re: Economics Book Club (EBC): Book 4 Starts Aug 21 (The Smartest Guys in the Room)

Great points. To bb88's good suggestion earlier, we can always assess after book one whether we like the TD format or want to take it external. My immediate thought re: protocol is that Monday we begin reading and discussions can commence at will. While I plan to maintain a running outline with notes from all the books we read, I plan to discuss throughout each section and not just hoard it all for the end. Frankly, when I get to something interesting, I'm going to want to come on here and start talking about it. In my view, that's the general idea. By having open discussion early and often, I think we'll all tend to pace together as well. In addition, the moderator would probably also tend to be a pacesetter of sorts.

I've already found some really interesting information on our first author. Goodreads is a great source of supplementary information, as is, in this case, the Mises Institute. I'll be posting some interesting quotes and factoids about Mr. Hazlitt in the next few days to hold us over until Monday.

It might also be useful before we get into this first book to kind of set the stage a bit. We've obviously heard this term Austrian economics and also classical economics. Here are some rhetorical questions to noodle on a bit:

First off, what is Austrian economics? What is it's history and why and when did this movement begin? Presumably, it has something to do with the country of Austria? Who are some of its modern-day mantle bearers? What is its "market share," so to speak, in the marketplace of ideas? What are its primary competing ideologies? What is classical economics?

I don't think we need to necessarily have these answers beforehand, although any of you who know the backstory by all means feel free to enlighten the group. Regardless, I do think it's a good idea to go ahead and contemplate some of the things that will start becoming apparent as we move along.

Finally, I thought our spider chart in the OP turned out pretty much as we collectively planned. Heaviest emphasis on economics, followed by a decently heavy emphasis on finance and then sprinklings of some adjacent topics / subject matters.

That's a good suggestion. Should we let this thread die or maybe turn it into some sort of master reference thread a la bb88's "List of Major Topics Covered" on the Money Talk board?

Yes, you'll want to let this thread fade away and take up the first two or three replies so you can expand what you'd like to add for future sticky. You've got a good start so obviously you'll want to copy/paste a lot of things for the new main thread.

We'll need one for fiction too. Is that not your thing?

I need to step up my game

Can you just add a fiction shelf for now? It kills me to see Von Moses next to Donna Tartt. That's just wrong.

Did you have a decent background prior to this venture?

Decent. Was around it a bit growing up, had a few years of it in high school, have always generally been a bit of a Francophile, have an affinity for French cinema and have spent a pretty good amount of time in France. I'm comfortable around the French language but am nowhere near fluent. But this Kindle experience is a game changer.

Want to reread a favorite book from childhood but feel guilty because it's really not doing anything for you professionally? That's alright, just read it in French. I justify watching movies when I could be reading something intellectual the same way. I either pick a French film or else try to throw some French subtitles on.

I'm fine with discussing it on here. Not like we have to worry about spoilers. Continuous discussion as we are reading should be fine.

In terms of forum organization for the purposes of cataloguing the progress, I think there are three good alternatives:

Use the first post of this thread to continually edit and update new links to selected books, and new links to book threads.
Or
With each new book thread, let the first post contain group history of the above noted links.
Or
Start a new Book Club History thread for the sole purpose of capturing and maintaining group history in the OP.

I'd support any option, but unless one of the threads get stickied, the 2nd option seems more likely to live on its own merits without requiring periodic bumps.