Readings

Nina Munk's The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty reports on the Millennium Villages Project—and, in some ways, it’s the story of how Western economists fail to understand camels.

The Awl cofounder’s new book is about New York, and the Recession, and the pastimes of young guys in the city—but it’s also about the very human tendency to screw around in the face of creeping fear and anxiety.