The Ezra Klein Show

Two, I've been reading over time, it's not new, These Truths by Jill Lepore, one volume History of the United States, which helps to reinforce that so many of the challenges and dynamics that we face in this moment are actually not unique, even if the specifics are, how cyclical our challenges are and our history is.

Just as a pure American history I think Jill Lepore's survey is just so moving, brilliantly written and I'm not picking it because she's my colleague at The New Yorker.

you are able to ... Martin Buber talks about in his book, I Thou, and you are able to become a better member of your community and incidentally a better person.

When I listen to that quote, I think of Martin Buber, right? Oh, no, just in general. And this idea, you know, I'm a conflict resolution facilitator. My mentor, Hal Saunders, the first book he ever made me read was Martin Buber's writings and the relationship between I and thou.

So I, thou is an idea that the relationship between you and me is sacred. It's divine.

But I'm also reading Fuzz When Nature Breaks the Law by the great science writer Mary Roach, which deals with things like what do you do when elephants kill people? And how do you deal with killer trees or bears or cougars, which I assume are issues that you have in California?

I'm also reading Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach, which deals with things like what do you do when elephants kill people and how you deal with killer trees or bears.

I'm Ezra Klein, and this is The Ezra Klein Show. So it's only February, but I'm pretty sure Elizabeth Kolbert's Under a White Sky is going to be on my best books of 2021 list. It's a wonderful work.

your book of course is Under a White Sky it is phenomenal I loved reading it

And that is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Station Eleven is published in 2014. It imagines the world after a pandemic has wiped out almost everyone, about 99% of the human race.

I wrote Station Eleven, which is a novel where 99% of the population dies before I had a child. I don't think I could write it now because imagining the world ending with your child would be orders of magnitude more terrible.

There are a lot of ghosts. There are nonlinear structures where, you know, in Station 11, a character dies on page two or three. But then we get to come back to them.

And that is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Station Eleven is published in 2014. It imagines the world after a pandemic has wiped out almost everyone.

It has this particular emotional power as a book. It helps you grieve a life you still have.

And so her book, which was already this beloved international bestseller, it found a second life.

You know, I wrote Station Eleven, which is a novel where 99% of the population dies before I had a child. I don't think I could write it now because imagining the world ending with your child ... would be orders of magnitude more terrible.

There are a lot of ghosts. There are nonlinear structures where, you know, in Station 11, a character dies on page two or three. But then we get to come back to them.

I'm going to say The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which is just fantastic classic.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and it is so fucking good. It's like, I finished the book two weeks ago and, like, entered, like, a brief, like, one-hour period of mourning. Like, that wonderful experience you have with a novel where, like, the turning of the last page is a true tragic event for the soul.

So the first book is Clara and the Son, which is a fiction book. It's sort of a scifi fiction book. But I think it's really about what it means to serve and be served and what it means to be human.

The first one I'm not quite finished, but it's unbelievable. Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun. I finished it recently and I won't ruin anything, but it won't shock you to know it has an emotional ending. He's so generous as a writer and it's not fancy pants.

Laura Briggs, How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics, From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump.

Laura Briggs, How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics, From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump.

Tim Alberto's American Carnage because not much has changed.

He's also the author of American Carnage, on the front lines of Republican Civil War and the rise of President Trump.

the author of the forthcoming book, What We Owe the Future, which is probably the best single book distillation of longtermism you'll find

that's what I dedicate most of What We Are The Future to discussing

One of them is What We Owe the Future by the Scottish philosopher Will MacAskill. It comes out, I think, in September 2022. And it's about the idea of longtermism. It's about what are the things we could do today that could matter to all the future generations? And shouldn't we care about that when those future generations don't have a voice in the things we're doing today that affect them?

It reminds me of this book by Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell, which is all about the ways people come together after calamity.

It reminds me of this book by Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell, which is all about the ways people come together after calamity.

For three books for you, two from colleagues that I have at The Spectator, The War on the West by Douglas Murray, I think is essential reading to understanding the perspective of conservatives both in America and Britain on the cultural battles that they see going on all around them.

The War on the West by Douglas Murray, I think is essential reading to understanding the perspective of conservatives both in America and Britain on the cultural battles that they see going on all around them.

It's actually Nicholas Carr's book that began to The Shallows, it began to make me think differently about this.

That's why Nicholas Carr used the term shallows

I would say first of all, Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch. I think that poses all the big questions in physics that I would love one day to tackle with our AI tools.

I would say first of all, Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch. I think that poses all the big questions in physics that I would love one day to tackle with our AI tools.

His 2015 book, The Secret of Our Success, argued that what sets human beings apart from other species is our capacity for cultural learning.

And the third book I want to recommend is The Secret of Our Success by Joe Henrich. Joe Henrich is an anthropologist who has some really interesting ideas about what it means to be human and what is special about the human species that made us so successful relative to other species.

One of them is The Rise and Fall of American Growth, which is an argument about why we will never have the kind of growth that we did in the first part of the Industrial Revolution again. It describes how the world changed between 1870 or 1890 and 1940 versus 1940 and 1990 or 2000, showing the transformation of the world during that period.

The last is to me a seminal book which is sort of in a way an anti-Acemoglu and Robinson was by Robert Gordon, it's called The Rise and Fall of American Growth and it really explores why there was this huge wave of innovation between 1880 and 1940 roughly, 1950, 1960 actually into the 60s and then the decline and it's much more pessimistic and that is very disturbing for the future because if productivity growth slows, I think it becomes much more difficult to sustain our sort of society.

I just read, it's been out for a while, but I just read ahead of discussion, Zach Carter's The Price of Peace, which is about John Maynard Keynes and his role in the world.

Zachary Carter's recent biography of Keynes, which I think demonstrates that ideas and even economic models ultimately and over time have larger impacts than maneuvers and machinations in small rooms, despite the fact that the latter seem more important at any particular moment in time.

One of them is Sorabh Ahmari. In his book, also from last year, Tyranny, Inc., how private power crushed American liberty and what to do about it

Second one will be kind of maybe unusual. There's a new book called Tyranny, Inc. by someone who endorsed Trump before, but actually looked at the modern American labor situation and sees clearly what someone in the labor movement or someone who's actually paying attention to what work life is like, how it's basically a dictatorship.

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong. I think everybody who says that they are an essayist and a popular culture critic right now needs to be chasing this book.

Minor Feelings by Kathy Park Hong. I think everybody who says that they are an essayist and a popular culture critic right now needs to be chasing this book.

there's a lovely passage in Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts where she kind of accidentally or coincidentally compares gender transition to aging.

She's the author of the beautiful books The Argonauts and Bluets.