The Sunday Philosophy Club, by Alexander McCall Smith

 

This is a slow-paced mystery that builds slowly to a not very dramatic climax. Isabel Dalhousie is an independently wealthy woman who lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and who spends her time working as an editor of an academic journal on philosophy. While she refers repeatedly to the Club mentioned in the book title, they never actually get together to talk. The mystery in question is what happened to a young man who fell from a balcony at a concert. Was it an accident, suicide, or murder? Through her thoughtful musings and gentle conversations with friends and family, Isabel comes up with one theory or another about the incident, eventually eliciting a confession from the one person responsible. Throughout the book, Isabel's thoughts consider many philosophical questions, some of them arising from the mystery and others from the articles that she's reviewing for her journal. While I'm used to a more fast-paced approach to mystery stories, this was an interesting take on the genre, and I'm curious about how the author developed the series, which now has 15 entries.

Erasure, by Percival Everett

 

Erasure was my Albany book club's May pick and I was excited to read it because it's the book behind the film American fiction, which I saw in a local theater back in February. I loved the film and I'm happy to say that I love the book as well. Now that I've read the book, I'm impressed by how closely the film followed the book, although it comes across as much funnier on screen. Erasure is about a novelist and professor named Thelonious Ellison, who goes by his nickname, Monk. Raised in a well-off and highly educated family, he writes literary fiction with fairly modest sales. A death in the family leads to Monk's relocation to the Washington, D.C. area to be his mother's caretaker; she has dementia and is becoming more and more difficult to manage at home. After several scary incidents, Monk puts his mother in a nursing facility, leaving himself more and more isolated. With his latest book rejected by multiple publishers, and in need of funds to support his mother, he decides to write a parody of urban fiction that ends up becoming a best seller. Trying to maintain his anonymity, dabbling in a new romantic interest, and taking care of his mother, he struggles to forge a path forward with many comical outcomes. I loved Everett's writing and look forward to reading more by him. His latest novel, James, tells the story of Huckleberry Finn from the enslaved man Jim's viewpoint. That book has been selected for my local book club's September read, along with the original Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, giving us the summer to read both.

How to think like an economist, by Robbie Mochrie

 

With How to Think Like an Economist, economics professor Robbie Mochrie provides a historical overview of the development of economic theory from classical times to the present. Profiling twenty-four scholars and thinkers, Mochrie demonstrates how economic theory evolved from the time of Aristotle, when musings about economics arose from philosophy and focused primarily on individual behavior and household management, to the Enlightenment period with the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, and beyond. Mochrie brings the narrative to the present day, sketching the careers and notable achievements of prominent economists, mostly men but including a few women, many of whom were the recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He notes their impact on government thinking and action addressing phenomena such as the Great Depression, unemployment, inflation, poverty, and policy. Mochrie shows how the study of economics developed from different traditions including history, law, and engineering, all bringing a distinctive stamp to their respective theoretical approaches. His clear writing and chronological approach show how economic theory grew and changed as each scholar built upon the record of previous thinkers. VERDICT This is a deeply researched and lively introduction to the history and theory of economics.

 

A version of this review was published by Library Journal 149:7 (2024): 96.