I’ve already posted about the new season catalogue from Princeton University Press. Now the Harvard and MIT presses have sent their tantalising autumn/winter catalogues. Harvard is offering A Century of Wealth in America by Edward Wolff; Eli Cook on The Pricing of Progress: Economic Indicators and the Capitalization of American Life (this really looks my kind of book); and Giacomo Corneo’s Is Capitalism Obsolete? A Journey Through Alternative Economic Systems.

At MIT Press, The Chinese Typewriter by Thomas S Mullaney (“how Chinese characters triumphed over the QWERTY keyboard and laid the foundation for China’s information technology successes today”) looks tempting. I’m intrigued also by Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Joseph E. Aoun; and Once Upon an Algorithm: How Stories Explain Computing by Martin Erwig. (“How Hansel and Gretel, Sherlock Holmes, the movie Groundhog Day, Harry Potter, and other familiar stories illustrate the concepts of computing.”)

As it’s been one of those busy periods when I buy books because it allows me to fantasize about long, idle days sitting in the sunshine reading (hah!) (and I just spent three days at the Hay on Wye book festival), people really need to stop publishing interesting new titles for a while so I can catch up.