The Spectacled Avenger's Reading List, 2009

Some time ago a friend brought to my attention Art Garfunkel’s website, on which he has posted a chronological list of all the books he has read, from June 1968 to the present. I found it inexplicably fascinating. The man certainly reads a lot, but what’s more interesting is how eclectic and wide-ranging the list is. To be frank, I don’t expect much intellectual depth from celebrities. As a matter of fact, I generally don’t expect them to read at all, or in some cases, to be able to read. And I certainly don’t expect to find a celebrity who has read, for example, Giambattista Vico’s New Science. But that’s Art Garfunkel for you: A mystery wrapped in an enigma, and topped with a bit of cheese. In all seriousness, his thirst for knowledge and enlightenment is to be lauded.

The reason I bring this up is that I too, keep a reading list. However, mine is not arranged chronologically, but merely alphabetically by author. And I start a new list each year. Also, because I am ever the scholar, the entries are in (more or less) proper MLA format. Yes, I know, very nerdy.

Occasionally my wife (yes, ladies, I’m afraid The Spectacled Avenger is married — but please do try to go on living) will teasingly ask me how many books I’ve read so far this year. By keeping such a list, I am always able to give her a rough answer.

For anyone who might be interested, below is The Spectacled Avenger’s Reading List for 2009. Note: the list does not include essays and journal articles, for which I keep a separate list. Books which I particularly enjoyed are in bold.

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ABRAMSON, Jeffrey. Minerva’s Owl: The Tradition of Western Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

APPIAH, Kwame Anthony. Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.

AXELROD, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation (Revised Edition). New York: Basic Books, 2006.

BIRKS, Peter. Unjust Enrichment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. III). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1768 (facsimile, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).

BOSWELL, James. Life of Samuel Johnson. R. W. Chapman (ed.). London: Oxford University Press, 1976.

BRANDT, Richard B. A Theory of the Good and the Right. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.

CAENEGEM, R. C. van. An Historical Introduction to Private Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

CLARK, Stephen R. L. Aristotle’s Man: Speculations upon Aristotelian Anthropology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.

COLLINGWOOD, R. G. The Principles of History and Other Writings in Philosophy of History. W. H. Dray and W. J. van der Dussen (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

CROSS, Rupert. Precedent in English Law (3rd edition). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.

DASGUPTA, Partha. An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.

DAWKINS, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

DUNCAN-JONES, Austin. Butler’s Moral Philosophy. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1952.

DYER, Christopher. An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the Later Middle Ages. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.

EGGERS, Dave. You Shall Know Our Velocity. San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2002.

ELSTER, Jon. Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

FESER, Edward (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Hayek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

FIELD, Ophelia. The Kit-Cat Club. London: Harper Collins, 2009.

FINN, Daniel K. The Moral Ecology of Markets: Assessing Claims about Markets and Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

FINNIS, John, Joseph M. BOYLE, and Germain GRISEZ. Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.

FITZGERALD, F. Scott. Flappers and Philosophers, in Novels and Stories, 1920-1922. New York: Library of America, 2000.

FLEMING, John G. An Introduction to the Law of Torts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.

FORGUSON, Lynd. Common Sense. London: Routledge, 1989.

FRANCK, Thomas M. The Empowered Self: Law and Society in the Age of Individualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

FRANK, Robert H. What Price the Moral High Ground? Ethical Dilemmas in Competitive Environments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.

FRIEDMAN, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

FUSSELL, Paul. The Rhetorical World of Augustan Humanism: Ethics and Imagery from Swift to Burke. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.

GLOVER, Jonathan. Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.

HAMPSHIRE, Stuart. Two Theories of Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

HARDIN, Russell. Liberalism, Constitutionalism, and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

HAYEK, Friedrich A. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 1: Rules and Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

HAYEK, Friedrich A. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.

HAYEK, Friedrich A. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 3: The Political Order of a Free People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

HAYEK, Friedrich A. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

HAYEK, Friedrich A. A Tiger by the Tail: A 40-Years’ Running Commentary on Keynsianism. Sudha R. Shenoy (ed.). London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1972.

