litigators.  By John Grisham

No Matter What, They'll Call this Book Racist.  By Harry Stein.

The Casual Vacancy.  By JK Rowlings.

The remaining Lord of the Rings books.  By JRR Tolkien.