I picked up a couple of books at the library yesterday.
Is anyone familiar with the work of Tiger Mom's author, Amy Chua? I knew she was a law prof, but I didn't know she'd written books with shudder-inducing titles like Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance. Any merit it to her stuff? I ask because the vibe I got from reviews of Tiger Mom was that, like Thomas Friedman, she trades on the valorization of Asia in order to say, "See, now we gotta start doing X so our economy doesn't go in the tank." In Chua's case, it looked like she was trolling around those waters, exploiting the fear that the u.s. is in decline so we'd better shape up and be stern with the kids so the empire won't fall. But that was just speculation.
Also, what about Randall Lane? He used to run Trader Monthly, a magazine for Wall St Traders. Lost everything in the crash apparently, so he's writing his account of life amongst the craven "pale, swollen guys in $4,000 Kiton suits" at places like Tao, a midtown "meat market" where traders hangout. Figured it would be fun to read about little details such as how watches function as status symbols among this crowd.
too bad Justin isn't reading, he'd be able to tell us where to get it all at discount!
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)