Books like Getting it Wrong — picked by fans

I’m a fan of Dune because it feels larger than science fiction and more enduring than almost any genre label can contain.

I admire the depth of Frank Herbert’s worldbuilding, the strength of his prose, and the narrative weight carried by his characters and ideas. I return to books like this because they helped define what speculative fiction could become.

I also value Dune as a work of its own time. I do not want foundational novels rewritten to imitate modern language or contemporary storytelling habits. I want them preserved, studied, and experienced as they were written. To me, the best way to keep a genre alive is not to alter its past, but to let new authors build upon it with voices of their own.

Lombard Street is the classic statement of how central banks began functioning to insure the private bank system against bank panics. Walter Bagehot wrote this at the time of a revolution in banking that came about after the Joint Stock Companies Act of 1862 allowed private banks to have limited liability. Banking then boomed in England, and the Bank of England went from being a private bank to a bank also serving the Crown of England, and finally into a central bank as we see them today. 

The Bank of England would hold reserves for the entire private banking system should they need them in times of bank panic, which were periodic in those days (and still today). At the same time, the Bank provided the money supply through note issue. This created a money and banking authority that was efficient in its practice of stabilizing the money and financial… show more.