HAYEK, Friedrich A. The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents. Bruce Caldwell (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

HOGUE, Arthur R. Origins of the Common Law. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1986.

HOMER. Iliad (Vol. II). A. T. Murray (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

HOWARD, A. E. Dick (ed.). Magna Carta: Text and Commentary. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1998.

JOHNSON, Conrad D. Moral Legislation: A Legal-Political Model for Indirect Consequentialist Reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

JOHNSON, Samuel. Selected Essays. London: Penguin, 2003.

JOHNSON, Samuel. The Works of Samuel Johnson (Vol. I). London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al, 1823.

JOHNSON, Samuel. The Works of Samuel Johnson (Vol. IV). London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al, 1823.

JOHNSON, Samuel. The Works of Samuel Johnson (Vol. V). London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al, 1823.

JOHNSON, Samuel. The Works of Samuel Johnson (Vol. VI). London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al, 1823.

JOHNSON, Samuel. The Works of Samuel Johnson (Vol. X). London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al, 1823.

JOHNSTON, David. Roman Law in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

JORDAN, Jeff. Pascal’s Wager. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006.

KLOSKO, George. The Development of Plato’s Political Theory (2nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

LINDSAY, Ronald A. Future Bioethics: Overcoming Taboos, Myths, and Dogmas. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008.

LIVY. History of Rome (Vol. I). B. O. Foster (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

LIVY. History of Rome (Vol. II). B. O. Foster (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

LOCKE, John. A Letter Concerning Toleration. William Popple (trans.). Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983.

LUCAS, J. R. On Justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.

LUCRETIUS. De Rerum Natura. W. H. D. Rouse (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

LYONS, David. In the Interest of the Governed: A Study in Bentham’s Philosophy of Utility and Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.

MACCORMICK, Neil. Legal Right and Social Democracy. Oxford: Clarendon University Press, 1982.

MACHIAVELLI, Niccolò. Selected Political Writings. Indianapolis. Hackett, 1994.

MARX, Karl and Frederick ENGELS. The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition. London: Verso, 1998.

MENAND, Louis. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.

MILLER, David. Social Justice. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

MISES, Ludwig von. Bureaucracy. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007.

MISES, Ludwig von. Liberalism: The Classical Tradition. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005.

MORE, Thomas. Utopia. Ralph Robynson (trans.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936.

NAGEL, Thomas. Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

NOZICK, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974.

OTTESON, James R. Actual Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

PLUCKNETT, Theodore F. T. A Concise History of the Common Law. Rochester, NY: The Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, 1929.

REID, Thomas. The Philosophical Orations of Thomas Reid. Shirley Darcus Sullivan (trans.). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989.

RIPSTEIN, Arthur. Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

SANDEL, Michael J. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.

SCHAUER, Frederick. Thinking like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

SCHELLING, Thomas C. Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

SCHMITT, Carl. The Concept of the Political. George Schwab (trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

SEN, Amartya. The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

SENECA. Epistles, Vol. III (93-124). Richard M. Gummere (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

SENECA. Moral Essays (Vol. I). John W. Basore (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper. 3rd Earl of. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (Vol. I). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper. 3rd Earl of. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (Vol. II). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001.

SIMPSON, A. W. B. An Introduction to the History of the Land Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.

SMITH, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982.

SMITH, Stephen A. Atiyah’s Introduction to the Law of Contract (6th edition). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.

STEPHEN, Sir James Fitzjames. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1993.

TACITUS. Agricola, Germania, Dialogus. M. Hutton and W. Peterson (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

TAINTER, Joseph A. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

TAYLOR, Gabriele. Deadly Vices. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006.

TOMALIN, Claire. Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self. London: Viking, 2002.

TRENCHARD, John and Thomas GORDON. Cato’s Letters: or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious (Vol. I). London: J. Walthoe et al, 1755.

VAN INWAGEN, Peter. The Problem of Evil. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006.

WIGGINS, David. Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough”. A. C. Miles (trans.). Retford, Nottinghamshire: Brynmill Press, 1979.

YAFFE, Gideon. Manifest Activity: Thomas Reid’s Theory of Action. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.