Daily Archives: December 19, 2019

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- One reason I love books is that there are some arguments and ideas that simply cannot be presented in a couple of thousand words, to say nothing of being squeezed into social media posts. The year 2019 was a particularly good one for books that made me think. No, I dont read every book the industry has to offer, but I do peruse hundreds each year. Below are my 15 favorites from the twelve months just past, all of them serious efforts.(1)I by no means agree with every point made by every author, but each work on this list fully engaged me, and, in some way, caused me to see the world a little differently.

To avoid the tyranny of the alphabet, the first 14 are listed in random order. At the end is my pick for best nonfiction book of the year.

Steven Strogatz, Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe An argument that we underestimate the extent to which the modern world is built on mathematics in general, and calculus in particular. Delightfully written, with only a handful of difficult concepts. (And youll also learn how to calculate the speed of light while sitting at home ... by using cheese.) Orlando Patterson, The Confounding Island: Jamaica and the Postcolonial Predicament Everybody wonders what makes Jamaica so different. The prominent Harvard sociologist dares to ask. Dares to answer, too. (Bonus: A meditation on the transubstantive value of cricket.) Tyler Cowen, Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero My fellow Bloomberg Opinion columnist makes the list for a second year in a row because for a second year in a row he has made me think hard about an issue where I would have expected to be on the other side. (Im not anti-capitalist; I just tend to celebrate small business.) Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language The lifelong, unrepentant Grammar Curmudgeon in me keeps lamenting the state of the language. Best to know where the changes are coming from. McCulloch diligently, if tragically, traces the evolution from Old Internet (say, the OK Boomer crowd) to New Internet. Particularly good on how social media has made informal rather than formal writing the cultural norm. Dan Moller, Governing Least: A New England Libertarianism From the stunningly lucid first line to the homey examples (restaurants, sand castles), this is the best book on libertarian philosophy in years. Moller manages to walk the thin line of favoring self-reliance (and neighborliness) without going Ayn Rand on us. Akiko Busch, How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency An engaging guide to both the philosophy and methodology of what the author calls slipping out of the picture. Busch combines history, science, and her own joy in nature as she argues for resisting the lure of crowds and fame but even of awareness of self. (Never have the thirty seconds before medical sedation kicks in been made to seem quite so vividly attractive.) Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South It turns out that white women on the plantation were not helpless, passive spectators in the slaveocracy. They were active participants in the oppression, and in many cases they behaved more cruelly than the men toward the human beings they owned. Harold Bloom, Possessed by Memory: The Inward Light of Criticism The famed literary critic, who died this past October, wrote more books than most people in middle age have had birthdays. Here he leads us on a fascinating journey through the great poetry and prose to which he devoted his many decades of brilliance, using everything from Shakespeare to the Bible to May Swenson to reflect on his life and to teach us home truths about ours. Antonin Scalia, On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer Whatever your views on the late justices jurisprudence, there is much to be learned from this collection of writings by him and about him. He was a fine prose stylist, and is quite strong and sharp on such issues as why its important to resist the urge to try to model government on the Bible. Tyler Kepner, K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches Ive been a fan and amateur historian of the game since I was young, but I somehow never realized how absorbing baseballs history would look if viewed as a series of changes over time in the way the ball is thrown to the batter. Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith, Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration The title says it all. I devoted a column earlier this year to this excellent book, an extended argument in the form of a graphic novel. Dont expect to be persuaded; do expect to be forced to rethink. Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the WorldThe historian argues that even as the West grows more avowedly secular, our ethical positions, right up to #MeToo, are deeply imbued with a Christian view of the moral world. Robert MacFarlane, Underland: A Deep Time Journey Its a clich but still true: The story grabs you and never lets go. MacFarlane, an inveterate chronicler of geography, leads us through the caverns and depths beneath the surface of the globe and also through the caverns and depths of literature, of our own souls, and perhaps of our future as well. Never have I thought so deeply about what lies far below our feet. Tom Nicholas, VC: An American History Whatever your view of venture capitalists, its worth studying where they came from. I had a vague familiarity with the role of U.S. postwar policy in the creation of the species, but I learned a lot more from Nicholas. And Id never thought about their precursors in the old whaling industry!

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Finally, my choice for best nonfiction of the year:

Jane Brox, Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives I have a confession to make. Until I picked up this volume, it had never occurred to me that silence had a history. But it does, both as concept and as practice. Brox makes use principally of two examples: the monastery and the penitentiary. We see how the rule of silence helped build the scholarly and reflective aspects of the monastic life but became a tool of oppression to the imprisoned. Also, a nice bit on how todays constant sense of the passage of time is ruinous to the need for quiet.

Thats this years list. As always, happy reading.

(1) I would likely have included Anthony Kronmans controversial book, The Assault on American Excellence, but for my reluctance to list volumes by those who are close friends.

To contact the author of this story: Stephen L. Carter at scarter01@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of law at Yale University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. His novels include The Emperor of Ocean Park, and his latest nonfiction book is Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster.

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Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 for Contrarians and the Curious - Yahoo Finance

We have our winner. Nowhere does the objective take on the subjective with greater fear or envy than at any of these annual sports star awards, only nowhere did they agree with more success than when deciding on the super global sports star of 2019.

