by Jerry Z. Muller

Kind of a one-point wonder of a book. The complaints mostly seem to be about how taking actions (rewarding & penalizing) based on metrics leads to gaming the system. I would have preferred the more philosophic angle – how we lose our way when only what is measurable becomes important. Take the example of charities. We’ve gotten used to judging the “effectiveness” of charities based on the percentage of their income that goes to actual programs vs. overhead and fundraising. But why – because measuring actual effectiveness (results) is often hard. But measuring inputs (dollars in, dollars spent on this vs. that) is easy. Hence that becomes the only or most important thing. But that means that if a lot of overhead is NECESSARY to achieving results, the charity still comes out looking bad, regardless of results achieved.

Always remember that what science can measure is not all that exists.

by Olga Tokarczuk

Similarities to DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD, but no plot, and missing the wonderful protagonist.

by J. R. R. Tolkien

Adorable children’s story Tolkien wrote for his second son, or Boy Two, after he lost his beloved toy dog on the beach. A real dog is enchanted into a toy dog, and then goes on adventures, up on the moon and under the sea. In the end he is transformed back into a real dog and sent home to Boy Two.