• New grill in town

    Since my wife and I visited Italy over a decade ago, I have always wanted a woodfire grill. We had stayed in a walled hill town in the Marches, far from the beaten tourist path, and our proprietress put a couple of steaks on a stick and held them in the fireplace. Simple, unfussy, and…

  • Guide to the Good Life : William B. Irvine

    A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy is a terrible letdown. Irvine has taken a subject that would be of interest to the person who is educated but not educated in Stoic philosophy, and shaped it into a little egomaniacal ball of his own earwax. The book’s genuinely fascinating Stoic…

  • Lao Shanghai

    An emphatic yes on the Shanghai branch of Tony Hu’s culinary empire. See pictures here — this is pretty much what we ate. Two people for lunch, $22. We’ll be back. Lao Shanghai 2163 A China Place Chicago, IL 60616 312-808-0830

  • Crisis Economics : Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm

    I am not an economist but part of my job is to explain to everyday investors how it all works — that is, when it does. Of late I have been reading a lot about the economic crisis because I am not convinced that the systemic weaknesses and abuses that led to it have been adequately…

  • The Soros Lectures : George Soros

    Interesting ideas, prosaic text, and a streak of partisanship that is often unwelcome, despite the fact that I agree with him. Report card: C

  • Bursts : Albert-László Barabási

    A hundred pounds of stylistic icing on a few grams of cake. Nearly half this book is a sustained (though interrupted) narrative of 16th century Transylvanian military history, mixed with random thoughts about why Google may be evil, and why you sometimes roll a 6 on a die several times in a row. This text…

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