Not everyone can throw a punch like Katie Taylor or hole putts like Shane Lowry. But everyone can run, or at least think they can, and medals or times, places or records, personal bests or age-group barriers, no man or woman, team or country, had a year in history to rival the now properly global running shoe phenomenon known as the Nike Vaporfly.

Its always been hard trying to distinguish what counts or matters most within one chosen sport, the sort of conversation and debate Ayn Rand could have written another very long book about, but in distance running, that old art of putting one foot in front of the other as quickly as possible and for as long as possible, most people will go for time.

Take a look over any of the times that counted in 2019 from the big city marathon to the local parkrun and chances are the Nike Vaporfly are right there on the ground beneath their feet.

This is the running shoe first officially introduced by Nike for their Breaking-2 project, in Monza in 2017, where they overtly flaunted every possible legal aid to help Eliud Kipchoge run a first sub two-hour marathon the final frontier of distance running while also flouting many of the rules that define such frontiers.

In the end Kipchoge clocked 2:00:25, and for all the debate around the fairness of that run his feet seemed to be talking the loudest, or rather the Vaporfly were.

The shoe was promptly marketed for general sale, first as the Zoom Vaporfly 4% for the no-discount price of 250, before earlier this year being replaced by the ZoomX VaporflyNext%, which sells for a tidy 275.

Meanwhile Kipchoge and plenty others have been going where no marathon runners have gone before. Last year in Berlin, the Kenyan took the world marathon record down to 2:01:39, first official sub-2:02 and the biggest improvement on a mens marathon world record in 51 years.

No prizes for guessing what happened next.

Nike gently tweaked the shoe again, and wearing what was dubbed the ZoomX AlphaFLY, Kipchoge ran 1:59:40 in another flaunting/flouting marathon in Vienna in October, and the rest is distance running history.

Despite some objections to the legality of that time (mine included), Kipchoge, it seems, has already made that record his own, and Ridley Scott is reportedly finishing off a film to help make sure of it.

Last month, Kipchoge was also named World Athletics male athlete of the year, the first back-to-back winner since Usain Bolt in 2012-13, despite the fact he only raced twice in 2019: in Vienna, and in the London Marathon back in April, when wearing the Vaporfly Next% for the first time he won in a new course record time of 2:02:37. Two races, two wins, one not even official: they may as well have given that award to the Vaporfly too.

Also in the running for female athlete of the year was Kenyas Brigid Kosgei, who in the Chicago Marathon in October, broke Paula Radcliffes 16-year-old world record with her 2:14:04 (and thats not a misprint).

Its not that long since a lot of top male distance runners would have been delighted with a 2:14 marathon, and in bettering Radcliffes old record by nearly a minute and a half, Kosgei was also running in the VaporflyNext%.

Thats been the story behind every big city marathon this year, from Dublin to Beijing, from New York to Honolulu.

Just last Sunday at the 47th running of the Honolulu Marathon on Oahu, another Kenyan Titus Ekiru ran a course record of 2:07:59, where given the heat, humidity and killer hills of that race (I know that because Ive run it) thats probably close to another sub-two.

Who ever thought wed see times like this here? said Honolulu Marathon president Jim Barahal, in charge of this race since the days when Hunter Thompson would come to town. Has Barahal not heard of the VaporflyNext%?

Same story behind the Valencia Marathon earlier this month, where Paul Pollock ran five minutes faster than his previous best when clocking 2:10:25, earning his qualification for next years Tokyo Marathon in the process, also running in the VaporflyNext%.

Only John Treacy, with his 2:09:15 from 1988, has gone faster in the history of Irish distance running, although that line between past and present times is being increasingly blurred. In Valencia, for example, 174 finishers broke 2:30, compared to 99 in 2018, and 77 in 2017.

Same story too behind Stephen Scullion and his second-place finish in the Dublin Marathon, running 2:12:01, the then fastest by any Irish man in 17 years (before Pollock went faster again).

And same story behind Sinead Diver, who via Mayo, Limerick and now Melbourne, and who just four months shy of turning 43, finished fifth best woman overall in the New York Marathon in November, having already improved her best to 2:24:11 in London last April to finish seventh best overall.

The New York Times ran a feature on Friday under the headline: Nikes Fastest Shoes May Give Runners an Even Bigger Advantage Than We Thought. Their latest data, based on race results from over one million marathons/half marathons in dozens of countries from April 2014 to December 2019, showed that runners in the Vaporfly 4% or Vaporfly Next% ran four to five per cent faster than a runner wearing an average running shoe.

All of which begs the question: is this fair? World Athletics, the governing body of this sport, are traditionally a stickler for rules: step half a foot inside the track in a 10,000m race and youre likely to get yourself disqualified; take anything that offers a proper advantage over your opposition and youre likely to get yourself banned for four fours.

Theyve set up a working group, including former athletes and experts across sports science, ethics and biomechanics, to look into the Nike Vaporfly, the essential advantage, unfair or otherwise, seemingly the thick foam of its midsole, built on a curved carbon-fibre plate, creating not so much a spring as a levering effect.

Their current rule states any type of shoe used must be reasonably available to all in the spirit of the universality of athletics, and there is least evidence of that too at the race start line, and in the race results. Theres no going back on 2019, just a decision to make in 2020, the only problem being time is already running away.

Link:

The super global sports star of 2019: the Nike Vaporfly - The Irish Times