Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas PikettyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Tackling wealth and inequality, this was one of the best selling and least read books of the summer. Not that I'm mocking anyone here, I kept putting it down and took perhaps 5 months to finish and another month to get motivated to write this review (which is itself open to criticisms based on length).
It's a strange book to be a best seller. It's got three sections which basically consist of an idea, some data, and a policy pitch. More on the idea and policy pitch below, but the data section is interminable. The detail is something I respect on some level but if you're not the sort to read about national income level comparisons between different states and time periods already, I think you could do with perhaps three charts and a comment along the lines that "Similar trends were seen by most nations. Most other factors were minor."
Oh, also it's not really focused on inequality.
