Wray Vamplew's 3 favorite reads in 2023

I picked this up cheaply in a second-hand bookstore. What a bargain it was. It introduced me to Detective Sergeant Washington (there is a subplot here) Poe of the National Crime Agency’s Serious Crime Analysis Section and his offsider Matilda ‘Tilly’ Bradshaw, a brilliant mathematician and programmer extraordinaire.

I immediately spent much more per copy (see homo economicus in my third choice entry) buying all of Craven’s books: and consuming (I am an economist at heart) them avidly.

I appreciated the anti-authority stance of Detective Poe but fell in love with the socially naïve Tilly: it was good to see a role-model female geek taking center stage.

The writing is outstanding: the darkest crimes are lightened by humor, and clever solutions are thrown by unexpected twists.

Again, this is a book that I picked up second-hand. I missed it the first time around when preparing a paper on the commercialization of sport in Ancient Greece and Rome. An earlier reading would have improved my work.

Classicists, who study ancient Greece and Rome, actually come from a branch of history that embraced sport as a subject long before sports history became an accepted academic sub-discipline.

Here Neil Faulkner presents a synoptic history of Ancient Greece within a discussion of the first Olympics in the form of a travelogue. The scholarship is sound, the knowledge imparted often an eye-opener, and the presentation unique.

What grabbed my attention was a section comparing homo economicus with Homer Simpson, rational economic thinking versus the impulsive American comedic icon.

Most economics is based on individuals exercising rational decision-making to achieve maximum personal utility, be this in terms of financial or psychic income.

Their collective response allows statements to be made about aggregated economic behaviour. Such a view is being challenged by behavioural economists who integrate lessons from psychology with the 'laws' of economics.

They believe behaviour is not always driven by a conscious cost-benefit approach but can be influenced by emotional and cultural factors, which can lead to decisions which contradict economic theory, are irrational and inconsistent, and may not be in the individual's best interests.