Over the weekend, I finished On The Wealth of Nations by P.J. O'Rourke, a book about explaining Adam Smith's magnum opus.

O'Rourke is one of my favourite comedy authors, particularly his early works like Republican Party Reptile, but this isn't one of his strongest books. His usually humorous asides feel like more of a distraction, and he particularly gets off track in the first few chapters which seem to be only tangentially about Adam Smith's book.

I learned a few new things about The Wealth of Nations, but I think this book is too much of a mutt and not enough of an explanation or enough of straight comedy.

I just finished Death of the Duchess by Elizabeth Eyre, a mediocre mystery set in Renaissance Italy.

The characters are OK but the mystery is a little lackluster and the author (really 2 authors under a pen name) don't really take advantage of the setting. Other than being told it is Renaissance Italy, there is not much that clearly points to that setting in the story. It could as easily been almost anywhere where nobility existed, before the 20th century.

It's not really needed, but here's more proof of the awesomeness of YouTube - footage of Lemmy playing with Hawkwind before he was kicked out of the band and founded Motörhead:


That clip is also a nice illustration for us younger folk of just how much drugs people were doing in the 70's.