Commonwealth

Cicero: On the Commonwealth and On the Laws (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
$28.99
When (and since) I was in college (a LONG time ago) reading the "classics" has been de-emphasized. This is a mistake. Now, in my 60s, I am finally reading works like this one, and learning just how much I have missed.

Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth
$6.95
But this book just didn't do as good of a job as it might have in bringing that across.

A good way to start would have been to take several hypothetical socialist markets/ cases and then show what problems might have arisen in making calculations. Instead, the book came across as more a series of floating abstractions.

It was a decent book, just not terribly interesting.

Commonwealth
$24.00
Joey Goebel's latest novel performs the acrobatic feat of hilariously skewering both sides of America's political and cultural battle while simultaneously embracing both. Commonwealth's characters somersault their way through the story as the lovable and contradictory people we meet every day and watch on the news each night. At the center of the chaos, Blue Gene Mapother's adventure from blueblood to redneck proves to be a top shelf comedy of American manners.

A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia
$15.95
The limited scope of Kennealy's story, focusing on the first few years of the Australian experiment, allows for a really nice degree of detail in his telling about those years. The narrative style he uses makes this a very enjoyable history as well as a thorough one.

Not knowing much about aboriginal life and culture before the colonial period, I appreciated the information the author unobtrusively presented about the belief systems and values of the native people and how they shaped early interactions with the Europeans.

At the same time, Kennealy's detailed research makes clear that the mindset of the British at the time was nearly as foreign to our modern ways of thinking as any native culture could be, at least as relates to crime and punishment. Burned at the stake for forgery? Death sentences for prostitution or for stealing a few items of clothing? Hard to believe those were the 'civilized' values of the day.

The years of hardship faced by both the transported convicts and their government-appointed keepers are brought to life in this gripping history. I highly recommend it.